Computer salesmen and technicians wandered around in shock, and the receptionist could not handle the number of calls that were coming in from around the world on Thursday to the sleek headquarters of SMB Group, an information technology organization.
The cause of the disruption was US President George W. Bush's speech to the National Defense University on Wednesday, in which he described the nuclear black market network created by the Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. Bush said that Khan's deputy was B.S.A. Tahir, who "ran SMB Computer, a business in Dubai," which was a "front for the proliferation activities of the A.Q. Khan network."
Puzzled employees said they had more questions than answers and declined to comment.
In a brief telephone interview on Wednesday, Seyed Ibrahim Bukhari, the owner and manager of SMB Group, said that it dealt only in legal computer sales.
He said that the man Bush mentioned, Bukhary Sayed Abu Tahir, a businessman from Sri Lanka, has no ownership in the group, and is not involved in management at any level. Seyed is a younger brother of Tahir.
In the trading network that Khan created to sell nuclear equipment and designs to countries on three continents, some companies involved were doing legitimate business in finely-tooled parts without knowing where the components would end up.
Others were agents for Khan, forwarding secret shipments to Libya, Iran and other countries, knowing full well these countries were working on secret nuclear programs.
Like the SMB Group, another company that said it did not intentionally participate in Khan's network was Scomi Precision Engineering, a manufacturing firm in Malaysia. It produced centrifuge parts that were intercepted last year on a ship bound for Libya.
A Scomi corporate executive said on Thursday that the company had negotiated the contract for the parts with Tahir, but he had never mentioned SMB Computer.
"I have never heard of it," the executive, Meena Kanthaswamy, said in a telephone interview, referring to SMB Computer. "None of us have."
Scomi executives said that Tahir said he was representing Gulf Technical Industries, a Dubai trading firm that, according to US and British investigators, put the shipment of centrifuge parts aboard the Libya-bound ship.
Gulf Technical was founded and is partly owned by Peter Griffin, who supplied material to Khan when he first developed Pakistan's nuclear capabilities, according to Griffin.
According to government records in Dubai, Tahir, a resident, established SMB Computer, a limited liability company, in 1981. At the outset he owned 49 percent. As required by law, 51 percent belonged to a citizen of the United Arab Emirates.
In Malaysia, Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi expressed his displeasure at Bush's speech.
"We are not involved in such activity," he said, referring to allegations that Malaysia had been a key link in Khan's nuclear network. He didn't say if the Malaysian authorities were questioning Tahir.
After the company expanded, SMB Group was formed, with SMB Computer as one division.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species. Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae. As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry. Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary
RSS