Pakistan yesterday successfully test fired its Ghauri intermediate-range ballistic missile, an army spokesman said.
The Ghauri, first tested in April 1998, can hit targets as far away as 1,500km and is capable of carrying nuclear and conventional warheads.
The missile successfully hit its target about 900km away from the launching site and carried an 800kg payload, Major General Shaukat Sultan said.
Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, who witnessed the missile test, congratulated the scientists, engineers and staff on their "unique technical success."
"Pakistan's policy of maintaining minimum credible deterrence as a cornerstone of its national security policy had been conceived after much thought and care and stood the test of time," a statement by Inter Service Public Relations (ISPR) quoted him as saying after the test.
Jamali made it clear that Pakistan's edge over "its adversaries in the strategic field" will be maintained at all costs.
He promised to provide the resources to maintain the quality of the nation's deterrence.
The missile tested yesterday was second in range only to the Shaheen-2, which was tested in March this year with a capacity of 2,000km.
Sultan said yesterday's test was aimed at improving the parameters of the missile and that all neighboring countries had been informed of the test beforehand.
In the past, all of Pakistan's medium-range missiles were fired from a site about 120km east of Islamabad.
The Ghauri missile system was introduced into the Army Strategic Forces Command early last year along with the Shaheen-1 and Ghazanvi ballistic missile systems.
Foreign defense observers said they suspected Ghauri was originally based on technology used in the North Korean Nodong missile. Islamabad said it was an indigenous effort.
Meanwhile, Japan expressed regret over the test. "It is deeply regrettable that Pakistan conducted the test despite efforts by the international community for non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missiles," said a statement issued by the Japanese embassy in Islamabad yesterday.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS