The ruling Pakistan People’s Party on Saturday rebutted a claim by the country’s disgraced nuclear hero that he transferred nuclear technology to other countries on the orders of its slain prime minister.
Abdul Qadeer Khan, whom many Pakistanis regard as a hero for building the Islamic world’s first nuclear bomb, admitted in 2004 he ran a nuclear black market selling secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea. He had offered a public apology, but later retracted his remarks and in 2009 was freed from house arrest, although he was asked to keep a low profile.
On Saturday he said in an interview published in the Urdu language newspaper daily Jang and sister publication The News that he transferred nuclear technology on directives of slain Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
Khan did not name the countries, nor did he mention when Bhutto, the twice elected woman prime minister, issued the orders. Bhutto ruled from 1988 to 1990, and then from 1993 to 1996.
“At least 800 people are used to supervise the process. The then prime minister Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto summoned me, and named the two countries which were to be assisted and issued clear directions in this regard,” Khan said.
“I was not independent, but was bound to abide by the orders of the prime minister, hence I did take this step in compliance with her order. The prime minister would have certainly known about the role and cooperation of the two countries, mentioned by her, in our national interest,” he said.
Bhutto’s party spokesman Senator Farhatullah Babar described Khan’s assertion as “a belated and desperate attempt to wash the guilt of proliferating nuclear weapons” by associating Bhutto’s name.
It is an attempt “to lend a semblance of respectability to a crime that brought huge embarrassment and inflicted incalculable damage on Pakistan”, Babar said in a statement. “It is disgusting that almost a decade later Dr Khan should be seeking to restore his image by seeking to lay the blame at the door of the martyred Bhutto when she is no longer alive.”
Khan “now owes another public apology, after 2004, to the soul of Bhutto and her followers for leveling baseless and unfounded allegations against her,” Babar added.
Bhutto, whose widower is Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, was assassinated on Dec. 27, 2007, in a gun and suicide attack while leaving an election rally in Rawalpindi, the headquarters of Pakistan’s army.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese