US ‘defence umbrella’ to counter Iranian nukes

October 9th, 2009 NEW DELHI - A delegation of 16 leading Israeli companies will participate in INDESEC Expo 2009 on homeland security to be held here Oct 11-13, a statement said Friday. The Israeli delegation will be headed by Guy Zuri, director of aerospace, defence and homeland security at the Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute, the release said.

September 25th, 2009 NEW YORK - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blasted Argentina Friday for seeking the extradition of Iranian Defence Minister General Ahmad Vahidi. "We want to advise the Argentine government, instead of meeting the interest of a minority of Zionists in Argentina, to seek the interest and benefit for everyone," Ahmadinejad told a press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

September 12th, 2009 TEHRAN - Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi said Saturday that Iran has no plans to develop nuclear weapons, the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) reported. "We regard production of weapons of mass destruction as contrary to our religious, human and national principles," Vahidi was quoted as saying.

July 26th, 2009 Clinton mum on Mideast defense umbrellaWASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Sunday she would not reveal any specifics of a possible defense umbrella to protect Mideast allies against Iran's nuclear program while insisting Washington remained open to dialogue with Tehran. Clinton also implicitly urged Israel to set aside any plans it might have for a pre-emptive strike on Iranian nuclear sites and to give U.S.

July 15th, 2009 WASHINGTON/CHICAGO - Boeing's Integrated Defence Systems said Wednesday it is cutting 1,000 jobs to accommodate the drop in demand in the federal defence budget. The lost jobs represent about 1.5 percent of the 70,000 employees in the defence branch.

July 11th, 2009 MOSCOW - Israel has ordered at least 25 US F-35 stealth fighter aircraft to counter any potential threat from the delivery of Russian advanced air defence systems to Iran and Syria, an Israeli daily said. Tel Aviv earlier said the purchase of F-35 fighters would effectively eliminate the threat from Russian-made S-300 air defence systems because a series of computer simulations had clearly demonstrated that new US stealth fighters outperform the Russian missiles.

July 6th, 2009 MOSCOW - US President Barack Obama has said that the proposed deployment of a missile shield in Europe was intended to counter Iran and Russia should not worry about it. In an interview with Novaya Gazeta newspaper Monday, Obama said that Washington was seeking to create a missile shield in Europe to protect the US and Europe from Iranian ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads.

June 17th, 2009 WASHINGTON - President Obama has said that it would be counterproductive for the United States "to be seen as meddling" in the disputed Iranian presidential election. Dismissing criticism from several leading Republicans that he has failed to speak out forcefully enough on behalf of the Iranian opposition, the New York Times quoted Obama, as saying that while he had "deep concerns about the election," he said that any direct involvement by the United States would not be "productive, given the history of U.S.-Iranian relations." How Iran goes about electing its leaders and establishing freer debate and democratic principles "is something ultimately for the Iranian people to decide," he told reporters at the White House.

June 13th, 2009 LONDON - A British defence expert has warned the UK police and MI5 to get ready to counter a new generation of home-grown Jihadis.ichael Clarke, director of the defence think tank, the Royal United Services Institute, warned that violent Islamic terrorists intent on murdering people in high-profile outrages "will not wither away". "The phenomenon will not wither away in the near future: it is likely to be generational.

June 13th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - Pakistan has hiked its defence spending for fiscal 2009-10 to Rs.347 billion ($4 billion) in the budget presented in parliament Saturday. Of this, Rs.343 billion has been allocated for the armed forces, Rs.463 million for defence production and Rs.840 million for the defence division, Minister of State for Finance Hina Rabbani Khar said while delivering the first budget speech by a woman in Pakistan's history.

June 10th, 2009 WASHINGTON - US Defence Secretary Robert Gates wants Congress' support for 700 million dollars for the Pakistan Counter-insurgency Capability Fund (PCCF) for 2010, as part of a massive 130 billion dollars request for overseas contingency operations for Afghanistan and Iraq wars. "This programme will be carried out with the concurrence of the Secretary of State and will complement existing and planned State Department efforts by allowing the CENTCOM commander to work with Pakistan's military to build counterinsurgency capability," he said.

May 30th, 2009 LAHORE - Dismissing America's fears about Pakistan nukes falling into the Taliban's hands, the Pakistan Army has asked the United States to focus more on the weapons that the allied forces have lost in the war against terror in Afghanistan. In an interview to a private television channel, the ISPR spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said that a large quantity of the arms and ammunition being used by the Taliban in the country are coming from Afghanistan, and the United States should pay attention to this rather than expressing concerns over the safety of Pakistan's nuclear assets.

May 28th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Former President Reagan's defence adviser and author of Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe, Graham Allison, has warned the North Koreans of the consequences they face should they consider firing a nuclear missile - or selling nukes to terrorists. According to Allison, if North Korea's next act goes beyond launching another long-range missile, or conducting a nuclear weapons test, it could expect an overwhelming retaliatory strike.

May 23rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Pakistan has said that it is ready to phase out its nuclear weapons if India too agrees to do the same. Terming Pakistan's nuclear arsenal as a 'deterrent' against India, Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States, Hussain Haqqani said Islamabad is willing to ink an accord with New Delhi in order to destroy the nukes possessed by the two neighboring countries.

May 7th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - The Pakistan Foreign Office on Thursday rubbished reports that Islamabad has shared information about its nukes with US authorities. Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit told reporters here that information about Pakistan's nukes is sacrosanct and could not be shared with any other country.