[NukeNet] India/USA Nuke Deal & How India Built The Bomb [From USA Nuke Reactor], Russian Bombers Resume Long Missions

[Bill Smirnow]

   Mothersalert: http://www.mothersalert.org/moreinfo.html
http://www.mothersalert.org




http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/washington/politics-india-usa-nuclear.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
   Congress Seen Backing India Nuclear Deal
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By REUTERS
Published: August 12, 2007
Filed at 11:21 a.m. ET

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NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A landmark civilian nuclear deal between India and the
United States will face dissent in the U.S. Congress but will ultimately be
approved, an influential senator said on Sunday.

The pact, finalised last month, will be closely scrutinised for allowing
India to reprocess used nuclear fuel, for the impact of any future nuclear
test by India on the deal and for New Delhi's relations with Iran, Senator
Joe Lieberman said.

"There will be debate, there will be some dissent," Lieberman told
reporters. "In the end, it will be accepted and endorsed by strong majority
in both houses of Congress because it is so clearly in the interests of the
United States.

"It's a good agreement, it's a honorable agreement," said the independent
lawmaker from Connecticut, the 2000 Democratic vice-presidential nominee
known to be close to the White House.

The nuclear deal aims to give India access to U.S. nuclear fuel and
equipment for the first time in 30 years to help meet its soaring energy
needs, even though it has stayed out of non-proliferation pacts and tested
nuclear weapons.

First agreed in principle two years ago, it is seen as a symbol of the new
strategic relationship between the once-estranged democracies.

The framework deal was approved by the U.S. Congress last December, but the
detailed pact that governs nuclear trade between the two has to get Congress
backing, and only after India secures other international nuclear approvals.

Lieberman, who is a senior member of several Congressional committees, said
he expected the pact to come up for legislative approval before the end of
2007.

The deal has been opposed by critics in both countries who say their
governments are making too many compromises in their eagerness to seal it.

India's communist parties, whose support is crucial for the survival of
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government, have rejected the deal, but
Singh has said he will not go back on it and dared the leftist parties to
withdraw support.

Singh is due to speak in parliament on the deal on Monday for the first time
since the pact was finalised.

Although the pact does not mention India's relations with its old friend
Iran, these would loom large over Congress due to the "fanaticism of the
regime" in Tehran, its "direct threats" to Washington and its "support" for
anti-American forces in Iraq, Lieberman said.

"No one can reasonably or fairly ask India to disengage from Iran, no matter
how negatively we feel about the government, because some of our close
allies in Europe and Asia, including Japan, have diplomatic relations with
Iran," he said.

"But the question is ... to be certain that India, in its commercial
relations with Iran, does not fall on the wrong side of any of the U.S.
sanctions legislations against Iran."

2. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/opinion/lweb12india.html

   How India Built the Bomb (1 Letter)

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Published: August 12, 2007
To the Editor:

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Related
Editorial: A Bad Deal Gets Worse (August 5, 2007)
Re "A Bad Deal Gets Worse" (editorial, Aug. 5):

You call for clearer restrictions on India's nuclear activities if the
United States agrees to support them. Plus ça change! In the early 1960s
India borrowed from the United States the money to build its nuclear reactor
at Tarapur. The loan agreement in draft form came across my desk because I
was then a lawyer for the Agency for International Development, the source
of the funds. Where was the promise by India, I asked, that the reactor
would not be used for military purposes?

The India desk at the State Department was furious. India had assured us,
they said, that generation of electricity would be the reactor's only
purpose. Well then, I suggested, there should be no objection to a provision
barring military use of fissionable material. But, countered the State
Department, that would be questioning the word of Indian officials and might
ruffle diplomatic feathers. So the State Department got someone else to
approve the loan agreement without a restrictive clause. And India built its
bomb.

Francis Dummer Fisher
Austin, Tex., Aug. 5, 2007

The writer is a senior research fellow, L.B.J. School of Public Affairs,
University of Texas at Austin.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/11/world/asia/11briefs-japannuclear.html

     Japan: Nuclear Plant May Be Down for a Year


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By NORIMITSU ONISHI
Published: August 11, 2007
International nuclear inspectors said it would take up to a year for a
nuclear power plant damaged during last month's earthquake in Niigata
Prefecture to restart operations, echoing an assessment by Japanese experts.
The team from the International Atomic Energy Agency completed a four-day
inspection of the plant, which is operated by Tokyo Electric Power, and is
expected to release a report shortly on its safety.

3.  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/10/world/europe/10briefs-bombers.html

 Russia: Bombers Resume Long-Haul Missions


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By C. J. CHIVERS
Published: August 10, 2007
Maj. Gen. Pavel Androsov, the commander of Russia's long-range aviation
forces, said its long-range strategic bombers, once part of the Soviet Union
's nuclear forces, had held new flight exercises that included passing by a
United States naval base in Guam and trips to the North and South Poles. The
bombers also fired eight training missiles at unspecified targets and hit
them all, according to General Androsov, who spoke at a news conference. The
path of the test flights and the performance of the missiles could not be
independently verified but appeared to be another instance of Russia, flush
with money from its oil and gas exports, trying to reassert itself as a
military and global power.

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