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This summer, friends and I took a cruise in Alaska where the tourist shops often featured the Russian matryoshka dolls.  The dolls originated in Japan but were made popular in Russia around the time of the Russian Revolution, a century ago.  You've seen them -- you pop open an outer doll, and nested inside is another.  The magic of the art is that you keep opening layer after layer, only to find another even smaller doll, until at last the final incarnation is just a kernel in size.  The successive dolls vary from near exact duplicates with hard-to-identify slight...

THE death of Special Air Service soldier Sergeant Matthew Locke on Thursday in Afghanistan is a terrible reminder that there is rarely such a thing as a war without casualties. Sergeant Locke died fighting a barbaric enemy that seeks not just to take Afghanistan back to the dark ages but to use it as a base from which to destroy us. Worryingly, the death of two Australian soldiers in three weeks is not just a tragic coincidence. Things are not going well in the poorly named war on terror. As Frank Furedi writes in Inquirer today, we have been unable...

Washington, Jan 9: Pakistan continues to be the hub of nuclear blackmarket involved in trading surplus goods to other countries despite the uncovering of the proliferation network of disgraced former top scientist A Q Khan two years ago, a report said today citing European intelligence sources. The Khan network may not have been completely put out of action, an unnamed administration official has been quoted as saying by the 'Washington Times.' "It is possible that elements still exist and the US government is certainly aware and looking at this possibility," the official said in an assessment that has not surprised...

Electronic drawings that give comprehensive details of how to build and test equipment essential for making nuclear bombs have vanished and could be put up for sale on the international black market, according to UN investigators. The blueprints, running to hundreds of pages, show how to make centrifuges for enriching uranium. In addition, the investigators have been unable to trace key components for uranium centrifuge rigs and fear that drawings for a nuclear warhead have been secreted away and could be for sale. Inspectors at the UN's nuclear authority, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have been investigating the worst...

A Wall Street financier who helped expose Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's nuclear network said that contrary to public perception that Pakistan exposed Iran's nuclear acquisition it was Tehran that allowed weapons inspectors to connect the dots between its nuclear programme and Pakistan's. This sparked the unravelling of Khan's illicit nuclear smuggling ring. Mansoor Ijaz, who has worked behind the scenes in both the Clinton and Bush administrations, told Gulf News: "When Iran agreed to inspections of its nuclear sites, the centrifuges 'discovered' by the inspectors contained incontrovertible evidence of originating in Pakistan." Khan's black market network sold Iran everything...

ISLAMABAD: Japan has secured an assurance from Pakistan that it would share information about disgraced scientist A Q Khan’s past assistance to North Korea’s nuclear programme, but failed to win firm support for its bid for the permanent membership of the UN Security Council. Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, who was here on a two-day visit, left Pakistan on Sunday after intense negotiations with President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Saturday night. Koizumi, flanked by Aziz, told the media that he was satisfied with Gen Musharraf’s assurance of sharing information at Islamabad’s disposal about the assistance provided...

Posted on Fri, Apr. 08, 2005 Pakistani accused of nuke device exportsLARA JAKES JORDANAssociated Press WASHINGTON - A Pakistani businessman illegally exported devices from the United States that could be used to test, develop and detonate nuclear weapons, the government alleged on Friday.A federal indictment against Humayun A. Khan was unsealed along with a guilty plea by his alleged partner, Asher Karni, who admitted routing sophisticated oscilloscopes and high-speed electrical switches through South Africa to avoid raising authorities' suspicions. The scopes and the switches were then shipped to Pakistan.The United States prohibits the export of the switches - also...

Our man sold secrets to Iran, admits Pakistan By Massoud Ansari in Islamabad (Filed: 13/02/2005) Pakistan has conceded for the first time that Dr A Q Khan, the rogue nuclear scientist who is under house arrest in Islamabad, passed secrets and equipment to Iranian officials and is now considered the "brain" behind the programme that has put Teheran on the brink of acquiring nuclear weapons. An investigation by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, details of which have been disclosed to The Telegraph, confirmed that Khan, a hero in Pakistan as the "Father of the Bomb", and his associates sold nuclear codes,...

Musharraf Scorns Nuclear Probe Pakistani leader defends his decision to deny monitors access to accused proliferator Abdul Qadeer Khan as a matter of national pride. By Sonni EfronTimes Staff Writer December 6, 2004 WASHINGTON — Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Sunday defended his decision not to allow international investigators to interrogate Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist accused of peddling nuclear secrets around the world. Appearing on CNN's "Late Edition" on Sunday, Musharraf said the requests from United Nations nuclear inspectors indicated a lack of trust in Pakistan, portraying the issue as a matter of national pride. President Bush met...

<p>A plot is being organized to replace Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf with the nuclear engineer who sold the country's secrets to America's self-avowed enemies, according to one of the political and religious leaders involved.</p> <p>Details of the plan were discussed at a meeting in late February in Akora Khattak, near Peshawar, following the death of the wife of Sen. Sami ul-Haq, vice president of a coalition of six religious parties known as the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), said a politician who attended the meeting.</p>

NEW DELHI, India - Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday he will ask Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf this week whether Pakistani officials aided rogue scientist A.Q. Khan in leaking nuclear weapons technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. On Pakistan, Powell said he would ask Pakistan's president about the black market nuclear network headed by Khan. "We can't be satisfied until this entire network is gone, branch and root," Powell said. He later met with Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.