Pakistan denies BBC report on nuke dumping

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has strongly denied an allegation by Afghan Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Farouq Wardak that it dumped its nuclear waste in Afghanistan's Kandahar and Helmand provinces in the mid-1990s.
Foreign Office spokesman Muhammad Sadiq said, “We have to ascertain first credibility of the statement. So far Afghan government has not made any complaint or charge against Pakistan on this issue.''
He said the report aired by BBC, said Pakistan had dumped its nuclear waste inside Afghanistan in 1996. At that time Pakistan's nuclear facility at Chashma near Afghan border was not commissioned.
“I have spoken to the BBC and told them this allegation is like Pakistan attacking Great Britain in 1935.'' He said the ministry could not make further comments on the issue until veracity of statement is ascertained.

US must fulfil obligations to nuclear test victims: congressman

MAJURO  ( 2008-03-31 12:46:48 ) : 

The United States must fulfil its obligations to victims of its nuclear weapons testing programme in the Marshall Islands, a US congressman said.
Eni Faleomavaega, who represents American Samoa in Congress and chairs the House Subcommittee on Asia, Pacific and the Global Environment, was in the Marshalls capital Majuro last week for hearings on the island nation's nuclear claims.
"The United States has a moral obligation," Faleomavaega said Friday.
"As a member of Congress, I want to ensure we make good (on our obligations). "I will work with my colleagues to make good on our promises made to Marshallese more than 50 years ago when we started nuclear testing."
The US tested 67 nuclear weapons at Bikini and Enewetak atolls, including many large hydrogen bombs, from 1946 to 1958.
"It was like 1.7 Hiroshima bombs going off every day for 12 years," Foreign Minister Tony deBrum told the hearing.
Between 1986 and 2003, the US government provided a 150 million dollar trust fund to compensate all clams past and future.
The State Department in a report to Congress last year said bluntly that the US had no legal obligation to provide more funding.
But the Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal, set up under an agretiated in the early 1980s, "overwhelming evidence" had emerged to dispute the US contention that only four atolls were affected by fallout.
"The original settlement amount (150 million dollars) was pulled out of the air," Graham said.
Since the Marshall Islands filed a petition for additional nuclear test compensation in 2000, it has received no formal response from either the administration of President George W. Bush or Congress.

US urges North Korea to move quickly on nuke deal

SEOUL  ( 2008-04-01 20:54:56 ) : 

US negotiator Christopher Hill, who arrived on Tuesday in South Korea to discuss ways to restart stalled nuclear talks with North Korea, urged the communist state to move 'very quickly' to seal a deal.
"Obviously we are getting to the point where we need to make some progress very quickly," he told reporters at the airport, when asked about delays in the North's promised declaration of all atomic programmes and activities.
Hill said no candidate in the upcoming US presidential election "has suggested they are interested in giving the DPRK (North Korea) a better deal than the one we put on the table.
"So I would say, from the DPRK's point of view, it's time to settle now."
A six-nation denuclearisation deal, involving the United States, China, the two Koreas, Japan and Russia, offers the North energy aid and major diplomatic and security benefits in return for full denuclearisation.
But the deal has stalled over the declaration, which was due to be handed over by the end of last year.
The North says it submitted the document last November. But the United States says it has not fully accounted for a suspected secret uranium enrichment weapons programme or for alleged nuclear proliferation to Syria.
Hill said the North had not submitted a declaration last year. "They showed us some research materials, research reference materials. It's very clear that it's not a complete and correct declaration."
Hill said his meeting last month with his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-Gwan in Geneva had made some progress and there had been subsequent indirect contacts.
"I would say there was some progress but it doesn't really mean anything until we actually get a declaration."
Seoul's Chosun Ilbo newspaper said Hill has already confronted Pyongyang with alleged evidence of its nuclear links to Syria.
It said he handed over a list of North Korean officials and engineers said to be involved in the technology transfer during an earlier meeting with Kim, who has denied any knowledge of the list.
The South's foreign ministry declined comment on the Chosun report.
The North insists it has no covert uranium programme and says it never transferred atomic technology to Syria. It has threatened to slow down ongoing work to disable its plutonium-producing plants if the deadlock continues.
Hill will hold a dinner meeting late Tuesday with his counterpart Chun Yung-Woo. He is scheduled to meet Vice Foreign Minister Kwon Jong-Rak and Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Yong-Joon on Wednesday, and then head to Indonesia on Thursday.