Nuclear Tests

Less than 24 hours before Pakistan conducted its first nuclear test last week, Pakistani diplomats in the United States accused Israel of planning a preemptive strike to destroy its nuclear capability. The accusation triggered a flurry of diplomatic activity the afternoon of May 27 as the Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations called U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to say Pakistan feared an imminent air strike. Through intermediaries, Israel's U.N. envoy relayed an unequivocal denial.

First India tested five nuclear bombs over three days, triggering national celebrations. Then Pakistan said it tested five bombs on Thursday and added another Saturday, when its foreign minister boasted that Pakistan had seized an advantage. "The people of Pakistan should be feeling very proud that in the subcontinent that they have an upper edge," said Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub Khan. "They can be proud of the fact that the strategic and military balance that had been tilted is now in favor of Pakistan.

Rejecting international pleas and pressure, Pakistan yesterday responded to archrival India's five nuclear tests earlier this month with five underground explosions of its own. Pakistan further raised the stakes in the perilous South Asia arms race by announcing that it is capping its arsenal of Ghauri missiles with nuclear warheads. With a range of 900 miles, the missiles are capable of striking most cities in India. "Today, we have settled the score with India," Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said in a nationwide address, as many of Pakistan's 140 million people celebrated in the streets.

Soon after Pakistan detonated five nuclear test bombs yesterday morning, Aruna Shenoy of Chester County sent off a verbal missile of her own - an e-mail response to a man who had suggested Pakistan should share its nuclear technology with other Islamic nations. Her note landed on an Internet message board. "I told him that's not right," said Shenoy, an Indian dental hygienist in Frazer. "This is not a Muslim-Hindu issue or a Hindu-Christian issue. " Meanwhile, in Staten Island, Nasir Usmani, a Pakistani computer consultant, recently sparred on an Internet chat session, arguing that U.S. sanctions on India for its nuclear tests earlier this month were "peanuts" and that those explosions threatened South Asia's stability.

Indian lawmakers in New Delhi were debating India's recent nuclear tests yesterday when news reached Parliament that neighboring Pakistan had tested five nuclear bombs of its own. The lower house of Parliament erupted with shouts and jeers. A stone-faced Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee leaped to his feet and exclaimed that the Pakistani tests justified India's decision to test five nuclear bombs earlier this month. "We had apprehensions about this," Vajpayee told legislators, some of whom angrily accused the government of setting off a nuclear arms race on the subcontinent.

Pakistan said yesterday that it had conducted five underground nuclear tests, accelerating a nuclear arms race in South Asia, further undermining worldwide efforts to curb weapons of mass destruction, and triggering a swift American response. Pakistan further raised the stakes on the tense subcontinent by announcing that it intended to cap its arsenal of Ghauri missiles with nuclear warheads. With a range of 900 miles, the missiles are capable of striking most cities in India. Following the announcement here, President Clinton quickly punished the Pakistanis by imposing broad economic sanctions, and urged India and Pakistan to halt further testing to avert a dangerous arms race.

NEW DELHI, India Pakistan accused of military fire India accused Pakistan yesterday of firing artillery, mortars and guns across their border to cover up the movement of militants into India's Kashmir province. Pakistan denied the charge. Cross-border tensions have been rising all week following India's underground nuclear tests, which has Pakistan weighing whether to respond with nuclear tests of its own. After the defense minister of India's new Hindu-led government leveled the charges against Pakistan yesterday, a top aide to the Indian prime minister said his boss was hoping for talks with his Pakistani counterpart to defuse the tensions.

Suddenly, America has a new international enemy. It's not Saddam or the mullahs. It's not a dictatorship or a rogue state. The new public enemy number one - to judge from media commentary - is the world's largest democracy: India. Or, as President Bush's former national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, calls it, "the world's most dangerous democracy. " These labels are a case of angry emotions drowning out common sense. India's crime is that its Hindu nationalist government just conducted five nuclear tests, threatening to destroy U.S. and global efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons.

Pakistan said yesterday that India's crackdown in a border province between the two rival nations amounted to a "direct military threat. " The declaration heightened fears of conflict in the days after India's nuclear tests. "Without any doubt, we are sitting on top of a volcano, the biggest flash point for a conflagration because of one regime's madness," Pakistani Information Minister Mushahid Hussein said, citing India's "saber rattling and brandishing of the nuclear sword. " India's hard-line home minister, Lal Krishna Advani, said Monday that his country wanted to provide better weapons to its forces in India's part of Kashmir.

Some American scientists, puzzled that India's recent nuclear tests failed to produce the seismic rumbles expected from blasts as big as the Indian government claimed they were, are skeptical that India actually tested a hydrogen bomb. Only one of the five tests last week registered on seismometers - a May 11 blast that geologists estimate released the equivalent of 15,000 to 25,000 tons of TNT. This falls significantly short of the claimed yield of 43,000 tons of TNT, released by what Indian scientists said was a hydrogen bomb.