200G8:Nuclear War

200G8:Nuclear War

Iran missile test 'provocative'
BBC
The US and Israel have condemned Iran after it test-fired a long range missile capable of reaching Tel Aviv.
Iran state media said nine missiles had been fired in total, including a new Shahab-3, with a range of 2,000km (1,240 miles).
Tehran has tested the missile before, but the latest launch comes amid rising tensions with the US and Israel over the country's nuclear
programme.
A senior US state department official said the launch was "provocative".
Wednesday's early morning test at a remote desert site sent oil prices climbing.
Israel should prepare itself to do what is needed to do Ze'ev Boim Israeli minister Brig Gen Hoseyn Salami, commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards' air force, said: "Our missiles are ready for shooting at any place and any time, quickly and with accuracy."
Western leaders have been attempting to convince Tehran to stop enriching uranium, which it has continued doing despite sanctions from the UN and the European Union, insisting its nuclear programme is purely for civilian energy.
US Under-secretary of State William Burns said that thanks to UN sanctions, Iran's real progress on its nuclear programme had been "modest", despite its sabre-rattling.
"We view force as an option that is on the table but a last resort," he told a Congressional hearing on Wednesday.
The launches were intended to deter any Israeli or US strike against Tehran's nuclear installations, says BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus.
Our correspondent - who is in Israel - says the country has a fully operational anti-ballistic missile system, which Israeli military experts believe can counter any Iranian threat.
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In the Israeli parliament, Housing Minister Ze'ev Boim said: "I suggest Israel will not talk, and Israel should prepare itself to do what is needed to do."
The White House and both American presidential candidates also condemned the Iranian test.
Describing Iran as a "great threat", the Democratic challenger, Barack Obama, called for tougher sanctions while his Republican rival, John McCain, said the test demonstrated the need for effective missile defence.
The French, German and Italian governments expressed concern at the missile tests.
On Monday, an adviser to Iran's supreme leader said it would retaliate against any military attack by hitting the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.
Other commanders have threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which a large part of the world's oil flows, and to target the US and its allies around the world if Iran comes under attack.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has insisted his country had no intention of attacking Israel.
Speaking on a visit to Malaysia on Tuesday, Mr Ahmadinejad dismissed the possibility of an attack by the US or Israel as a "joke".

Emerging Nations Join G-8 on Climate
NYT - By SHERYL GAY STOLBERGRUSUTSU, Japan -- The world’s richest nations and emerging powers joined together Wednesday for the first time to commit themselves to
long-range cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions, calling climate change “one of the great global challenges of our time.”
The declaration came one day after leaders of the so-called Group of 8 wealthy nations pledged to “move toward a carbon-free society” and endorsed the goal of cutting emissions of heat-trapping gases in half by 2050. But China, India and other developing countries would not sign
onto those specific targets; they want the wealthy nations like the United States to take more aggressive steps to cut emissions over the next decade.
Despite that disagreement, experts said Wednesday’s meeting was unprecedented. It brought together 16 nations and the European Union on the final day of the Group of 8 meeting here on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, helping to lay the groundwork for a global climate
change treaty to be negotiated under the auspices of the United Nations in Copenhagen in 2009.
President Bush, who organized the session, claimed success.
“In order to address climate change, all major economies must be at the table,” he told reporters, before leaving to fly back to Washington. “And that’s what took place today.”
For Mr. Bush, who is trying to salvage his legacy on climate change late in his administration after years of international pressure to take a more aggressive stance, Wednesday’s “major economies meeting” was an important personal achievement. Mr. Bush has long insisted that
any international treaty include developing nations like China and India.
“This is an enormous movement for a man who questioned the science on global warming, who was opposed to international treaties and who was opposed to international targets,” said Phillip Clapp, director of the Pew Environmental Group, who rarely has kind words for the
president on climate change. “Here he is leading the way trying to get a global target. He’s gotten the developing countries to acknowledge there should be a global goal.”
Beyond climate change, the three-day meeting tackled issues including rising food and energy prices, aid to Africa and the political crisis in Zimbabwe.
Debate over the Beijing Olympics bubbled up on the sidelines, as President Bush, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Prime Minister
Yasuo Fukuda of Japan all said they would attend the opening ceremonies — a move that drew criticism from human rights advocates.
After Mr. Bush met with Prime Minister Hu Jintao of China on Wednesday, Mr. Hu thanked the president, saying, “I highly appreciated that President Bush has on various occasions expressed his opposition to politicizing the Olympic games.”
Mr. Bush, for his part, said he did not “need the Olympics to talk candidly” with China; what he really wants, he said, is to see the U.S.-China basketball game. “If you could help me get a ticket,” he told Mr. Hu, “I’d appreciate it.”
But it was climate change that dominated the summit agenda. Although the meeting put the United States on record for the first time as embracing a specific long-term goal, environmentalists complained that Wednesday’s declaration, issued by 16 countries and the European Union who participated in the “major economies meeting” here, did not go nearly far enough.
“Major economies meeting turns into major embarrassment meeting for G-8,” WWF, formerly the World Wildlife Fund, said in a statement.
Mr. Clapp said, “I have mixed feelings about it. It is good that the developing countries have embraced the principal of a global target that they will participate in. it would have been better if the United States and the other G-8 countries would have been willing to step up to the plate
and make a strong commitment about what they would do over the next 10 years. “
Together, the countries that issued the declaration are responsible for more than 80 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists have said are warming the planet. But there is a dispute between rich and poor nations over how to set targets, and who should bear the brunt
of the responsibility.
Cutting emissions in half by 2050 is just one step in curtailing global warming, but a panel of independent scientists has recommended much more aggressive action. So have the developing countries. China, India, Mexico, South Africa and Brazil have banded together to propose
that developed nations cut emissions between 25 and 40 percent over 1990 levels by 2020. In return, they say, developing countries would cut their emissions 80 to 95 percent by 2050.
The richer countries, led by the United States, Canada and Japan, are resisting those aggressive targets. Instead, they want each country to set its own goals — a stance that Alden Meyer, a climate change expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said amounts to “weasel words”
that would allow rich nations to wriggle out of firm goals.
Still, David Doniger, an expert on climate change at the National Resources Defense Council in Washington, said the two declarations set the
stage for “serious negotiations between developed and developing countries. Now you see what the shape of the table is, what the nature of
the bargain is.”
That bargain, in essence, would require rich countries like the United States to agree to specific goals for quickly reducing their emissions over the next decade, in exchange for a commitment by poorer countries like China and India to cut theirs over the long-term. The poor nations
also want financial help from rich countries to achieve their goals.
“Working that out is going to be hard,” Mr. Doniger said, “but it’s so much further along than it was two years ago when the U.S. wouldn’t
even let the negotiations start, and when the Chinese weren’t ready to say anything except, ‘We’re a developing country, you created this problem, you have to solve it.”

July 10, 2008
Iran Test-Fires Missiles, Reports Say
NYT-By ALAN COWELLPARIS — One day after threatening to strike Tel Aviv and United States interests if attacked, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were reported on
Wednesday to have test-fired nine missiles, including one which Tehran claims has the range to reach Israel.
State-run media, quoted by Western news agencies, said the missiles were long- and medium-range projectiles, among them a new version of
the Shahab-3 which Tehran maintains can hit targets 1,250 miles away from its firing position.
The reported tests coincide with increasingly tense negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program, which Iran says is for civilian purposes but
which many Western governments suspect is aimed at building nuclear weapons. At the same time, United States and British warships have
been conducting naval maneuvers in the Persian Gulf — apparently within range of the launching site of the missiles tested on Wednesday.
Israel insisted it did not want war with Iran.
“Israel has no desire for conflict or hostilities with Iran,” Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said. “But the Iranian
nuclear program and the Iranian ballistic missile program must be of grave concern to the entire international community.”
The missile tests drew a sharp response from the United States. Gordon D. Johndroe, the deputy White House press secretary, said in a
statement at the Group of 8 meeting in Japan that Iran’s development of ballistic missiles was a violation of United Nations Security Council
resolutions.
“The Iranian regime only furthers the isolation of the Iranian people from the international community when it engages in this sort of activity,”
Mr. Johndroe said.
He urged Iran to “refrain from further missile tests if they truly seek to gain the trust of the world. The Iranians should stop the development of
ballistic missiles which could be used as a delivery vehicle for a potential nuclear weapon immediately.” The missile tests were reported after
the Group of 8 leaders urged Iran to suspend uranium enrichment. Moreover, Iran displayed its military capability just a day after the United
States and the Czech Republic signed an accord to allow the Pentagon to deploy part of its contentious antiballistic missile shield, which
Washington maintains is designed to protect in part against Iranian missiles.
Iran’s Arabic-language Al Alam television and English-language Press-TV channel both reported the missile firings, Agence France-Presse
reported.
Al-Alam said the missiles, fired from an undisclosed location in the Iranian desert, included a “Shahab-3 with a conventional warhead weighing
one ton and a 2,000 kilometer range,” or about 1,250 miles. Iran was first known to have fired a Shahab-3 in November, 2006.
The other missiles in the tests were identified as the Zelzal, with a range of 250 miles and the Fateh, with a range of 110 miles, Agence France
-Presse reported. The Press-TV channel showed what was said to be the Shahab-3 missile rising amid clouds of dust from the desert launch site.
Hossein Salami, a commander of the Revolutionary Guards, was quoted as saying: “The aim of these war games is to show we are ready to defend the integrity of the Iranian nation.”
“Our missiles are ready for shooting at any place and any time, quickly and with accuracy. The enemy must not repeat its mistakes. The enemy targets are under surveillance,” he said.
The missile tests followed remarks by a senior Iranian official who was quoted Tuesday as warning the United States against attacking Iran.
“In case that they commit such foolishness, Tel Aviv and the U.S. fleet in the Persian Gulf would be the first targets to burst into flames receiving Iran’s crushing response,” said Ali Shirazi, a representative of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, according to the
Iranian news agency.
Like the missile tests, the bellicose rhetoric seemed part of an effort by Iran to couple offers of negotiation with warnings of military preparedness.
Negotiations between Iran and the West are scheduled to resume later this month and Iranian officials have sounded mounting alarms about speculation that the United States or Israel could attack Tehran’s nuclear facilities. On a European tour last month, President Bush repeated
Washington’s warning that no options had been ruled out.
“The Zionist regime is pushing the White House to get prepared for military attack,” the news agency quoted Mr. Shirazi as saying.
Last weekend, Iran signaled that it would not comply with United Nations Security Council resolutions requiring it to stop enriching uranium.
During his European visit, Mr. Bush won pledges from some European leaders to tighten sanctions against Iran.
Iran’s foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, said in a letter that Iran was prepared to open comprehensive negotiations with the European
Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, and the six world powers — the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China —
that have proposed a set of incentives to resolve the impasse over its nuclear program.
A senior European official involved in the negotiations said Saturday that Mr. Solana would meet with Saeed Jalili, Iran’s chief nuclear
negotiator, later this month.
On Monday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said demands that Iran halt its enrichment program were illegitimate.
The semi-official Iranian news agency Fars has reported on recent military maneuvers by the Revolutionary Guards to improve its “combat
capability.”
However, the signals have not been universally hostile. Fars quoted Mr. Mottaki as saying that negotiations were in a “new environment.” He
held out the possibility of improved relations with the United States, which have been tense and acrimonious since the Islamic Revolution in
1979.
Myra Noveck contributed reporting from Jerusalem and Sheryl Gay Stolberg from Rusutsu, Japan.

July 9, 2008
Tehran Warns West Against Attack
NYT-By ALAN COWELLPARIS — A senior Iranian official was quoted Tuesday as threatening that Iran would respond to any military attack by striking Israel and America’s vital interests around the globe.
“In case that they commit such foolishness, Tel Aviv and the U.S. fleet in the Persian Gulf would be the first targets to burst into flames receiving Iran’s crushing response,” said Ali Shirazi, a representative of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, according to the
ISNA news agency.
The threat — which drew no immediate response from Israel or the United States — was the latest salvo in the complex maneuvering around
Western efforts to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions, particularly the enrichment of uranium.
Israel, the United States and other Western countries fear that Iran’s nuclear program is intended to build nuclear weapons, but Tehran says it is for civilian purposes.
While negotiations between Iran and the West are scheduled to resume later this month, Iranian officials have sounded mounting alarms about speculation that the United States or Israel could launch a military strike on Tehran’s nuclear facilities. On a European tour last month,
President Bush repeated Washington’s warning that no options had been ruled out.
“The Zionist regime is pushing the White House to get prepared for military attack,” ISNA quoted Mr. Shirazi, an official of the Revolutionary Guards, as saying.
Last weekend, Iran signaled that it would not comply with United Nations Security Council resolutions requiring it to stop enriching uranium.
During his European visit, Mr. Bush won pledges from some European leaders to tighten sanctions against Iran.
Iran’s foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, said in a letter that Iran was prepared to open comprehensive negotiations with the European
Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, and the six world powers — the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China —
that proposed a set of incentives to resolve the impasse over its nuclear program.
A senior European official involved in the negotiations said Saturday that Mr. Solana would meet with Saeed Jalili, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, later this month.
On Monday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said demands that Iran halt its enrichment program were illegitimate.
The semiofficial Iranian news agency Fars has reported on recent military maneuvers by the Revolutionary Guards to improve its “combat capability.”
However, the signals have not been universally hostile. Fars quoted Mr. Mottaki as saying that negotiations were in a “new environment with a new approaching perspective.” He held out the possibility of improved relations with the United States, which have been tense and
acrimonious since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Elaine Sciolino contributed reporting.

July 9, 2008
World Brief Asia
India: Communists Desert Premier
NYT-By SOMINI SENGUPTAA day after India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh, spoke confidently of having amassed sufficient political backing to complete a landmark
nuclear accord with the United States, the Communist parties that have been part of his parliamentary majority for four years said they were withdrawing support because of the proposed deal. The agreement would allow India access to nuclear fuel and technology on the world market. Mr. Singh’s government appears able to survive the loss of the Communists’ support because of a deal it reached last week with the Samajwadi Party.

July 8, 2008
India’s Nuclear Pact With U.S. Near Completion
NYT-By SOMINI SENGUPTANEW DELHI — India’s prime minister went to the Group of 8 summit meeting in Japan on Monday with his government intact and enough
political strength to complete a landmark nuclear agreement with the United States, ending months of speculation that either his government or the agreement, on which he has staked his reputation, would collapse.
The prime minister, Manmohan Singh, told reporters traveling with him to the summit meeting that his administration would “soon” complete an
agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, though he did not offer a date, his spokesman, Sanjaya Baru, said here.
Mr. Baru added that the text of an agreement was near completion, and that India could swiftly finish it and go on to secure approval from the
45 member nations of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Only after those two steps have been completed can the United States Congress vote on the final agreement.
A Congressional delegation came here last week to urge India to hurry it along, so that Congress could vote on the deal in early September.
The nuclear agreement would allow India access to nuclear fuel and technology on the world market.
Mr. Singh’s comments on Monday were the first in many months to sound a note of political confidence. His Congress Party-led coalition government has been beleaguered by a difficult political choice: going through with the nuclear deal would mean losing the vital support of its
Communist allies and in turn its majority in Parliament. The Communists have resolutely opposed the nuclear deal, on the ground that it would fortify strategic ties with the United States.
Saving the deal required a political gamble. Late last week, Mr. Singh’s administration secured the support of an old rival, a north Indian faction called the Samajwadi Party, and in so doing, seems to have preserved its majority in Parliament and deferred early elections, which it
can hardly afford at a time of rising food and fuel prices and growing public disaffection.
“He said the government is not afraid to face the Parliament, we have the numbers,” Mr. Baru quoted the prime minister as saying, adding that Mr. Singh continued to hope that the Communists would “see reason” and lend their support to the deal.
That is unlikely. The Communist parties are expected to withdraw their backing of the government in the coming days.
Mr. Singh’s successful maneuver on the nuclear agreement does not diminish the government’s other problems. It continues to be buffeted by economic woes, along with a range of political fires across the country.
A Congress Party-led government collapsed on Monday in the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir. The crisis in that Muslim-majority state had nothing to do with the nuclear agreement. It stemmed instead from a bitter dispute over using government land for temporary camps for
Hindu pilgrims. But it signaled a setback for the Congress Party, which now governs only 9 of India’s 28 states, and ushered in the election season in earnest.
Analysts said that the bargaining over the nuclear agreement may cost the Congress Party the next national election, and that it had already weakened the administration and the prime minister’s personal credibility.
“Hanging back on the deal has cost it its aura of authority, and has damaged the standing of the P.M.,” said Salman Haidar, a retired Indian diplomat. “It’s legacy time for him: no other way of restoring his position than to push for the deal, even at this stage.”
Hari Kumar contributed reporting

July 5, 2008
India Leader Swaps Allies in Push for Nuclear Pact
NYT-By HEATHER TIMMONS and SOMINI SENGUPTANEW DELHI — India’s governing Congress Party has swapped coalition allies in a last-ditch effort to push through a nuclear deal with the
United States.
The Congress Party is replacing its leftist allies, led by the Communist Party, with a coalition led by the Samajwadi, a North Indian socialist
party. The Congress Party’s grip on India is weakening as inflation and fuel prices rise and the economy slows, and securing an ally is crucial to staying in power.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has been a staunch supporter of the nuclear agreement with the United States, has been rushing to firm up support for the deal in India ahead of the Group of 8 summit meeting in Japan, which starts on Monday.
There, he is expected to meet with President Bush to discuss the arrangement, which would grant India access to American nuclear technology and atomic fuel in exchange for agreeing to international inspections of its reactors.
The proposal has dominated headlines and fueled heavy debate almost since it was put forward in 2005. Critics, including the Communist Party, say the deal ties India’s future foreign and energy policy too closely to the United States, but advocates say it could usher in a new era
of nuclear power in India, freeing the country from heavy dependence on fossil fuels.
American companies have been lobbying heavily for the deal, hoping to sell nuclear power-related equipment to India.
Mulayam Singh Yadav, the founder and chief of the Samajwadi Party, told reporters early Friday that Mr. Singh’s explanation of the proposal was “satisfactory,” signaling that his party could support it. On Saturday, party leaders made their support official.
The switch allowed Mr. Singh’s Congress Party to avoid calling early elections, in which it is expected to lose many representatives in Parliament because of growing concerns over inflation and high oil prices. Samajwadi has 39 seats in Parliament, while the Congress Party’s
former Communist allies have 59. Congress needs 44 seats to retain its majority.
Mr. Yadav, the Samajwadi leader, has pushed for the rights of farmers and the underclass and favors limiting the use of the English language in government. The party, based in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, is made up mainly of Muslims and farmers.
Representative Gary L. Ackerman, Democrat of New York, who arrived in New Delhi on Thursday, said he expected that Mr. Singh would arrive at the Group of 8 meeting ready to move to the next step in reaching a nuclear agreement with the United States.
Mr. Ackerman, chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, said in an interview that Indian officials had told him necessary approval of the agreement by the International Atomic Energy Agency was “basically a done deal.”
When asked if there is time to push the deal through the United States Congress before Mr. Bush leaves office, he said: “Possible? Yes.
Probable? No.”
If the Indian government wins approval by international regulators by August, the United States Congress could vote on the deal soon thereafter, he said. The current Congress is lined up to vote favorably, he said, and he urged the Indian government to take advantage of the
situation.
“I came here because we are hopeful,” he said, and the Indian government is “concerned.”

July 9, 2008
N. Korea Nuclear Talks to Resume
NYT-By CHOE SANG-HUNSEOUL — The United States and other regional powers will resume talks with North Korea this week on ending the Communist state’s nuclear weapons programs, a South Korean envoy said on Tuesday.
The six-nation talks, the first in nine months, are to begin on Thursday, the South Korean envoy, Kim Sook, told reporters before flying to Beijing for the conference among the United States, the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia.
A deadlock was broken late last month when North Korea submitted a long-delayed but partial account of its nuclear programs and the United States moved to take North Korea off its terrorism blacklist and relax some economic sanctions.
Mr. Kim said the new talks would focus on verifying the North’s nuclear account, including the amount of plutonium the North has reported.
But the envoys will also discuss speeding up the disabling of North Korea’s main nuclear complex in return for fuel aid shipments.
North Korea has delayed removing spent fuel rods — a source of plutonium — from its main nuclear reactor while complaining that the other five nations had not provided the promised fuel aid in a timely fashion.
In a symbolic gesture to demonstrate its commitment, North Korea invited foreign media on June 27 to witness the demolition of the cooling tower of its main nuclear reactor at Yongbyon.
But more difficult talks lie ahead on what to do with the North’s stockpile of nuclear fuel and its latest batch of spent fuel rods. The United States is also demanding that North Korea address questions left unanswered in its nuclear declaration, including whether it has exported its
nuclear technology or has enriched uranium.

India’s embassy in Kabul BOMBED
Brigadier, 2 ITBP men among 41 killed in suicide hitA SUICIDE bomber drove his explosives-laden car into the Indian embassy in Kabul on Monday morning, killing 41 people including two
diplomats in the deadliest attack since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
Among the dead were defence advisor Brigadier R.D. Mehta, counsellor V. Venkateswara Rao, ITBP security men Ajai Pathaniya and Roop Singh and an Afghan employee at the embassy, Niamatullah.
The bomber drove his car into the embassy, which is walking distance from the Afghan Interior ministry, as a car bringing Mehta and Rao to work — around 8.15 am — waited for the reinforced steel gates to open. The gate was reduced to rubble under the impact of the explosives,
and Rao was flung to the roof of the embassy. The cars and the steel gates lay mangled beyond recognition.
Most of the local Afghans standing in a queue in the visa section on the left of the gate were killed. Shops across the street were hit and the dead and the injured were found some distance away.
Indian ambassador Jayant Prasad was safe as he was not in the embassy at the time of the attack. “The toll of casualties we have so far is 41 martyred and 139 wounded. Among those killed are six policemen,” Afghan interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP.
“The embassy has been blown up badly, the outer structures,” said an embassy official who did not want to be named.“We are walking on rubble.”
No one has yet claimed responsibility. The Taliban who have been behind most of the kidnapping and terrorism incidents in Afghanistan denied any role. “We have not done it,” spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed said. The Taliban were behind earlier kidnapping and killing of
several Indians working in Afghanistan. They have said Indians should cease all activities in the country and leave immediately.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is in Japan for the G8 meetings, said, “Those responsible, directly or indirectly, for this terrorist attack and for making this possible are no better than the worst criminals.”
India has sent aircraft to bring back bodies and a team of officials has been sent to deal with the “emergency situation concerning our mission”.

July 9, 2008
Afghan Bombing Sends Stark Message to India: With Power Comes Risks
NYT-By SOMINI SENGUPTANEW DELHI —
The suicide bombing on Monday outside the Indian Embassy in Kabul was the latest and most audacious attack in recent months on Indian interests in Afghanistan, where New Delhi, since helping to topple the Taliban in 2001, has staked its largest outside aid package ever.
India has poured unprecedented amounts of money and people into the reconstruction of Afghanistan, a vital passage into resource-rich Central Asia. It has spent more than $750 million, building a strategic road across the country’s southwest, training teachers and civil servants,
and working on erecting a new seat of the national Parliament.
That engagement has come at a mounting cost to the 4,000 Indian citizens working in Afghanistan. In the last two and a half years, an Indian
driver for the road reconstruction team was found decapitated, an engineer was abducted and killed, and seven members of the paramilitary force guarding Indian reconstruction crews were killed.
Last year alone, the Indian Border Roads Organization came under 30 rocket attacks as it built the 124-mile stretch of road across Nimroz Province that will ultimately link landlocked Afghanistan to a seaport in Iran.
The embassy bombing on Monday seems to have been the most effective strike: a bomber blew himself up as two Indian diplomats drove into the embassy early in the morning, reducing the compound to rubble and blood. Four Indians, including the two diplomats, were killed. The
bulk of the 41 dead were Afghan civilians who had come for embassy services, like visas.
To much of the world, the bombing may have appeared to be another in a series of escalating attacks by militants looking to destabilize the American-backed administration of President Hamid Karzai.
Here in the Indian capital the message of the bombing was explicit: India, get out of Afghanistan. “It is a notice saying you quit or we are going to hit you,” said Lalit Mansingh, a retired Indian diplomat who served in Kabul in the 1970s.
In condemning the attack, the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, sent a plain message that his country would not quit, and that the Indian
engagement in Afghanistan would “continue with renewed commitment.”
Not surprisingly, Pakistan was swiftly blamed for the bombing, and just as swiftly, denied having a hand in it.
But the attack also set off a lively policy debate, first over whether India should complement its reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan with military boots on the ground, and then whether Pakistan, and its backers in Washington, would allow India to play a more robust military role.
Pakistan has long been nervous about India’s penetration into Afghanistan, including its five consular missions there, along with an air base in Tajikistan, across Afghanistan’s northern border.
C. Raja Mohan, an Indian foreign policy analyst who teaches at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said the time had come for India and Pakistan to look beyond their traditional rivalries and fuse a joint strategy to confront extremists operating on the
Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Such an initiative, he argued, would be to both countries’ advantage.
“Whatever problems we had with Pakistan, Pakistan had been a buffer between India and the badlands,” he said. “Now the buffer is falling apart. Afghanistan needs to be stabilized. Pakistan needs to be stabilized. This requires more drastic remedies.”
The attack on the embassy in Kabul has also stirred a simmering debate about whether India, as a rising economic power in the world, ought to also flex its muscle in areas of strategic interest.
The United States, for instance, long ago leaned on India to send troops to Iraq and to use its influence on Myanmar to push for democracy.
India refused both requests. Sri Lanka invited India to mediate in its long-running ethnic war, but India’s intervention there 20 years ago left the Indian military with a bloody nose, and it has since refused to meddle.
“I don’t know where is an example of India punching its weight,” said K. Subrahmanyam, a defense analyst. “It is India that is keeping a restrained posture. It goes back to how India became free and what kind of state India is.”
Indian newspaper editorials on Tuesday urged the government not to buckle under the new threats in Afghanistan. “As India mourns the murder of its two diplomats in Kabul, it must brace itself up to a new burden that comes with increasing global weight,” The Indian Express
wrote. “New Delhi cannot continue to expand its economic and diplomatic activity in Afghanistan while avoiding a commensurate increase in its military presence there.”
Afghanistan is in some ways the test case of the extent to which India is willing to use its hard power to advance its strategic and commercial interests.
“As India’s influence grows it will become increasingly involved in the local politics of a foreign country,” said Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, a research fellow at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. “It cannot afford to see itself as an innocent bystander
anymore.”
Gurmeet Kanwal, head of the Center for Land Warfare Studies, said that Indian paramilitary troops were ill prepared to face the insurgents in Afghanistan, and that India’s development aid to that country needed to be secured by a military presence.
“I wouldn’t use the expression flex its muscles,” he said. “I would say the time has come to live up to our responsibility. If it involves military intervention, so be it.”
Hari Kumar contributed reporting.

July 9, 2008
U.S. and Czechs Sign Accord on Missile Shield
NYT-By JUDY DEMPSEY and DAN BILEFSKYBERLIN — The United States and the Czech Republic signed a landmark accord on Tuesday to allow the Pentagon to deploy part of its
widely debated antiballistic missile shield on territory once occupied by Soviet troops.
The accord, the first of its kind to be reached with a Central or East European country, was signed in Prague by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Czech counterpart, Karel Schwarzenberg, despite strong opposition from Russia. It also needs to be ratified by Czech lawmakers, many of whom oppose it.
Russia warned on Tuesday that the accord could lead to a military response, which the Kremlin had previously threatened but never specified.
President Dmitri A. Medvedev and his predecessor, Vladimir V. Putin, who is now the Russian prime minister, have told the United States that the Kremlin sees a missile shield in this part of Europe as a threat to Russian security. Mr. Putin has said it could even lead to a new cold war.
But American and Czech officials said the system’s radar component, to be stationed south of Prague, would defend the NATO members in Europe and the United States against long-range weapons from the Middle East, particularly Iran.
“Ballistic missile proliferation is not an imaginary threat,” Ms. Rice said Tuesday after meeting with the Czech prime minister, Mirek Topolanek. She said Iran continued to work toward a nuclear bomb, along with long-range missiles that could carry a warhead.
Ms. Rice is on a European tour that includes Bulgaria and Georgia, but not Poland. The United States hopes to base 10 interceptor missiles
there, but the governments in Warsaw and Washington have so far failed to reach agreement on the terms.
Unlike the Czech Republic’s government, the Polish center-right government led by Donald Tusk has taken a tough negotiating stance. In
return for hosting the interceptors, Poland has asked the United States to modernize Polish air defenses so that the country can defend itself against incoming short-range and medium-range missiles.
The accord with the Czech Republic is not without its problems.
The deal signed on Tuesday does not ensure that the radar system will be built immediately or that the next American administration will stick to the project.
Negotiations are still taking place on a second treaty, to deal with the legal status of American troops to be deployed at the planned radar base. Both treaties require ratification by Czech legislators, many of whom are skeptical about the project, while the public is largely opposed.
Mr. Topolanek’s coalition government does not have enough seats to assure support for the plans and may need opposition votes. Legislators
from the Green Party, the government’s junior coalition partner, have indicated they may block the proposals, and opposition parties have demanded a national referendum. About two-thirds of Czechs oppose the radar deployment, according to opinion polls.
“Ratification will be difficult,” said Jiri Schneider, program director at the Prague Security Studies Institute. “The missile defense plan has sparked a national debate about how exposed we want to be on the international stage.”
Czech political analysts said that, for the older generation, the missile defense plans had tapped into a deep suspicion of security alliances that stretched back across the past century.
For the younger generation, opposition to the missile plan has become a way to express discontent with American policies, including the war in Iraq.
Judy Dempsey reported from Berlin, and Dan Bilefsky from Paris.
Judy Dempsey reported from Berlin, and Dan Bilefsky from Paris.

Congress releases document on nuke deal's importance
9 Jul 2008, 2135 hrs IST,PTI NEW DELHI:
On a day when there was hectic and fast-paced political development following the withdrawal of support by the Left to the
UPA government, the Congress on Wednesday released a two page document on why the Indo-US nuclear deal is important.
The party said the energy needs of the country are increasing exponentially and only nuclear power is the way forward. "The deal is the key for
the prosperity and economic growth of the country," said Congress Spokesman Manish Tiwari, releasing the document.
The document said that the share of nuclear power in world wide energy production was one per cent in 1960 and between 1960 to 1986, it rose to 16 per cent of world's energy production. The share has remained constant since then.
It said there are 439 nuclear power reactors operating around the world and the US accounts for 104 of these reactors followed by France at 59, Japan at 55, Russian Federation 31 and Republic of Korea 20.
"India generates 132,110 lakh MW of power annually. Of this, 64.7 per cent is generated from thermal power, 26.2 per cent is generated through hydro electric power, 5.9 per cent is from renewable power sources and only 3.1 per cent through nuclear power," said the
document.
It added, "Given the increased price of oil and gas internationally, issues of climate change associated with coal as well as the breakdown of consensus on big dams, India needs to explore each and every option aggressively."
Emphasising the need of nuclear power, the document visualised a scenario wherein nuclear power would contribute 10 per cent of the country's energy needs by the year 2022 and 26 per cent of the needs by the year 2052.
"India would require 500-600 thousand MW of power by 2030 up from 132,110 at present. Thus nuclear power is the way forward for India," the document added.
Out of the 35 new nuclear power plants under construction in the world, Asia accounts for 24 of these. While China is building six new nuclear power plants to get 5,222 MW power for its grid, India too is building six such plants which would add 2910 MW of to its grid.

Russia upset, but "no hysterics" over U.S. shield
By Oleg ShchedrovWed Jul 9, 8:18 AM ET
Russia will consider how to retaliate over a planned U.S. missile shield but wants to continue talks on the issue with Washington, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday.
Washington and Prague signed a deal on Tuesday to place a tracking radar in the Czech Republic as part of a system the United States says is needed to protect against any missile attack from countries such as Iran.
Russia is sensitive to any Western military build-up near its borders and says it considers the U.S. missile shield plans a direct threat to its security.
"We are extremely upset by this situation," Medvedev told a news conference on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, where he was attending a summit of the Group of Eight leaders.
"We will not be hysterical about this but we will think of retaliatory steps," he said, but did not specify what measures Russia might take.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Russia's response "predictable, if disappointing."
"I still hope that Russia will look at the actual threat environment, look at the fact that the Iranians are developing ever-longer ranges of missiles which they apparently intend to test and that the Russians will see that this is not aimed at them," Rice told a news conference in Sofia.
Iran, suspected by the West of developing nuclear arms, test-fired 9 missiles on Wednesday and said it was ready to retaliate if the United States and Israel attacked. Speculation Israel could strike has mounted since its air force staged an exercise in June that U.S. officials said involved 100 aircraft.
Previous president Vladimir Putin proposed to Washington and NATO last year to set up a joint system of early warnings to trace any potential launch from the volatile South. Moscow offered use of a radar station it hires in ex-Soviet Azerbaijan.
"There has been no reaction," Medvedev said. "They are conducting sleepy talks with us and that means that the (U.S. shield) idea will be realized."
"It is completely obvious that, after the signing of the agreement, a new stage in implementing the idea of the missile shield has started," he added.
UNEASY RELATIONS
The missile shield dispute is one of a complex of disputes between the United States and Russia.
Rice was due in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, on Wednesday for a visit Moscow will be watching closely. Tensions between Moscow and Tbilisi are rising over the Russian-backed separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Putin, who handed over powers to Medvedev in May and is now his prime minister, warned in 2007 that Russia could aim missiles at European countries if the U.S. missile shield plans went ahead.
Russian generals have threatened to deploy tactical missiles in neighboring Belarus and to resume production of short and medium-range nuclear missiles in response to Washington's missile defense plans.
But Medvedev, who met President George W. Bush on the sidelines of the G8 summit on Monday, said dialogue on the Missile Shield issue should not be stopped.
"We are not closed to further negotiations and we will continue these," he said.
Medvedev and Bush, who will hand over powers to a successor after elections in November, agreed at a meeting in Japan that maintaining dialogue and close ties between the leaders was important both for the two states and for the global stability.
"I think we are leaving a very strong relationship," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Bulgaria.
"But it's a complicated relationship because whenever you have a relationship this big, and with this many elements, there are going to be elements both conflict and cooperation, and both are evident in the relationship with Russia."
(Editing by Ralph Boulton) (Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Sofia)