The New Nation - Internet Edition

Pakistan making another plutonium-producing reactor, says report

Reuters, Vienna

Pakistan is close to completing a second plutonium-producing reactor, is well into building a third and these could increase its ability to make atomic bombs, a U.S. think-tank said on Thursday.

"The wider implication t (is that) there is a real risk this will exacerbate an India-Pakistan nuclear arms race and increase tensions more broadly between the two," the Institute for Science and International Security said in a report.

The regional arch-rivals have fought three wars, are both outside the global Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and have tested nuclear arms with Western technology imported ostensibly for peaceful atomic energy. But a 45-nation nuclear export cartel approved a waiver to its rules this month allowing trade with India as part of a civilian nuclear cooperation pact it struck with the United States. The entire undertaking could erode the NPT, critics say. ISIS, a well-connected Washington-based group, has been a prominent tracker of nuclear proliferation issues focusing on Iran, North Korea and Syria as well as Pakistan and India.

Emailed to Reuters, the ISIS report included commercial satellite images taken two weeks ago and in February and May showing construction of the second and third Khushab complexes. Pakistan has an operating heavy-water reactor and heavy-water production plant already at Khushab. A row of cooling towers indicated the second reactor was close to completion and could be ready to operate in a year's time, according to the 10-page report. "Once completed, these reactors will increase several-fold Pakistan's ability to make weapons-grade plutonium (fuel)." The report estimated the reactors would run on power of "about 100 megawatts or more", which could enable the two combined to yield plutonium for 8-10 atomic bombs a year. "When finished, the second and third Khushab reactors will allow a significant increase in the quantity and quality of Pakistan's nuclear weapons."

The report said India could easily match Pakistan's moves given its own ability to churn out plutonium in heavy water reactors and a fast-breeder reactor under construction.

"Rather than witnessing a wasteful and dangerous surge in the production of fissile materials for weapons in South Asia, the United States should make a key priority convincing Pakistan to join negotiations on a universal, verified Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty," the report said. U.N. negotiations on such a treaty, which would ban production of nuclear weapons fuel, have made no headway for years because of a lack of consensus among nuclear powers. Pakistan built its first nuclear power station in 1972 with Canadian help. But Western countries, under pressure from Washington, later severed cooperation amid suspicion that Pakistan was covertly developing nuclear weapons.

Pakistan conducted five nuclear tests in 1998 in response to those of India, becoming a nuclear-armed state.

Heavy fighting as Sri Lankan troops move on rebel mini-state

AFP, Colombo

Fierce fighting broke out as Sri Lankan troops tried to move into the Tamil Tigers' mini-state in the north, with 15 rebels and three soldiers killed, the defence ministry said Friday.

Heavy battles along the Karambakulam area, just outside the rebels' political capital of Kilinochchi, late Thursday also left at least 18 rebels wounded, the ministry said.

It put government troop losses at three killed and 12 wounded. Casualty figures cannot be verified as the ministry bars independent journalists from travelling to the battle zones.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who have been fighting for a separate state for minority Tamils in the island's north and east since 1972, did not comment on the military claims. According to a ministry toll, the LTTE has lost 6,677 fighters since January, when a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire was abandoned. The authorities say 649 government soldiers have died in the same period.

Government forces are battling to take control of Kilinochchi for the first time in a decade, as part of their plans to dismantle the LTTE's northern mini-state. The rebels, however, have warned that the large Wanni region, which includes Kilinochchi and Mullaittivu towns, could turn into a mass graveyard for government troops.

President Mahinda Rajapakse said this week that security forces hoped to capture Kilinochchi by December. The army wrested the island's east from the Tigers in July 2007.

Tens of thousands have died on both sides in more than three decades of bloodshed.

Sweeping China recall kicks in as milk scare widens

AFP, Beijing

Chinese supermarkets and shops pulled milk and a wide range of other dairy products off their shelves Friday as a sweeping recall of goods tainted with a dangerous chemical hit full gear.

Yili, Mengniu and Guangming-big brands consumed and trusted by hundreds of millions of Chinese-were affected by the recall after authorities checked their products and found traces of melamine, a chemical used in plastics. "All problem products have been banned from our stores," an executive at Jian-Mart, a popular supermarket chain, told AFP.

"Products from Yilin, Mengniu and Guangming have been pulled off the shelves, including milk, milk powder and yoghurt," she said, giving only her surname, Zhao. The government agency in charge of product quality supervision on Friday issued detailed findings from a comprehensive national check, showing 24 the 295 batches it tested from the three dairy companies were contaminated. "The manufacturers should of their own accord recall all products where melamine has been detected," the agency said on its website.

Melamine can make products look like they are bursting with protein, but consumed in large amounts it can be lethal.

Four babies have died so far from kidney failure in China's most recent product safety scandal, and more than 6,000 have fallen ill. The scare escalated Thursday when the government announced that a number of milk products, and not only baby formula, are tainted with the chemical. The three companies hit by the latest recall could not be reached for comment Friday.

But retailers complained that the scandal was costing them dearly. "Normally we can sell 53,000 yuan (7,700 dollars) of dairy products per day, but at present we sell less than 10,000 yuan," said Wang Feiqi, a manager at a branch of supermarket chain Wu-Mart.

"I think this will last at least one or two months. Customers won't come to buy these products unless they reach the national standard."

Indian police battle militants in capital; 2 dead

AP, New Delhi

Indian police battled suspected Islamic militants holed up in a house in the country's capital Friday, killing two and arresting one before the others escaped, police said.

The gunbattle in a southern part of sprawling New Delhi put the city back on edge days after five coordinated bombings in the capital's markets killed 21 people - an attack that has been blamed on homegrown Islamic militants.

A senior New Delhi police officer, Karnal Singh, told reporters at the scene of Friday's gunbattle in the Jamia Nagar neighborhood that there were five gunmen. Two were killed, one was arrested and two escaped, he said.

The NDTV television news station reported that at least two policemen were wounded in the fighting. Soon after the fighting broke out around noon, scores of police officers, many in riot gear, could be seen fanning out through the leafy lower middle-class neighborhood.

The scene was chaotic, with authorities trying to get civilians out of harms way while subduing the militants.

A group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for the New Delhi attacks. It also said it was behind bombings that killed 61 people in the western city of Jaipur in May and for July blasts in the western state of Gujarat that killed at least 45.

The Press Trust of India news agency reported that police apparently zeroed in one the New Delhi house after interrogating a man detained after the Gujarat bombings. The man, identified as Abu Basher, said the home was used as a safe house by Islamic militants plotting attacks around India.

The Indian Mujahideen was little known before this year's bombings, and police believe it may be a front for the Students' Islamic Movement of India, or SIMI, which was banned in 2001.

India has routinely blamed Pakistani or Bangladesh-based militant groups for dozens of attacks in the last three years. But as the death toll has mounted this year, evidence has pointed to the involvement of Indian Muslims, raising difficult questions for the government about growing anger among India's large Muslim minority.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made a rare acknowledgment that Indians - and not foreign Islamic groups - may have been behind the New Delhi attacks, but cautioned that the country's security services were facing "vast" intelligence gaps.

Several alleged SIMI activists have been rounded up in recent months, but police have made little apparent headway in finding those behind the attacks.

Authorities believe the Islamic militants aim to spread fear among ordinary Indians and provoke violence between the country's Hindu majority and Muslim minority.

Relations between Hindus, who make up more than 80 percent of India's population, and Muslims, who account for about 130 million of India's 1.1 billion people, have been relatively peaceful since the bloody partition of the subcontinent into India and Muslim Pakistan at independence from Britain in 1947. But there have been sporadic bouts of violence.

Russia test-fires new-generation strategic missile

AFP, Moscow

Russia said Thursday it had test-fired a new-generation strategic missile from a submarine, the latest launch of a multiple-warhead weapon designed to breach anti-missile shields.

"A new-generation Bulava ballistic missile was successfully fired from the White Sea to the Kura testing site in Kamchatka" in Russia's far east, the Russian navy said in a statement.

The Bulava, which the statement said was fired by the Dmitry Donskoi nuclear submarine off the northwest coast of Russia, can be equipped with up to 10 individually targeted nuclear warheads.

The test comes amid Russian anger at US plans to locate a powerful missile-tracking radar in the Czech Republic as well interceptor missiles in Poland to combat what it says are threats to global security.

Analysts say Russia has moved to upgrade its missile systems to counter the US shield, which Moscow sees as an attempt to undermine its nuclear deterrent. Washington insists the shield is far too small to defend against Russia and is meant to protect against "rogue states" like Iran.

"At 7:05 p.m. (1505 GMT) the test warheads hit their targets," a defence ministry official said, quoted by state news agency RIA Novosti. "The launch and flight of the rocket went according to plan."

The test came three weeks after Russia test-fired an intercontinental Topol RS-12M missile, also designed to avoid detection by missile-defence systems.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev promised a "military response" to a US-Polish agreement last month to set up the US interceptor missiles.

A Russian general was later quoted as saying Russia could aim intercontinental missiles at the sites.

US-Russia relations recently hit a post Cold War low after Moscow sent tanks into neighbouring Georgia in what it said was a bid to protect its citizens in the breakaway region of South Ossetia from a Georgian attack.

Washington sharply condemned both the incursion and Moscow's decision to recognize South Ossetia and fellow rebel Georgian region Abkhazia as independent.

In the wake of the war in Georgia, Russia's government has set the redevelopment of the Russian armed forces as a priority. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said defence spending would grow 27 percent in 2009.

The Bulava missile, which has a range of 8,000 kilometres (5,000 miles), was first tested successfully in December 2005.

Israel won’t survive, says Ahmadinejad

AP, Tehran

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out at Israel on Thursday, saying the Jewish state would not survive, even if it gave up land for a Palestinian state. He also dismissed allegations that his country is trying to make nuclear arms.

Speaking to reporters in Tehran, the hard-line leader smirked at the former mantra of the Israeli right of a "Greater" Israel that would include land Palestinians want for a future state. The idea has since been abandoned, with the Israeli political consensus now being that there would be a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, on either side of Israel. "I have heard some say the idea of Greater Israel has expired," Ahmadinejad said. "I say that the idea of lesser Israel has expired, too."

Ahmadinejad used the news conference to speak at length before traveling to New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly that opened Tuesday. The Iranian president repeated previous anti-Israel comments, calling the Holocaust a "fake" and saying that Israel is perpetrating a holocaust on the Palestinian people.

The remarks appear to be part of Ahmadinejad's effort to deflect criticism at home over failed economic policies.

Iran's inflation hit 27.6 percent last month.

He might also be trying to repair damage caused by his vice president, Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, who was recently quoted as saying Iranians were "friends of all people in the world - even Israelis."

Speaking about Iran's controversial nuclear program, Ahmadinejad said the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency has "no right" to consider documents provided by the U.S. alleging Tehran sought to make an atomic bomb.

On Monday, an International Atomic Energy Agency report said Iran had blocked a U.N. investigation into allegations it tried to make nuclear arms and that the inquiry was deadlocked.

Ahmadinejad said the report "verified the peaceful nature" of Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran says is only for electricity production.

North Korea preparing to restart nuclear facility

AP, Panmunjom

North Korea said Friday it was undertaking "thorough preparations" to restart its nuclear reactor, accusing the United States of failing to fulfill its obligations under an international disarment-for-aid pact.

It was the first time the North has confirmed it has begun reversing what it has done so far to roll back its nuclear program, though it has warned it would do so in anger over Washington's failure to remove it from the U.S. terrorism blacklist.

"We are making through preparation for restoration works" at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, Pyongyang diplomat Hyun Hak Bong told reporters. He did not say when Yongbyon would be operating again. Hyun spoke to reporters in the border village of Panmunjom inside the Demilitarized Zone before sitting down for one-day talks Friday with South Korean officials on sending energy aid to the North as part of the six-party disarmament deal.

The landmark 2007 pact - made with the United States, China, South Korea, Russia and Japan - called on Pyongyang to disable its nuclear program in a step twoard its dismantlement in exchange for the equivalent of 1 million tons of energy aid.

North Korea began disabling the complex last year, and the process was 90 percent complete, with eight of 11 key measures carried out "perfectly and flawlessly," Hyun said.

The accord ran aground in mid-August when Washington failed to take North Korea off its list of states that sponsor terrorism. The U.S. has refused to change that status until North Korea agrees to an international plan to verify a declaration of its nuclear programs submitted in June.

North Korea responded by halting the disabling process and is now "proceeding with works to restore (Yongbyon) to its original status," Hyun told reporters.

South Korean and U.S. officials say it would take at least a year for the North to restart a completely disabled reactor.

The latest impasse followed major progress made in late June when the North submitted its long-delayed account of its nuclear activities and destroyed its nuclear cooling tower in a show of its commitment to denuclearization.

Hyun warned Washington not to press the verification issue, saying verification was never part of the deal.

"The U.S. is insisting that we accept unilateral demands that had not been agreed upon: They want to go anywhere at any time to collect samples and carry out examinations with measuring equipment," he said. "That means they intend to force an inspection."

He said forcing the North to comply with such an inspection would exacerbate tensions. "The issue of verification won't be resolved if (the U.S.) applies a robber-like inspection method in the name of an international standard," he said.

The White House had no immediate reaction early Friday.

The six-party talks last convened in July, and a new round has not been scheduled amid the standoff between the U.S. and North Korea.

Seoul's delegate to Friday's talks reassured Pyongyang that the rest of the energy aid promised to North Korea would be sent to the North.

The tensions come amid reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has suffered a stroke. Kim, 66, has not been seen in public for more than a month, and missed two big public events: a military parade marking North Korea's 60th birthday and Thanksgiving.

The two Koreas are still technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.