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Pakistan tells US to leave `drone attack base`
RAWALPINDI: Pakistan on Wednesday told the United States to leave a remote desert air base reportedly used as a hub for covert CIA drone attacks.
“We have told them (US officials) to leave the Shamsi Airbase,” Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar said while talking to journalists here. His remarks are the latest indication of Pakistan attempting to limit US activities since a clandestine American military raid killed Osama bin Laden.
The minister reiterated that the trust deficit between Pakistan and the United States has increased after the Read more…
Flood of US weapons in Afghanistan and Pakistan fueling militant groups, experts say
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Some of the U.S. weapons bound for U.S. and Afghan troops in Afghanistan are being stolen, landing instead in the hands of those they are meant to be used against, and fueling militant groups in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, Pakistani officials say.
These weapons — which are typically snatched from Afghan troops during raids or sold by them to the Pakistani Taliban after they defect, are easily available in black markets in Pakistan’s tribal regions.
Some weapons, along with other military-issue supplies, are also being seized by Taliban militants in attacks on NATO convoys passing through Pakistan on their way to resuply soldiers in Afghanistan. Although such raids have been taking place for years, the Pakistani Taliban appear to have widened the zone where they are willing to operate, attacking NATO trucks in major cities as well, including in the capital of Islamabad as recently as June 9.
An estimated one-third of the supplies bound for U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan travel by land from Read more…
Nations to Spend $1 Trillion on Nukes, Group Says
The planet’s nine nuclear weapons states are anticipated in the next 10 years to expend $1 trillion on acquiring and updating their systems, a prominent nuclear disarmament organization said (see GSN, June 7).
The group Global Zero — whose goal is total nuclear disarmament no later than 2030 — calculated the nuclear weapons expenditure figures for China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, the Financial Times reported. The organization is seeking to bring attention to the high price countries pay for their nuclear arsenals in a time of increasing government budget restraints.
Nuclear costs among the nine nations this year are estimated at $100 billion, with similar annual numbers anticipated throughout the decade, according to Global Zero.
The organization determined that nuclear arsenal expenditures take up roughly 9 percent of the countries’ total military spending; that percentage is anticipated to increase as traditional defense programs are curtailed in a number of the nations. Nuclear weapons spending encompasses research, development, weapons assessments and acquisitions.
“Spending will increase because of decisions by both nations to upgrade and replace,” Global Zero founder Bruce Blair said. “Modernization is progressing at such a pace we are seeing more spending on nuclear weapons than at any time since the Cold War.”
The group is to convene a two-day forum in London this week with participants including Russian Federation Council international affairs committee Chairman Mikhail Margelov, ex-Indian defense chief Jaswant Singh, ex-CIA intelligence agent Valerie Plame and multiple senior Chinese officials.
Global Zero wants to see other nuclear nations besides the United States and Russia take part in formal discussions on nuclear arms control.
The two former Cold War rivals together hold 95 percent of the planet’s nuclear weapons. They recently implemented a bilateral treaty that requires both sides to reduce their deployed stockpiles of strategic warheads to 1,550. U.S. President Obama has said he would like to see negotiations with Moscow for a treaty on tactical weapons begin in 2012 (see GSN, June 2; James Blitz, Financial Times, June 19).
CIA informants’ detention by Pakistan’s spy agency intensifies U.S-Pak edgy ties
The detention of Pakistani informants, who helped the CIA by providing information prior to the raid that killed the Al Qaida leader, by Pakistan’s top intelligence agency has intensified the already tense relationship between the United States and Pakistan.
According to a report that appeared in the New York Times on Wednesday, Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) has detained five CIA informers who supplied information to CIA ahead of the raid the previous month in which the Al Qaida leader was killed.
One of the arrested CIA informants was reported to be a currently serving major in the rank of Pakistan Army. According to U.S authorities, the detained major took note of license plates of vehicles stopping over at the compound of Osama Bin Laden.
Meanwhile U.S officials have stated that Read more…
Hike in worldwide food prices forces change in diet as more go hungry
Costs rise 37 per cent in past year; more women, girls negatively impacted
Soaring food prices over the past year have prompted 17 per cent of Canadians to change their diets due to the higher cost of food. But Canadians haven’t yet felt the full impact of raw food price increases, in part because of our strong dollar.
Photograph by: Noah Seelam, AFP, Getty Images, Postmedia News
Soaring food prices and health concerns are prompting people around the world to change what they eat, according to a new 17-nation survey done for Oxfam. And Canadians aren’t exempt from the trend.
Of the 16,421 people surveyed by GlobeScan, 53 per cent said say they’re no longer eating the same foods they did two years ago. Nearly four in 10 of those say some of the food they used to eat is now too expensive, while one-third changed their diets for health reasons.
“The rising cost of food is pushing more Read more…
India approves $4bn Boeing military deal
Photo: Reuters
A Boeing C-17 transport aircraft, known as the Globemaster, shown here at the Papa Air Base in Papa, Hungary, July 27, 2009.
NEW DELHI — India on Monday cleared a more than $4.0-billion deal to buy military transport planes from Boeing in the biggest ever defence deal between New Delhi and an American firm, officials said.
The agreement for the C-17 Globemaster III planes, used for transporting heavy equipment, was cleared at a meeting of the government’s cabinet committee on security affairs, a senior government official said.
The Indian defence ministry declined to comment but the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP that the cabinet gave its clearance to buy 10 C-17 aircraft.
He said the procurement would be done as Read more…
India Worried About Pakistani Nuke Arsenal Defenses
India’s defense chief on Wednesday voiced worries about the defenses of nuclear weapons in rival Pakistan following a militant siege this week of a naval base in Karachi, Reuters reported (see GSN, May 24).
“Naturally it is a concern not only for us but for everybody,” Defense Minister A.K. Antony said on the question of whether the assault by a minimum of six Pakistani Taliban fighters on the Mehran Naval Station had raised doubts about the security of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal, the Press Trust of India reported.
“Our services are taking all precautions and are ready round-the-clock. But at the same time we don’t want to overreact,” Antony said.
Though estimates vary, recent analyses indicate Islamabad could hold more than 110 nuclear weapons. The country’s is viewed as having the world’s fastest growing nuclear arsenal.
Some defense authorities have said the Sunday siege could have involved insiders at the base, renewing worries about Pakistani military personnel who might have extremist affinities (see GSN, Jan. 11; Reuters, May 25).
Separately, not long before he became Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari in 2008 told U.S. envoys he supported providing U.N. investigators access to nuclear scientist and proliferator Abdul Qadeer Khan, Asian News International reported on Wednesday (see GSN, May 25).
The United States has long pressed for access to Khan, Pakistan’s former top nuclear weapons scientist who in 2004 confessed to exporting nuclear technology and information to Iran, Libya and Read more…
Beijing Agrees to Operate a Key Port, Pakistan Says
BEIJING—Pakistan’s defense minister said China has agreed to take over operation of the strategically positioned but underused port of Gwadar, and that Islamabad would like the Chinese to build a base there for the Pakistani navy.
Ahmad Mukhtar gave no clear timetable on the possible change at Gwadar, on Pakistan’s western coast, which is currently managed by a Singaporean government company. But his statement Saturday is the latest illustration of how Pakistan is portraying China as a powerful alternative ally and aid source if the U.S. scales down military assistance for Islamabad in the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s killing.
China is eager to expand its influence in Pakistan over the long term, but is wary of the country’s chronic instability, which was highlighted late Sunday when a Pakistani naval base was attacked in the western port of Karachi, about 300 miles southeast of Gwadar.
Mr. Mukhtar made the announcement after accompanying Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani on a visit to China last week. During that visit, Pakistani officials say, Beijing agreed to expedite delivery of a second batch of 50 jointly developed JF-17 fighter jets to Pakistan, possibly within six months.
The fighter agreement prompted India’s defense minister, A.K. Antony, to express serious concern in a meeting with reporters late Friday about the growing defense ties between China and Pakistan, and to assert that India’s only possible response was to build up its own military arsenal.
Attempts on Sunday to contact Mr. Antony and other Indian officials for comment about Gwadar were unsuccessful. In the past, Indian officials have expressed concern Read more…
China to expedite delivery of 50 fighter jets to Pakistan: WSJ
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani (L) speaks to China’s Premier Wen Jiabao after a singing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, May 18, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/Jason Lee
Pakistan’s already strained ties with its ally and major donor were battered after U.S. forces on May 2 killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a garrison town near Islamabad.
The fact that bin Laden was found in Abbottabad, and had been living there for years, has prompted many in Washington to call for a review of the billions of U.S. civilian and military aid that Read more…
Pakistan’s Gilani visits ally Beijing amid US rift
BEIJING (AP) — Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani begins a visit to Beijing on Tuesday with old ally China looking more attractive after the U.S. killing of Osama bin Laden further strained Islamabad’s ties with Washington.
The sentiment is mutual, with China now in the process of shoring up its relations with Islamabad, Afghanistan and several other Central Asia states in step with an expected diminished U.S. presence as it winds down military operations in Afghanistan.
For Pakistan, Beijing represents an uncritical friend ready to provide aid, investment and military assistance. To the leaders in Beijing, ties with Pakistan and other countries in its neighborhood offer a bigger diplomatic footprint, better access to resources and a larger stable of allies to challenge U.S. supremacy.
Although Gilani’s four-day visit starting Tuesday was planned well in advance, it comes at a critical time for his country’s relations with the U.S., which have been thrown into crisis over the American raid that killed bin Laden in the northern Pakistani city of Abbottabad on May 2. Pakistan has called it a violation of its sovereignty and threatened to retaliate if there are any similar operations in future.
While American politicians served up withering criticisms over Pakistan’s failure to find bin Laden’s hide-out – or the possibility that officials were protecting him – China offered welcome Read more…
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