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Technology Stocks : SYNTEL (SYNT) - Upcoming Year 2000 IPO -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: P. Ramamoorthy who wrote (1722)	5/28/1998 9:10:00 AM
From: DD™	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 2761

ARMS RACE ACCELERATES: Pakistan Detonates Nuclear Bombs Filed at 8:44 a.m. EDT By The Associated Press ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan answered India's nuclear tests with two detonations of its own today and said it was capping a long-range missile with nuclear warheads, escalating the arms race between the rival nations. The action was sure to bring economic sanctions by the United States and other nations that had urged restraint by Pakistan after India carried out its five tests two weeks ago. In announcing the explosions, Pakistan said it was giving nuclear muscle to the Ghauri missile, which it tested on April 6. The missile has a range of 900 miles, making it capable of striking most parts of India. ''The long-range Ghauri missile is already being capped with the nuclear warheads to give a befitting reply to any misadventure by the enemy,'' an official statement said. In New Delhi, the Indian parliament erupted at the news, with lawmakers shouting their indignation. Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said the report ''vindicated'' India's decision to test nuclear devices two weeks ago. Vajpayee had argued that India needed a nuclear deterrent because Pakistan had a secret weapons program. In Washington, a U.S. intelligence official said the Clinton administration was warned Wednesday night that tests were imminent. ''The fact that they did this comes as no surprise,'' the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The underground tests were detonated in the Chagai region of Pakistan's desolate southwestern Baluchistan province, barely 30 miles from the border with Iran and India. Pakistan had been under pressure from across the political spectrum to explode a nuclear device of its own since India carried out its five tests on May 11 and May 13. It wasn't immediately known what kind of devices Pakistan tested, but a statement credited scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, the architect of Pakistan's bomb. ''The Khan Research Laboratories under the leadership of Dr. A.Q. Khan successfully solved all the problems associated with the enrichment of U235 which was used in the nuclear tests,'' the statement said. ''All the work was completed as far back as 1984 and a number of successful cold tests were carried out to finalize the design of the weapon systems.'' India has said it planned no more tests, so an immediate response in the form of more Indian explosions was unlikely. But a longer term scenario of both India and Pakistan working to improve missiles to deliver nuclear weapons and perfecting their weapons with computer modeling raised the possibility of a regional arms race. India's tests caught U.S. intelligence by surprise. Both Pakistan's Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif criticized the Western world's response to it as ''lackluster.'' Since it detonated its nuclear devices, India has been slapped with economic sanctions, most recently this week when the World Bank indefinitely postponed a decision on whether to extend more than $800 million in loans to the poor country. Pakistan, unlike India, is heavily dependent on international assistance and loans. Sanctions are bound to seriously hurt an economy already struggling to survive. Many economists fear that this country of 140 million people may be forced to default on its $800 million debt payment due at the end of June. Pakistan and India have fought three wars since 1947 and came dangerously close to a fourth,possibly nuclear, confrontation in 1990 over the disputed state of Kashmir. The retaliatory testing by Pakistan seems to guarantee a nuclear arms race on the Asian subcontinent, considered one of the poorest regions in the world. Roughly 25 percent of Pakistan's $13 billion budget goes toward defense spending. India and Pakistan are among the world's leading purchasers of military equipment. Pakistan has been living with U.S. sanctions since 1990 when Washington cut all military and humanitarian aid to Pakistan because it believed Islamabad had a nuclear bomb. At the time Pakistan was one of the largest recipients of U.S. aid. DD