‘US studying options for a possible Pakistan strike’

May 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 29 (IANS) The US military is reviewing options for a unilateral strike in Pakistan in the event that a successful terror attack on American soil is traced to the country’s tribal areas, according to the Washington Post.

Ties between the alleged Times Square bomber, Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad, and elements of the Pakistani Taliban have sharpened the Obama administration’s need for retaliatory options, the influential daily reported Saturday citing senior military officials.

A US reprisal, however would be contemplated only under extreme circumstances, such as a catastrophic attack that leaves President Barack Obama convinced that the ongoing campaign of CIA drone strikes is insufficient, the unnamed officials stressed.

The US options for potential retaliatory action rely mainly on air and missile strikes, but could also employ small teams of US Special Operations troops already positioned along the border with Afghanistan, the Post said.

Plans for military strikes in Pakistan have been revised significantly over the past several years, moving away from a ‘large, punitive response’ to more measured plans meant to deliver retaliatory blows against specific militant groups, one of the senior military officials was quoted as saying.

The official added that there is a broad consensus in the US military that airstrikes would at best erode the threat posed by Al Qaeda and its affiliates, and risk an irreparable rupture in the US relationship with Pakistan.

At the same time, the administration is trying to deepen ties to Pakistan’s intelligence officials in a bid to head off any attack by militant groups.

The United States and Pakistan have recently established a joint military intelligence centre on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar, and are in negotiations to set up another one near Quetta, the Pakistani city where the Afghan Taliban is based, the Post said citing US military officials.

US spy agencies have engaged in a major buildup inside Pakistan over the past year. The CIA has increased the pace of drone strikes against Al Qaeda affiliates, a campaign supported by the arrival of new surveillance and eavesdropping technology deployed by the National Security Agency, the Post said.

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US studying options for possible Pakistan strike: Post

May 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 29 (IANS) The US is studying options of striking Pakistan if a successful terror attack is traced back to that country, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

Ties between the alleged Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, and elements of the Pakistani Taliban have sharpened the Obama administration’s need for retaliatory options, senior defence officials were quoted as saying by the newspaper.

They stressed that a US reprisal would be contemplated only under extreme circumstances, such as a catastrophic attack that leaves President Barack Obama convinced that the ongoing campaign of Central Iintelligence Agency (CIA) drone strikes is insufficient.

‘Planning has been reinvigorated in the wake of Times Square,’ one of the officials told the Post.

At the same time, the administration is trying to deepen ties to Pakistan’s intelligence officials in a bid to head off any attack by militant groups.

The US and Pakistan have recently established a joint military intelligence centre on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar in Pakistan, and are in negotiations to set up another one near Quetta, the Pakistani city where the Afghan Taliban is based, according to the US military officials.

The ‘fusion centres’ are meant to bolster Pakistani military operations by providing direct access to U.S. intelligence, including real-time video surveillance from drones controlled by the US Special Operations Command, the Post report said.

But in an acknowledgement of the continuing mistrust between the two governments, the officials added that both sides also see the centres as a way to keep a closer eye on one another, as well as to monitor military operations and intelligence activities in insurgent areas.

President Obama said during his campaign for the presidency that he would be willing to order strikes in Pakistan, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a television interview after the Times Square attempt that ‘if, heaven forbid, an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences.’

Obama dispatched his national security adviser, James L. Jones, and CIA Director Leon Panetta to Islamabad this month to deliver a similar message to Pakistani officials, including President Asif Ali Zardari and the military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani.

Jones and Panetta also presented evidence gathered by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies that Shahzad received significant support from the Pakistani Taliban.

The US options for potential retaliatory action rely mainly on air and missile strikes, but could also employ small teams of US Special Operations troops already positioned along the border with Afghanistan.

One of the senior military officials said plans for military strikes in Pakistan have been revised significantly over the past several years, moving away from a ‘large, punitive response’ to more measured plans meant to deliver retaliatory blows against specific militant groups.

‘The general feeling is that we need to be circumspect in how we respond so we don’t destroy the relationships we’ve built’ with the Pakistani military, a second official said.

US Special Operations teams in Afghanistan have pushed for years to have wider latitude to carry out raids across the border, arguing that CIA drone strikes do not yield prisoners or other opportunities to gather intelligence.

But a 2008 US helicopter raid against a target in Pakistan prompted protests from officials in Islamabad who oppose allowing American soldiers to operate within their country.

The CIA has the authority to designate and strike targets in Pakistan without case-by-case approval from the White House. U.S. military forces are currently authorized to carry out unilateral strikes in Pakistan only if solid intelligence were to surface on any of three high-value targets: Al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, or Taliban chief Mohammad Omar. But even in those cases, the military would need higher-level approval.

The report quoting a senior US military official said the centres would be used to track the Afghan Taliban leadership council, known as the Quetta shura. But other officials said the main mission would be to support the US military effort across the border in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where a major US military push is planned.

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U.S. studies options for possible Pakistan attack – Wpost

May 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

U.S. miliary leaders are reviewing options for a unilateral strike in Pakistan if there is a successful attack on American soil tied to the country’s tribal areas, The Washington Post reported in its Saturday edition.

The newspaper said senior U.S. military officials stressed a possible strike would only be considered under extreme circumstances such as a catastrophic attack that convinced President Barack Obama that the campaign using CIA drone strikes is not working.

The officials said airstrikes would be the most effective option in reducing the threat posed by al-Qaeda and other groups, but the United States must be careful not to damage its miliary relationship with Pakistan to a point where it cannot be repaired.

CIA-operated drones have targeted Taliban figures in Pakistan’s tribal areas and the group has vowed to avenge missile strikes that have killed some of its leaders.

The failed Times Square bombing on May 1 has revived international fears about Pakistan, a U.S. ally in the campaign against militancy. It also has forced the Obama administration to review how it would respond to a successful attack on U.S. soil.

U.S. authorities say Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American, has admitted to the Times Square bomb attempt and has been cooperating with investigators since his arrest on May 3.

American and Pakistani authorities are likely scrambling for clues on whether those detained have ties to militants in Pakistan, who are bent on toppling the state and are violently opposed to the U.S. presence.

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UK sets limit of 225 on nuclear warhead stockpile

May 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Britain announced for the first time on Wednesday that it had set a limit on its nuclear weapons stockpile, at 225 warheads, and said it would re-examine its policy on using nuclear weapons.

Britain’s new Conservative-Liberal Democrat government said the announcement, timed to coincide with a U.N. nuclear non-proliferation conference in New York, was intended to build trust between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons states and to contribute to worldwide nuclear arms reduction efforts.

Britain had until now disclosed only the number of operationally available nuclear warheads for its Trident missile-armed submarine fleet, and had given no figure for the overall stockpile.

“In the future our overall stockpile will not exceed 225 nuclear warheads,” Foreign Secretary William Hague told parliament.

The ceiling on operationally available warheads would stay at 160, he said. The extra warheads allow for “processing, maintenance and logistic management”, officials said.

Hague said the new government would review Britain’s policy on when it would consider using nuclear weapons as part of a defence and security review launched by the new government, which took office after the May 6 election.

Britain had long said it would consider using nuclear weapons only in “extreme circumstances” of self-defence, including the defence of NATO allies, but had been deliberately ambiguous over the precise circumstances of use, he said.

POLICY REVIEW

“The time is right to look again at our policy as the U.S. has done,” Hague said, making clear his government remained committed to maintaining a “credible minimum nuclear deterrent”.

President Barack Obama last month unveiled a new policy restricting U.S. use of nuclear weapons.

Britain and other nuclear weapons states are trying to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to countries such as Iran. Those countries often argue that established nuclear powers are doing nothing to reduce their arsenals as the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) urges.

Professor Malcolm Chalmers of the Royal United Services Institute thinktank said Hague’s disclosure “brings the UK into line with what the U.S. and France have already done”.

“The wider significance is that the Western powers want, as part of their contribution to the nuclear disarmament process, to get all the nuclear weapons states to be more transparent, including Russia and China,” he said.

The United States disclosed for the first time this month the size of its nuclear arsenal, saying it had 5,113 warheads.

In 2008, France said it would leave its submarine missile arsenal in place while cutting its stock of air-launched weapons by a third to around 290 warheads.

China and Russia have not revealed their total number of warheads, although Moscow and Washington recently agreed to limit operationally deployed nuclear warheads to 1,550.

Hague’s announcement may ease strains within Britain’s new coalition government over a decision to spend billions of pounds on updating Britain’s nuclear deterrent at a time when the country needs to cut a huge budget deficit.

The centre-right Conservatives support plans to build a new nuclear-armed submarine fleet. The centre-left Lib Dems, the junior coalition partner, wanted to look at cheaper alternatives but have agreed to opt out of any vote on the issue.

Britain has the smallest arsenal of the five legally recognised nuclear weapons states — the United States, Russia, China and France. The previous Labour government said it could consider reducing Britain’s warheads further as part of a multilateral negotiation.

(Editing by David Stamp)

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Faster weapons may replace nukes in US

April 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

In coming years, US President Barack Obama will decide whether to deploy a new class of weapons capable of reaching any corner of the earth from the United States in under an hour and with such accuracy and force that they would greatly diminish America’s reliance on its nuclear arsenal.

Called Prompt Global Strike, the new weapon is designed to carry out tasks like picking off Osama bin Laden in a cave, if the right one could be found; taking out a North Korean missile while it is being rolled to the launch pad; or destroying an Iranian nuclear site – all without crossing the nuclear threshold.

In theory, the weapon will hurl a conventional warhead of enormous weight at high speed and with pinpoint accuracy, generating the localised destructive power of a nuclear warhead.

The idea is not new: Former US President George W Bush and his staff promoted the technology, imagining that this new generation of conventional weapons would replace nuclear warheads on submarines.

Russian leaders complained that the technology could increase the risk of a nuclear war, because Russia would not know if the missiles carried nuclear warheads or conventional ones.

The idea “really hadn’t gone anywhere in the Bush administration”, Defence Secretary Robert M Gates said on ABC’s This Week.

Obama himself alluded to the concept in a recent interview with The New York Times, saying it was part of an effort “to move towards less emphasis on nuclear weapons” while insuring “that our conventional weapons capability is an effective deterrent in all but the most extreme circumstances”.

The Prompt Global Strike would be mounted on a long-range missile to start its journey toward a target. It would travel through the atmosphere at several times the speed of sound, generating so much heat that it would have to be shielded with special material to avoid melting. Its designers note that it could fly straight up the Persian Gulf before making a sharp turn toward a target. The Pentagon hopes to deploy an early version of the system by 2014 or 2015.

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Governor’s stinging rebuke for Bartlett

April 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment

In a rare move, Tasmanian Governor Peter Underwood has released his reasons for commissioning Labor to attempt to govern the state, and in doing so delivered a rebuke to the Premier.

Mr Underwood said David Bartlett did not have the right to promise power to Liberal leader Will Hodgman.

Mr Hodgman, meanwhile, says the events of the past few days show that the Liberals were outmanoeuvred by Labor lies.

The Opposition Leader thought he was going to be the next premier but the Governor dashed his hopes yesterday afternoon.

“Mr Hodgman advised me on the 8th of April that he didn’t seek the support of the Greens party,” Mr Underwood said in his statement.

“My failure to be satisfied that Mr Hodgman had the support of the Labor party not to block supply and not to move a vote of no confidence, except in extreme circumstances, gave rise to a constitutional obligation on the part of the holder of the commission to form government.”

This obligation arose regardless of whether Mr Bartlett had the support of the Greens Party or not.

The Liberals are furious because on April Fools’ Day the Premier made this promise:

“Labor will only ever move no confidence motions in the most serious circumstances of gross maladministration, of corruption or incompetence or in those circumstances. I mean that’s always going to be the case,” Mr Bartlett said.

But in a letter to the Governor on Wednesday, Mr Bartlett said he would not make any assurances about no-confidence motions or blocking supply.

Mr Hodgman quickly gave the Governor a copy Mr Bartlett’s April Fools’ Day press conference.

But in his statement the Governor said he decided to commission Labor because of the Premier’s recent letter where Mr Bartlett refused to support the Liberals.

“I considered the material and the contention and concluded that even if I was able to determine from the material given to me that Mr Bartlett has made the commitments Mr Hodgman said he made, his present intention is clearly expressed in the letter set out above,” Mr Underwood wrote.

“In these circumstances, I came to the conclusion that Mr Hodgman was not in a position to form a stable government.”

Broken promise?

Mr Hodgman says Mr Bartlett has broken his promise in order to hang onto power.

“It was deliberate, not only recanting from his original position, but it did directly leave the Governor, in my view, in a invidious position where Mr Bartlett was saying on one hand I’ll pretend to give the Liberals power but I will also threaten to take them down at the first opportunity,” he said.

“How can Mr Bartlett seriously say he was giving us an opportunity to test things on the floor of the house? He wasn’t even giving us an opportunity to get there.”

Mr Bartlett is not responding to the Governor’s statement.

Constitutional law expert Michael Stokes says it is rare that the Governor has released his advice, but Mr Stokes says that is because there is usually a majority government.

“I’m not aware of another, similar precedent. This is something which hasn’t happened in my lifetime, if you like,” he said.

During the election the Liberal and Labor parties had an agreement that if they won the same amount of seats, as they did, whichever party got more votes should form a minority government.

The Liberals got more votes and assumed government was theirs for the taking. But in his statement the Governor said the agreement was irrelevant to his decision.

“The commissioning of a person to form a government is entirely the governor’s prerogative and it is not within the gift of any political leader to hand over or cede to another political leader the right to form a government, whatever the result of the election,” he wrote.

The Governor has sent Labor back to test their power on the floor of the Parliament.

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US nuclear doctrine ‘could go further’

April 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment

A top Australian nuclear disarmament diplomat has welcomed the new United States doctrine limiting the potential use of its nuclear weapons, but says it could have gone further.

The US says it will only use atomic weapons in “extreme circumstances”, will not attack non-nuclear states and has pledged that no new nuclear weapons will be developed.

The former Australian foreign minister and co-chair of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, Gareth Evans, says the new US doctrine takes a step in the right direction by ending a long-standing policy of ambiguity and states clear limits to US nuclear weapons use.

But Professor Evans says the doctrine would have been better if it declared that US nuclear weapons existed only to deter their use by others.

“The US stopped short of that unhappily in this agreement, whereas it would have been a big step forward if it had gone the extra mile,” he said.

“But that said, we do have in president (Barack) Obama, and in the shape and the flavour and most of the content of this latest statement, a quite different approach to these issues than we’ve seen in the past.”

Professor Evans says the new US policy is one of several important steps aimed at eventually eliminating the world’s 23,000 nuclear weapons.

“I think it’s very positive, particularly when you look at it in the context of what’s also happening in the next week – the signing of the US-Russia bilateral agreement and the Nuclear Security Summit,” he said.

Professor Evans says countries like China need to be more transparent about their nuclear arsenal.

“It’s one thing for China to say it has embraced a no first use doctrine, which is very important. It’s one thing for China to say that it’s very committed to a nuclear weapon-free world,” he said.

“But who can get into any kind of serious dialogue with the Chinese when they won’t acknowledge the number of weapons they have or the nature of their deployment?”

Message for Iran

It is the first time a US administration has held an unclassified review of its nuclear posture and is in keeping with Mr Obama’s promise to move towards a world without nuclear weapons.

US defence secretary Robert Gates says the doctrine supports countries in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

But he says it sends a message to countries such as Iran and North Korea, who are not in compliance.

“If there is a message for Iran and North Korea here, it is … if you’re not going to play by the rules, if you’re going to be a proliferator, then all options are on the table in terms of how we deal with you,” Mr Gates said.

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Australian cricketers dash off to join IPL inspite of security concerns

April 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Sydney, Apr.1 (ANI): There will be no rest for Australian cricketers Shane Watson, Mike Hussey, Ryan Harris and Doug Bollinger, as they will be heading to India for participation in the third edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) Twenty-Twenty tournament.

Last month, the Australian players were caught in a security furor after a threat from a militant group linked to al-Qaeda raised the prospect of mass withdrawals.

But the threat was not credible, according to the Australian government, and the arrival of the last four Australians proves the rich show will go on in all but the most extreme circumstances, reports The Age.

Still, some Australian players already in India have reported concerns about safety arrangements to their union at home. One team bus was stranded on a bridge for 90 minutes, while other concerns have been raised about team hotels.

””I don”t know if the security issue really ever goes away,”” the paper quoted Australian Cricketers Association boss Paul Marsh, as saying.

””There are concerns no matter where we tour. We are now just playing a monitoring role on behalf of the players, which we”ll continue to the do for the rest of the tournament,”” he said. (ANI)

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Shania Twain talks about her relationship with ex-secretary’s hubby

August 30, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 30 (ANI): Canadian singer Shania Twain has finally spoken out about her relationship with her ex-secretary’s husband.

The Grammy winner posted a video to tell her fans that she’s doing well and talked about her “dear friend”.

Twain marriage to Robert “Mutt” Lange fell apart in May 2008 following his affair with her best friend, Marie-Anne Thiébaud, a longtime secretary and manager of the couple’s chateau in Switzerland.

In a nearly 15-minute video travelogue of her past year, the singer is seen enjoying skydiving and riding camels in Egypt.

“I want you to see for yourself that we are doing fine. I feel very alive and well, ready to take on the gift of another year,” People magazine quoted her as saying.

While Twain does not clarify whether she and Fred Thiébaud are an item, she called him as “a dear friend and true gentleman.”

“[He] has been the most constant companion and support for both Eja and I. And having gone through the suffering of his family splitting apart at the same time and under the same extreme circumstances, he understands me better than anyone.

“We leaned on one another through the ups and downs, taking turns holding each other up. We’ve become stronger and closer through it all, as have our children, Eja and Johanna, Fred’s 8-year-old daughter,” she added.(ANI)

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Astronomers observe `hot-headed’ planet with wild temperature swings

January 29, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Pasadena (California, US): Astronomers have observed a planet that heats up to red-hot temperatures in a matter of hours before quickly cooling down.

Using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, the astronomers have identified the “hot-headed” planet as HD 80606b.

They describe it as a gas giant that orbits a star 190 light-years from Earth.

It was already known to be quite unusual, with an orbit shuttling it nearly as far out as Earth is from our sun, and much closer in than our planet Mercury.

They claimed that they used Spitzer, an infrared observatory, to measure heat emanating from the planet as it whipped behind and close to its star.

In just six hours, the planet’s temperature rose from 800 to 1,500 Kelvin (980 to 2,240 degrees Fahrenheit), claimed astronomer Greg Laughlin of the Lick Observatory, University of California atanta Cruz.

“This is the first time that we’ve detected weather changes in real time on a planet outside our solar system,” said Laughlin, the lead author of a new report about the discovery appearing in the January 29 issue of Nature.

HD 80606b was originally discovered in 2001 by a Swiss planet hunting team led by Dominique Naef of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland.

Using a method known as the Doppler-velocity technique, the Swiss team learned that the planet is wildly eccentric, with an orbit more like a comet’s than a planet’s.

The planet takes about 111 days to circle its star, but it spends most of its time at farther distances while zipping through the closest part of its orbit in less than a day. This is a consequence of Kepler’second Law of Planetary Motion, which states that orbiting bodies — planets and comets — sweep out an equal area in equal time.

Spitzer observed HD 80606b before, during and just after its closest passage to the star in November of 2007, as the planet sizzled under the star’s heat.

“By studying this planet under such extreme circumstances, we figure out how it handles heat — does it retain it or dissipate it? In this case, the answer is that the planet releases the heat right away,” said Laughlin.

“We were essentially able to perform the ‘thought experiment’ – what would happen to a planet like Jupiter if we could drag it very close to the sun?” (ANI)

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