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.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS