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Niamey: see no evil The Senate Select Commission on Intelligence noted that in 1999 Joseph A Wilson had also been sent to Niger by the CIA and there has been much speculation about the purpose of that trip. Now we know. His keen powers of observation were put in out nation’s service to check out reports that A. Q Khan was traveling to Africa to purchase yellow cake uranium, something of which he seems to have found no evidence. From opinionjournal.com

Acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen has released the following statement: “We understand that Pakistani authorities are taking steps to ensure that Omar Sheikh remains in custody while the Supreme Court appeal seeking to reinstate his conviction continues. The separate judicial rulings reversing his conviction and ordering his release are an affront to terrorism victims everywhere. We remain grateful for the Pakistani government’s actions to appeal such rulings to ensure that he and his co-defendants are held accountable. If, however, those efforts do not succeed, the United States stands ready to take custody of Omar Sheikh to stand trial here....

The Financial Times reports China has hired the marquee lobbying firm of Patton Boggs, for a $22,000 monthly retainer, to help improve its image in the United States. In the past, Patton Boggs has represented the nuclear proliferators of Pakistan and the jihad enablers of Saudi Arabia -- excellent experience for working with Beijing. "The Chinese are learning to walk the walk and talk the talk, and I don't have a problem with it," says Robert Kapp, former president of the U.S.-China Business Council. (Is there anything China could conceivably do that its cheering section in the business community would...

Gore's, Talbott's Red Russian roots How they 'Hammer'-ed out Washington-Moscow policy Posted: October 3, 2000 Loutchansky's name surfaced again last year, when the Washington Post revealed that first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's two brothers, Tony Rodham and Hugh Rodham, were involved in a $118 million scheme to grow and export hazelnuts in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Their partner in the venture was Aslan Abashidze, who said his financial adviser was Loutchansky. Abashidze is a reputed member of a Russian organized crime family.The Rodham brothers at first balked and then agreed to national security adviser Sandy Berger's request that...

In 1995, former Iranian president Ali Hashemi Rafsanjani made a little-noticed trip to the neighboring country of Georgia. He spent several hours in Tbilisi, the capital, and then instead of returning to Iran, he made a secret side trip to the breakaway region of Adjara to visit President Aslan Abashidze. The purpose of the detour was not to visit the balmy, palm-treed tourist sea port resort of Batumi on the Black Sea. His purpose was more sinister. The Iranian president was looking for black market sources of chemicals to enrich uranium for building a nuclear bomb. He found a willing...

U.S. military forces have discovered a smuggling ring moving copious quantities of explosives and weapons from Iraq to terrorist training camps constructed by the Saddam Hussein regime inside Syria prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). The Pentagon also announced that the structure bombed by U.S. warplanes last week, described by many major media outlets as a wedding celebration at a private ranching operation, was actually a "dormitory-like" facility used as a "safe house" to facilitate the clandestine movement of foreign terrorists into Iraq from Syria. According to Pentagon officials, small arms, explosives, and bomb making materials are being removed from...

WASHINGTON — Americans following this year's presidential campaign would never know it from mainstream media coverage, but the commander in chief we hired four years ago has set the United States on a course for unilateral disarmament. The following people hope you won't notice until after Nov. 6: Vladimir Putin, Liang Guanglie, Kim Jong-un, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Sayyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei, Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, A.Q. Khan and of course, Barack Obama. The 10 individuals above share a common fascination: nuclear weapons. Vladimir Putin, Russia's modern czar; Liang Guanglie, minister of national defense for...

AN IRAQI scientist-turned-author says the most significant pieces of his country’s dormant nuclear programme were buried under a lotus tree in his backyard, untouched for more than a decade before the US-led invasion in 2003.But their existence, Dr Mahdi Obeidi writes in a new book, is evidence that the international community should remain vigilant as other countries try to replicate Iraq’s successes before the 1991 Gulf war to develop components necessary for a nuclear weapon. In The Bomb in my Garden, Dr Obeidi details Saddam’s quest for a nuclear bomb: "Although Saddam never had nuclear weapons at his disposal, the...

There is nothing much unusual about armed guards outside the houses in my quiet, neat neighbourhood of Islamabad. These are the homes of retired generals, well-connected politicians and international aid workers, all of whom might be targets for Pakistani extremists. But one house stands out. Instead of frail, elderly guards armed with shotguns, one house is ringed by uniformed police officers with AK-47s. Roadblocks control traffic, floodlights illuminate an area of scrub that has been cleared of trees and machine gun positions have been dug in all around. This is the home of AQ Khan, the metallurgist who did more...

WASHINGTON: The famous African explorer Dr David Livingstone might have been impressed, even if the agenda was suspect. Pakistan’s disgraced nuclear proliferator-hero Abdul Qadeer Khan traversed the breadth of Africa in his hey day as a nuclear salesman , going to as romantic a getaway as Casablanca in Morocco and as remote an outpost as Timbuktu in Mali.   US officials might dearly like to get hold of Khan’s travel agent, or simply his itinerary, since he seems to have pretty much charted his own course during his profligate proliferating days. According to accounts now surfacing in the Pakistani media,...

The London accountant who accompanied Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan to Timbuktu on three occasions in 1998, 1999 and 2000 says the 'father' of the Pakistani bomb witnessed the digging of a well, toured an ancient Islamic library and enjoyed the views of the desert. A remote outpost in the middle of the West African desert, Timbuktu usually attracts explorers associated in the popular mind with the adventures of the comic character Tin Tin. And Pakistani dissidents told rediff.com the reason for Khan's visit to Timbuktu, part of landlocked West African state of Mali, was to prospect for uranium. They say...

<p>The battle to retake Mali's north from the al-Qaida-linked groups controlling it began in earnest Saturday, after hundreds of French forces deployed to the country and began aerial bombardments to drive back the Islamic extremists from a town seized earlier this week.</p>

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered Libya more help on Monday as it seeks to rein in militias, stressing that Washington will remain a firm partner despite this month's deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. ...snip... A senior U.S. official said Clinton reviewed U.S. assistance to Libya as it works to secure chemical weapons and other dangerous armaments and to crack down on armed militia groups that have sprung up since the ouster of longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi. "The secretary offered to intensify our support and help for the Libyan government in all...

ISLAMABAD: SNIPPET: "‘But we worry about proliferation and we have good reason to worry about proliferation,’ she said, alluding to Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan. The United States has warned that the scientist, who was effectively put under a five-year house arrest after he admitted leaking nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya, is still a proliferation risk. ‘We want to encourage Pakistan to join with us in the non-proliferation review conference that will be held next spring,’ Clinton told reporters travelling with her. ‘We want them to work with us on the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty. We want them...

A nuclear-armed Taliban? It may not be as far-fetched as it might first appear. The Taliban already control or have a significant presence in northwest Pakistan along a critical stretch of the Afghan border. Taliban units operate with relative impunity in the region surrounding Peshawar, Pakistan's major population, commercial and transportation center less than 100 miles from Pakistan's capital, Islamabad. Dominance of Taliban and al-Qaida forces in the pivotal northwest region of Pakistan provides not only a sanctuary and training centers for attacks on Afghanistan, but it has become a base of operations to weaken any pro-Western sentiments among the...

During Kargil, Pervez sent me to N Korea, got 200 missiles: A Q Khan Lalit K Jha Posted: Thursday , Sep 10, 2009 at 0509 hrs Disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist A Q Khan has said his country was short of anti-aircraft missiles during the 1999 Kargil War, so General Pervez Musharraf sent him to North Korea to purchase 200 missiles. In an interview to Pakistani Urdu TV channel Aaj News — its translation has been obtained by Secrecy News of the Federation of American Scientists — Khan said: “In 1999, Gen Musharraf sent me along with Gen Iftikhar, who was...

PAKISTAN SNIPPET: "WASHINGTON: The United States warned Tuesday that reputed Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who has regained freedom of movement in Pakistan, still risks spreading his nuclear weapons know-how. It stopped short of criticizing its ally in the war on terror but recalled that Washington has long raised with Islamabad its fears about Khan, who five years ago admitted leaking nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya." SNIPPET: "David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector and nuclear specialist, told AFP that ‘it is a mistake’ to remove restrictions on a man who cannot be ‘trusted.’He said there is...

LAHORE: Justice Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry of the Lahore High Court (LHC) ordered the government on Friday to lift the restrictions placed upon nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan. Accepting Dr AQ Khan’s petition that the restrictions imposed upon him in the name of protocol were a violation of fundamental rights, the judge ordered the local administration to implement the decision in letter and spirit. He also issued contempt notices on the district magistrate and deputy inspector general of Islamabad, demanding they appear before the court on September 4 and explain their actions in light of an earlier court ruling that...

Just title.

 The Islamabad High Court’s decision to release the ‘Father’ of Pakistan’s ‘Islamic Bomb’, Dr AQ Khan, following a secret agreement between him and the Pakistani Government, has provoked widespread international concern. There are no takers for the Pakistani Government’s stand that the AQ Khan affair is a “closed chapter”. The Pakistani decision constitutes defiance of American concerns about the danger that Dr Khan’s release poses to international security. Just after the court verdict, Dr Khan asserted his Islamist credentials, saying, “I will always be proud of what I did for Pakistan. I am obliged only to my Government, not any...