President Pervez Musharraf’s claim that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are safe as long as he is in charge has raised widespread speculation about the safety of Islamabad’s nuclear arsenal. Musharraf’s statement comes at a time when Pakistan is going through one of its worst period of domestic instability.
The United States imposed unilateral sanctions against Iran on October 25, 2007 to complement its efforts towards getting a third set of sanctions through the UNSC.
The Sino-German bilateral relationship has run into rough weather in the last few weeks. What has been described as a relationship based on ‘strategic partnership’ experienced a big chill when the German Chancellor Angela Merkel met the Dalai Lama in Berlin on September 23. Chancellor Merkel seemed to provide at least two messages – one to her domestic constituency and the other to China.
Iran began clandestinely developing a uranium enrichment programme in the early 1980s and claims that it is for peaceful purposes and solely for civilian use. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has claimed that firstly, Iran has no need for nuclear weapons and secondly, that nuclear weapons are forbidden by Islam.
"We fired an operationally configured interceptor out of a silo at Vandenberg Air Force base, and it flew out, and was successful in intercepting the target." - Lt. Gen. Henry Obering
In the midst of the domestic hullabaloo surrounding the nuclear deal in India, the United States convened a special meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on September 20, 2007 at Vienna on the sidelines of the IAEA Annual General Conference to brief members on the deal. The NSG derives its important position in international civil nuclear commerce from its membership, which currently stands at forty-five and includes a majority of countries engaged in nuclear trade.
Even though the Indo-US nuclear deal has passed one more hurdle with the completion of the 123 Agreement to the satisfaction of both governments, the remaining hurdles include the signing of agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) before the Agreement can go back to the US Congress for its final imprimatur.
After a month of global media frenzy, alliterative headlines, statements by senior politicians across continents, charges and rebuttals, the terrorist attempts in London and Glasgow appear to be finally gaining some concrete shape. The attempts, which coincided with the second anniversary of the July 7 terrorist attacks on the London Underground, and the subsequent arrests, present a changing trend. The most striking aspect of these failed terrorist attacks is the social and professional strata of the persons detained on charges of involvement.
Although it is nearly two years since the July 18, 2005 Joint Statement between President George Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced their intention to facilitate civil nuclear commerce between India and the members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the process is still to be completed with even the first step towards that goal, an Indo-US agreement for peaceful nuclear cooperation, still under negotiations with apparently strong differences between the two countries on a number of issues. Expectations are that the agreement may be finalised by the end of this year.
In October 2006, when India decided to pull out of the ambitious Galileo project, a global navigation system jointly developed by the European Commission (EC) and the European Space Agency (ESA), some Indian observers had expressed surprise that a long-drawn negotiation process within the ambit of the EU-India Strategic Partnership came to naught. Envisaged to be the most accurate and sophisticated navigation system thus far, the Galileo project has attracted the attention of developed and developing nations mainly because of its civilian focus and near perfect resolution.
Security of Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons
President Pervez Musharraf’s claim that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are safe as long as he is in charge has raised widespread speculation about the safety of Islamabad’s nuclear arsenal. Musharraf’s statement comes at a time when Pakistan is going through one of its worst period of domestic instability.