Pakistan's government has made its clearest public statement yet that scientists of its secretive nuclear weapons program leaked technology and would face legal action.
The government said Monday that its two-month probe into allegations of nuclear technology proliferation to Iran and Libya was near completion.
"One or two people acted in an irresponsible manner for personal profit. Money is involved in the matter. I am not naming any scientist," Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told a news conference in the capital, Islamabad.
Ahmed made the comments amid speculation that leading scientists will face prosecution.
Pakistan began its probe into its nuclear program and possible proliferation to Iran in late November after admissions made by Tehran to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog.
Allegations also have surfaced recently that Pakistani technology spread to Libya and North Korea as well.
Pakistan's government denies it authorized any transfers of weapons technology to other countries, but says individuals may have done so for their own profit.
Ahmed said three scientists and four security officials of the Khan Research Laboratories were still detained and that questioning was scheduled to be completed within days.
Media reports have identified the key suspects as the lab's former director-general Mohammed Farooq, held for nearly two months, and the lab's founder, Abdul Qadeer Khan, long regarded as a national hero.
Khan has not been detained, but an acquaintance has said he is confined to Islamabad and has been questioned many times. Ahmed said Monday that Khan wasn't under any restrictions.
Investigators are tracking the bank accounts of some scientists, and a Pakistani newspaper report Sunday said they had found accounts of two scientists with millions of US dollars in transactions tied to the sale of nuclear technology to Iran.
The report did not name the scientists.
Speaking to reporters in the southern city of Karachi on Monday, Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat promised legal action against anyone involved in proliferation, saying, "no one will be spared at any level."
"We will take legal action against them ... so that it becomes an example for others and no patriotic Pakistani should even think of selling out Pakistan," Hayyat said.
He refused to release the names of scientists whose bank accounts are being examined.
The prospect of nuclear scientists being prosecuted has sparked isolated protests by Islamic hard-liners in Pakistan, who accuse President Pervez Musharraf of caving in to the US by leveling accusations against scientists who helped produce the Muslim world's first nuclear bomb as a deterrent against nuclear-armed rival India.
On Monday, dozens of supporters of the opposition coalition Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal and relatives of detained scientists rallied outside Parliament in Islamabad, chanting, "Go Musharraf Go!"
Ahmed said the probe would not compromise Pakistan's right to a nuclear deterrent against India.
"For national security, we are committed to defend our national assets at every cost," he said. "In this, there is no flexibility in our policy."
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
POLITICAL PATRIARCHS: Recent clashes between Thailand and Cambodia are driven by an escalating feud between rival political families, analysts say The dispute over Thailand and Cambodia’s contested border, which dates back more than a century to disagreements over colonial-era maps, has broken into conflict before. However, the most recent clashes, which erupted on Thursday, have been fueled by another factor: a bitter feud between two powerful political patriarchs. Cambodian Senate President and former prime minister Hun Sen, 72, and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, 76, were once such close friends that they reportedly called one another brothers. Hun Sen has, over the years, supported Thaksin’s family during their long-running power struggle with Thailand’s military. Thaksin and his sister Yingluck stayed
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS