Pakistan’s Chashma nuclear power plant shut down after developing technical sang

September 24th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - Abdul Qadeer Khan, the disgraced scientist who mentored Pakistans nuclear programme, has declined to comment on the veracity of a letter he is supposed to have written to his wife five years ago. The publication of the missive has raised fresh concerns about his role in nuclear proliferation.

August 26th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - China has backed Pakistan's right to nuclear energy to overcome the huge energy crisis facing the country currently, Presidential spokesperson Farhatullah Babar has said. Babar said during his meeting President Asif Ali Zardari, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi highlighted that Pakistan needed nuclear energy to address its increasing energy needs.

August 18th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - Dr. Samar Mobarakmend, member, planning commission for science and technology, Government of Pakistan, has said that the country's first satellite would be launched in April, 2011.

July 24th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - France has said that it would not be setting up any nuclear plant in Pakistan. French Secretary of State for Foreign Trade Anne Marie Idrac told a press conference here that her government would only help Islamabad ensure the safety and security of existing nuclear establishments.

June 22nd, 2009 ISLAMABAD - Pakistan cannot remain oblivious to the dangers posed by India's nuclear weapons but its own programme was purely of defensive nature, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani declared Monday. Pakistans emphasis on nuclear energy for peaceful purposes had shifted towards concerns for national security when India detonated a nuclear device in 1974, Gilani said while addressing scientists at the Quaid-e-Azam Universitys National Centre for Physics here.

June 18th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - Peshawar's international airport that was temporarily shut Wednesday amid a rise in Taliban attacks in the northwestern city, was reopened on Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's orders, Defence Minister Ahmad Mukhtar said Thursday. "Peshawar airport has been opened for flights in pursuance of the directives of the prime minister," Mukhtar told Online news agency.

May 29th, 2009 ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI - Pakistan's nuclear weapons are the cornerstone of its deterrence and there is complete national consensus on this, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani maintained Friday. "We are determined to retain nuclear deterrence at all cost and no compromise will be made on our core security interest," APP news agency quoted him as saying while chairing a meeting of the Strategic Planning Division (SPD) at the PM House in Islamabad.

May 28th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - In a startling revelation, about 30 years after it actually happened, it has been disclosed how a young woman, who was betrayed by a nuclear scientist, helped the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to nab 12 scientists and engineers, who were planning to sabotage the country's nuclear sites. The story dates back to 1978 when Pakistan was trying hard to join the list of nuclear countries.

May 28th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - About 10,000 security personnel are guarding Pakistans nuclear arsenal and Western fears about the safety of the weapons are unfounded, a senior official has said. Air Commodore Khalid Banuri, director of arms control and disarmament affairs at the Strategic Plans Division (SPD), said that Pakistans command and control structure for the weapons was better than that of many other nuclear-armed states, and many countries had officially acknowledged this, DawnNews reported Thursday.

May 18th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - Allaying fears that the Pakistani nuclear arsenal might fall into the hands of the Taliban, Interior Minister Rehman Malik Monday said: 'If we can make nuclear assets, we can also secure them'. Anti-Pakistan forces are using the Taliban to destabilise the country, he told reporters after visiting a relief camp in Mardan in North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

April 27th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - Pakistan asserted Monday there was no danger of the Taliban getting hold of its nuclear arsenal and said the country's 'nuclear capability was in safe hands'. 'I want to assure the world that the nuclear capability of Pakistan is under safe hands,' APP quoted President Asif Ali Zardari as telling a group of international journalists here.

March 28th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - Russia and China may support Pakistan in setting up new nuclear power plants to meet the country's growing energy needs. According to The Nation sources, Moscow and Beijing are expected to bail out Islamabad from the constraints relating to establishing new nuclear power plants.

March 18th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - Strengthening its capability, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has now attained powers of carrying nuclear warheads. Addressing media persons on the sidelines of a book launch program, Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Tanvir Mehmood Ahmed said: "The PAF has been made nuclear for giving it the status of a real deterrent force." "We have made the whole of PAF a nuclear force.The PAF has achieved such a deterrence level that no one could cast an evil eye on the motherland," Air Chief Marshal Ahmed said.

January 25th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - Pakistan's petroleum reserves will last only six days and its furnace oil stock will run out in nine days, a media report said Monday. Confirming this, Petroleum Ministry Additional Secretary G.A.

December 25th, 2008 ISLAMABAD - Pakistan has deployed troops to protect 'vital points' along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir and the international border with India, a media report said Friday. 'Sources in the defence department declined to give details of any fresh movement but did not deny reports that Pakistan was moving certain brigades towards Lahore,' Daily Times said.