Pakistan’s nuclear journey

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Revisiting Pakistan’s Nuclear Restraint





Pakistan's prominent scientists Dr. Samar Mubarak (R) and Dr. Ishfaq Ahmed (L), chairman of country's Atomic Energy Commission, stands in front of a hill under which Pakistan conducted its five nuclear tests, along with minister of information Mushahid Hussain, 29 June.
Pakistan tested its six nuclear devices on 28 and 30 May simultaneously in Chaghi district of southwestern Baluchistan province. AFP

Mansoor Ahmed

State behavior is largely a product of rational decision-making based on a careful cost-benefit analysis. Countries pursuing crash covert nuclear weapon programs are less likely to remain sensitive to the opportunity cost on the potential spin offs offered by a parallel atomic energy program for peaceful purposes. Yet the Atoms for Peace spirit has been kept alive in South Asia where India and Pakistan developed nuclear weapons capability on the heels of peaceful energy programs.

Supply side constraints notwithstanding, Pakistan’s strategic enclave—comprising technocrats, scientists and engineers heading key national institutions responsible for the nuclear program, and civilian and -military policy makers together made conscious choices to honor international agreements, commitments and obligations. On the twentieth anniversary of the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests, it will be useful to look back at Pakistan’s track record in terms of restraint and responsibility as a state actor.

The first test of the country’s commitment to responsible behavior presented itself when in December 1976 Canada decided to impose penalties on Pakistan for India’s 1974 nuclear test. Canada not only unilaterally cut off supplies of nuclear fuel, heavy water and spare parts for the CANDU type Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP) but demanded that Pakistan sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty or accept full scope safeguards for its entire nuclear program.
Pakistani engineers took up the challenge and within two years the Chairman of PAEC presented the first fuel element for KANUPP to the President of Pakistan. An indigenous fuel fabrication plant was completed and within four years of the cut off, locally manufactured nuclear fuel began fueling the country’s only power reactor.

KANUPP was under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency and although Pakistan began using its own nuclear fuel, it voluntarily opted to indefinitely keep it under safeguards—even as it was a ready source of plutonium when Pakistan was developing fuel cycle facilities outside safeguards for its weapons program and had yet to produce the first significant quantity of fissile material. Pakistan also only commissioned its New Labs pilot reprocessing plant, which had been completed by the early 1980s, until after it began to produce safeguards-free spent fuel from the heavy water Khushab reactor.

From a nonproliferation standpoint, it was in stark contrast with India that diverted spent fuel from the Canadian supplied CIRUS research reactor to produce plutonium for its 1974 test for which heavy water had been supplied by the United States. While Pakistan was struggling to keep the Karachi power reactor alive despite formidable challenges due to abrupt cut off of critical vendor support, its nuclear energy program became the victim of the nonproliferation policies of the Ford and Carter Administrations.

In March 1976, the IAEA approved the safeguards for the Franco-Pakistan contract for construction of a commercial-scale reprocessing plant to be built at Chashma. This was intended to service a complex of six Light Water Reactors (totaling 4000 MWe) to be built at the same site as per a long-term nuclear energy plan duly endorsed by the IAEA in 1973. All these plants were to be under IAEA safeguards.

However, France unilaterally cancelled the agreement in 1978 in the wake of a sustained US effort to deny European supplies of sensitive fuel cycle technologies to Pakistan, Brazil and South Korea. Pakistan for its part had agreed to unprecedented and comprehensive safeguards and restrictions to address French nonproliferation concerns to show its commitment to strictly employ the plant in its peaceful nuclear energy program—particularly when it did not require such a large facility for its weapons program in the presence of an indigenous plant outside safeguards. Tied to this was the potential sale of a 600 MWe French power reactor to Pakistan which was approved by ECNEC in March 1976 which also failed to materialize. It took a decade of fruitless efforts before Pakistan and China signed a comprehensive civil nuclear cooperation agreement in September 1986 which paved the way for four power reactors to be built at Chashma—all under IAEA safeguards.

The 1986 Sino-Pakistan civil nuclear deal also effectively broke an international power reactor embargo on Pakistan as it was known to be pursuing the nuclear option. Despite completing indigenous fuel cycle facilities by the early 1980s and cold test of a working nuclear device in March 1983, Pakistan did not conduct a hot nuclear test until after it had to restore the regional strategic balance following India’s May 1998 tests. The United States had asked Pakistan to cap the level of uranium enriched to below 5% as a pre-condition for continuing economic and military assistance.

The civil-military and scientific leadership together decided to do just that in 1989 and the freeze was voluntarily retained for several years—even after the Pressler Amendment was invoked in October 1990. This is comparable to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action reached between Iran and the United States which allowed Iran some sanctions relief in exchange of capping its enrichment program. Previously Pakistan was rewarded with the Pressler sanctions in exchange of self-restraint without reaping any commensurate economic, political or military benefits. Looking back, a familiar pattern is clearly evident in the way Pakistani leaders have been unable or unwilling to bargain for dividends in lieu of unilateral concessions.

Although the Pressler Amendment had no impact on Pakistan’s nuclear development and by the time it was enforced, Pakistan had already achieved nuclear capability. It did however adversely impact the operational preparedness of the Pakistan Air Force and the country’s conventional defense posture for a long time by preventing further sales of F-16s and other US-origin platforms for the Navy.


During this time, Pakistan continued to produce low enriched uranium—which can be quickly upgraded to weapon-grade levels. Meanwhile as soon as safeguards-free spent fuel began to be produced in its indigenous plutonium production reactor at Khushab—which was commissioned in early 1998—Pakistan began reprocessing at New Labs that was kept dormant since 1981, primarily for diplomatic and political reasons. Pakistan was therefore theoretically and technically in possession of a breakout capacity to produce plutonium in the early 1980s—although only if it had followed India’s pathway of diverting fuel from a peaceful facility—and in doing so would have violated its own pledge to retain safeguards on fuel which it was producing on its own.

Equally significant is the fact that it has kept a clear, verifiable and distinct separation of its civil and military nuclear plants and facilities wherein all foreign supplied power reactors are under IAEA safeguards without any overlaps between civilian and military programs or projects.

In this hand out picture released by the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) on February 13, 2008, Pakistani caretaker Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro (C-L) and Army Chief Ashfaq Kayani (C) stand with officials in front of the Hatf III (Ghaznavi), a short-range nuclear-capable ballistic missile before it was fired from an undisclosed location. Pakistani troops fired a short-range nuclear-capable ballistic missile during exercises on February 13 in the third such training launch in as many weeks, the army said. AFP


Since then, Pakistan—as a state party—has comprehensively plugged loopholes in its export controls. It has refrained from pursuing force goals or military programs for power projection beyond its immediate neighborhood. This includes a thermonuclear weapons development effort, nuclear submarines or aircraft carriers, ICBM-range ballistic missiles, or military space programs. While one might argue that this is partly imposed by resource or technological constraints, yet some of these capabilities—such as thermonuclear weapons or long-range missiles are well within the technical competence of Pakistan’s scientists and engineers.

Pakistan had proposed to make South Asia a nuclear weapon free zone, before and after India’s 1974 test, and has recently offered India a bilateral moratorium on nuclear testing—which has also been rejected.

The growing asymmetry in national power, conventional and strategic capabilities with India will ensure that Pakistan is only able and willing to pursue force goals consistent with maintaining a semblance of a strategic balance in South Asia.

Given that Pakistan’s deterrence posture emphasizes the primacy of a credible deterrent, nevertheless elements of minimalism and dynamism are driven by a rational calculation of the country’s choices and needs and the balance between pursuing economic development, developing conventional deterrence and harnessing the peaceful uses of the atom.

 

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Developing a Plutonium-Separation Capability

Pakistani efforts to build a plutonium separation plant started in the early 1970s, when it started soliciting European firms for bids to build a reprocessing plant. In 1973/1974, France agreed to supply this first reprocessing plant but ended the contract in 1978 following strong U.S. government objections that the plant could contribute to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program.

1 Pakistan stated that the plant would reprocess irradiated fuel from its safeguarded heavy water, natural uranium fuelled nuclear power reactor in Karachi, known by its acronym KANUPP. This reactor was producing approximately 100 tons of spent fuel per year and the reprocessing plant was sized to process 100 tonnes of natural uranium fuel per year.

2 At the time, KANUPP was Pakistan’s only reactor producing significant amounts of plutonium. However, faced with growing concerns that the plutonium separation plant would contribute to Pakistan’s effort to make nuclear weapons, France reneged on the contract long before the plant was completed.

By 1978, when the contract was cancelled, Pakistan was building the main reprocessing building, although no major plutonium-separation equipment had yet been supplied or installed inside the building. Pakistan’s efforts to find another supplier failed. One person, whose company was approached to finish the plant, saw the inside of the main building at the time and described it as being in a state of ruin and far from complete.3 The partially completed buildings remained dormant for many years.

In the meantime, Pakistan started building a smaller plutonium separation plant, called the New Labs facility, at PINSTECH located at Rawalpindi, near Islamabad. This facility had a capacity of about one-tenth that of the unfinished plutonium separation plant. Nonetheless, New Labs was capable of separating the plutonium from the irradiated nuclear fuel produced at the first Khushab heavy water reactor which went critical in April 1998 and has a power roughly one-tenth that of KANUPP.

In the early 2000s, Pakistan started building additional Khushab reactors, adding three reactors in total. In the 2000s, Pakistan added a new building at New Labs, which appears also to be for plutonium separation and to have at least doubled the site’s annual capacity to process spent fuel. But the New Labs facility is not believed to be large enough to handle all the irradiated fuel from the four Khushab reactors, which have become operational in the last several years.4 As a result, Pakistan is believed to have resumed construction of the old reprocessing plant at Chashma more than a decade ago. Although it must build this plant on its own, Pakistan likely has depended on illegal procurements from abroad to obtain all the equipment, materials, and know-how to build the plant.

Pakistan was helped in this effort by the original French contracts. By the time France cancelled the contracts in 1978, the French company had already transferred to Pakistan a substantial amount of design information for the plant. This technical information formed the basis for construction to resume many years later, supplemented by many overseas illegal procurements and possibly with secret aid from China.5

Chashma Plutonium Separation Plant

In 2007, ISIS located a tall building in a site southwest of the Chashma Nuclear Power Complex, which is the location of Chinese-supplied nuclear power reactors. The site had experienced a large amount of renewed construction after 2000, when it appeared largely overgrown, without any construction activity. Between 2002 and 2005, a considerable amount of construction had taken place at this adjacent site. A pond was excavated and filled, roads were created and subsequently paved, new buildings were constructed and other areas were cleared.

The 2007 ISIS report assessed that this tall building could be the original Chashma plutonium separation plant.6 Subsequently, the Pakistani government provided no confirmation that this site houses a plutonium separation plant. However, this tall building is increasingly assessed as a plutonium separation plant. Moreover, Chashma is accepted publicly as a location of a plutonium separation plant, including by a former Pakistani official.7 The tall building at the Chashma site is the best candidate for this plant.

This building has several signatures that suggest a plutonium separation plant. The building is windowless and appears to be made out of concrete. It has a tall stack adjacent to the building, which could be for the expulsion of fission product gases resulting from chemical processes, for example radioactive iodine and noble gases.

Second, two of three rail lines nearby led directly into this the large building. In 2007, ISIS noted that these two rail lines, which appeared defunct because portions of the track were missing, may have been intended to transport spent fuel from the KANUPP reactor in Karachi to this building.8 Third, imagery from 2002 shows a series of trenches indicating the movement of liquids (potentially liquid radioactive waste) between buildings through underground pipes. However, in 2005 most of these trenches had been covered.9

In 2010, ISIS highlighted that construction activity appeared to be continuing in this section of the site. More recent imagery (figures 2 and 3) shows that a large size building with a stack has been built to the east of the main large building, possibly a waste handling facility. The three railroad lines are still visible and so are the pools (which are full of liquid). New areas have been cleared to the north, and one new auxiliary building and two foundations for possible new buildings were constructed south of the main building. Another noticeable change compared to previous imagery relates to the security of the facility: a second security perimeter has been added (surrounding the first one).

In conclusion, the large size and details of the two main buildings, the physical security, the continued presence of at least one rail line leading up to the main building, the adjacent tall stacks beside both buildings, and the past system of trenches among the buildings are all signatures of a reprocessing facility.

However, other signatures of a reprocessing facility (thick wall shielding and individual cells inside the building) could not be seen because the imagery available to ISIS covers the period after the roof was placed on the tall building. The operational status of this likely plutonium separation plant is unclear in the recent imagery. However, the buildings look increasingly completed externally, suggesting it could potentially be operational or ready for operation.

 

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Chashma Nuclear Power Reactors

The site is also the location of the Chashma Nuclear Power Complex. This site holds four safeguarded nuclear power plants supplied by China, known as Chasnupp 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Two reactors are operational and the other two are under construction. Between March 2010 and August 2011 Pakistan initiated the construction of Chasnupp 3 and 4 east of the first two reactors (left side in figure 4).

By December 2013, the reactor roof had been placed on Chasnupp 3, while the roof of the Chasnupp 4 reactor building remained on the ground near the reactor. As of February 2015, Chasnupp 3 appears externally complete. Also Chasnupp 4’s reactor roof has been applied but external construction is still ongoing. The layout of the four reactors is very similar.

Nearby is also the Kundian fuel fabrication facility. This facility has made fuel for the Karachi nuclear power plant, called by its acronym KANUPP (see figure 1).

Figure 1. Digital Globe imagery showing the status of several nuclear sites near Chashma on December 14, 2013.

Figure 2. Digital Globe imagery showing the likely reprocessing facility at Chashma on December 14, 2013.

Figure 3. Digital Globe imagery showing a close-up of the likely reprocessing facility at Chashma on January 24, 2015.

Figure 4. Digital Globe imagery showing the four Chasnupp power reactors at the Chashma Nuclear Power Complex on December 14, 2013 and February 1, 2015.

 

[ghazi52]

First Nuclear Power Plant -1 Karachi, 1974

 

[khansaheeb]

Establishing a Nuclear Program:

1956 to 1974

Pakistan asserts the origin of its nuclear weapons program lies in its adversarial relationship with India; the two countries have engaged in several conflicts, centered mainly on the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan began working on a nuclear program in the late 1950s and the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) was established in 1956. President Z.A. Bhutto forcefully advocated the nuclear option and famously said in 1965 that "if India builds the bomb, we will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own." After Pakistan’s defeat in the December 1971 conflict with India, Bhutto issued a directive instructing the country's nuclear establishment to build a nuclear device within three years. Although the PAEC had already created a taskforce to work on a nuclear weapon in March 1974, India’s first test of a nuclear bomb in May 1974 played a significant role in motivating Pakistan to build its own.


A.Q. Khan's Contribution:
1975 to 1998

The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, headed by Munir Ahmad Khan, focused on the plutonium route to nuclear weapons development using material from the safeguarded Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP), but its progress was inefficient due to the constraints of nuclear export controls applied in the wake of India's nuclear test. Around 1975, A.Q. Khan, a metallurgist working at a subsidiary of the URENCO enrichment corporation in the Netherlands, returned to Pakistan to help his country develop a uranium enrichment program. Having brought centrifuge designs and business contacts back with him to Pakistan, Khan used various tactics, such as buying individual components rather than complete units, to evade export controls and acquire the necessary equipment. By the early 1980s, Pakistan had a clandestine uranium enrichment facility, and A.Q. Khan would later assert that the country had acquired the capability to assemble a first-generation nuclear device as early as 1984.

Pakistan also received assistance from other states, especially China. Beginning in the late 1970s China provided Pakistan with various levels of nuclear and missile-related assistance, including centrifuge equipment, warhead designs, HEU, components of various missile systems, and technical expertise. Eventually, from the 1980s onwards, the Khan network diversified its activities and illicitly transferred nuclear technology and expertise to Iran, North Korea, and Libya. The Khan network was officially dismantled in 2004, although questions remain concerning the extent of the Pakistani political and military establishment's involvement in the network's activities.


Pakistan After Nuclear Tests:

1998 to 2007

On 11 and 13 May 1998, India conducted a total of five nuclear explosions, after which Pakistan felt pressured to respond to in kind. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif decided to test, and Pakistan detonated five explosions on 28 May and a sixth on 30 May 1998. With these tests Pakistan abandoned its nuclear ambiguity and stated that it would maintain a "credible minimum deterrent" against India. In 1998, Pakistan commissioned its first plutonium production reactor at Khushab, which was capable of producing approximately 11 kg of weapons-grade plutonium annually.

Pakistan does not have a formally declared nuclear doctrine, so it remains unclear under what conditions Pakistan might use nuclear weapons. In 2002, President Pervez Musharraf stated that, "nuclear weapons are aimed solely at India," and would only be used if "the very existence of Pakistan as a state" was at stake. Lieutenant General Khalid Kidwai, the Director General of Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division that acts as a secretariat for the Nuclear Command Authority of Pakistan further elaborated that this could include Indian conquest of Pakistan's territory or military, "economic strangling," or "domestic destabilization."

Historically, the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons has been of significant concern to the international community. Taliban-linked groups have successfully attacked tightly guarded government and military targets in the country. Militants carried out small-scale attacks outside the Minhas (Kamra) Air Force Base in 2007, 2008, and 2009 but Pakistani officials repeatedly deny that the base is used to store nuclear weapons.
Al-Qaeda’s Abu Yahya al-Libi had also called for attacks on Pakistani nuclear facilities. Such developments increased the likelihood of scenarios in which Pakistan's nuclear security could be put at risk. Nevertheless, Pakistan has consistently asserted that it had control over its nuclear weapons, and that it was impossible for groups such as the Taliban or proliferation networks to gain access to the country's nuclear facilities or weapons. Consequently, Pakistan took measures to strengthen the security of its nuclear weapons and installations and to improve its nuclear command and control system.

The National Command Authority (NCA), composed of key civilian and military leaders, is the main supervisory and policy-making body controlling Pakistan's nuclear weapons, and maintains ultimate authority on their use. In November 2009, then-Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari transferred his role as head of the National Command Authority to the Prime Minister, Yusuf Gilani.


Pakistan and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Community:
2008 to Present

Pakistan was critical of the U.S.-India nuclear cooperation agreement that was signed in 2008, but has also periodically sought a similar arrangement for itself. In 2008, Pakistan pushed for a criteria-based exemption to the rules of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which unlike the country-based exception benefiting only India could have made Pakistan eligible for nuclear cooperation with NSG members. Despite its reservations about the India special exception, Pakistan joined other members of the Board of Governors in approving India's safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in August 2008.

In response to the U.S.-India deal, Pakistan sought to increase its civilian nuclear cooperation with China. Under a previous cooperation framework, China supplied Pakistan with two pressurized water reactors (PWR), CHASNUPP-1 and CHASNUPP-2, that entered into commercial operations in 2000 and 2011 respectively. In 2009, China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) agreed to supply two additional 340-MW power reactors to Pakistan, CHASNUPP-3 and CHASNUPP-4. The United States voiced concerns regarding Chinese construction of these nuclear reactors at Chashma, arguing that China was violating its commitments as a Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) member by constructing these additional nuclear reactors. According to a report by Arms Control Association, China should have asked for an exemption from the NSG to build additional reactors because Pakistan is neither a member of the NPT nor under full-scope IAEA safeguards. [29] However, China has argued that it has no obligation to do so because the reactor transfer was based on a contract negotiated in 2003 and grandfathered in when China joined the NSG in 2004.

Pakistan has also strengthened its personnel reliability program (PRP) to prevent radicalized individuals from infiltrating the nuclear program, although various experts believe that potential gaps still exist. Satellite imagery also shows increased security features around Khushab-4. The United States has provided various levels of assistance to Pakistan to strengthen the security of its nuclear program.

If Pakistan was not a signatory to the NPT then why is the sale or transfer of Nuke tech illicit?- '" Khan network diversified its activities and illicitly transferred nuclear technology and expertise to Iran, North Korea, and Libya. "

 

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[ghazi52]

Center of Importance in Pakistan History.

 

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India, Pakistan, China appear to be expanding nuclear arsenals: Swedish think tank


A study by Swedish think tank SIPRI revealed that India has 150 nuclear warheads, while China and Pakistan had 320 and 160 respectively, as of January 2020.

PTI
15 June, 2021

Construction takes place at the China Guangdong nuclear plant | Representational Image | Photographer: Qilai Shen | Bloomberg

New Delhi: China, Pakistan and India have 350, 165 and 156 nuclear warheads respectively as of January this year and the three countries appear to be expanding their nuclear arsenals, a study by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has said.

It also said as per its assessment, Russia and the US together possess over 90 percent of the estimated 13,080 global nuclear weapons.

China, Pakistan and India had 320, 160 and 150 nuclear warheads respectively as of January last year, the SIPRI’s study said on Monday.

There are nine countries in the world that have nuclear weapons: the US, Russia, the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.

“China is in the middle of a significant modernisation and expansion of its nuclear weapon inventory, and India and Pakistan also appear to be expanding their nuclear arsenals,” the study said.

It has been more than a year since the military standoff between the armies of India and China erupted in eastern Ladakh on May 5, 2020, during which there were fatalities on both sides for the first time in 45 years.

India and China have made limited progress in achieving disengagement at the Pangong lake area while negotiations for similar steps at other friction points remained deadlocked.

India and Pakistan had on February 25 this year released a joint statement announcing a ceasefire along the Line of Control, following talks between their Directors General of Military Operations.

The SIPRI’s study also talked about the fissile raw material stocks that the countries have for their nuclear weapons.

“The raw material for nuclear weapons is fissile material, either highly enriched uranium (HEU) or separated plutonium…India and Israel have produced mainly plutonium, and Pakistan has produced mainly HEU but is increasing its ability to produce plutonium,” it said.

China, France, Russia, the UK and the US have produced both HEU and plutonium for use in their nuclear weapons, the study mentioned.

“The governments of India and Pakistan make statements about some of their missile tests but provide no information about the status or size of their (nuclear) arsenals,” it noted.
Approximately 2,000 of the total 13,080 global nuclear warheads in the world are “kept in a state of high operational alert”, said the study mentioned in the SIPRI Yearbook 2021.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

In 1972, Bhutto held a meeting with key officials in Multan and ordered them to build a nuclear bomb. He appointed his friend and fellow member of the so-called bomb lobby, Munir Ahmed Khan the new chairman of PAEC. This meeting set the future direction of Pakistan’s nuclear programme.

Say what you want but nothing will ever diminsh the fact that Bhutto is the father of the Pakistan atomb bomb. It is unfortunate that history has been distorted to reduce or fudge this fact. Thank you Mr Bhutto. 220 million Pakistani's sleep in comfort from the 1.4 billion horde across the border.

 

[ghazi52]

Say what you want but nothing will ever diminsh the fact that Bhutto is the father of the Pakistan atomb bomb. It is unfortunate that history has been distorted to reduce or fudge this fact. Thank you Mr Bhutto. 220 million Pakistani's sleep in comfort from the 1.4 billion horde across the border.

View attachment 754333

He is the pioneer . No doubt about it. Brave man.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

He is the pioneer . No doubt about it. Brave man.

You know my dad got caught in the tidal wave set off by Bhutto and he actually got to meet Bhutto in 1970 on a visit to UK. For all his flaws and he had plenty he is the man behind the atom bomb. Even when he was in Ayub's cabinet Bhutto tried to get the President along with Dr Salam to give go ahead but he refused. But 1960s was when the seeds were planted. Bhutto soon after taking over assembled his people and said in blunt terms "I want the bomb". And they all got busy. By 1980 I actually remember like yesterday watching a BBC documentary "Project 706: The Islamic bomb". It was quite clear Pakistan had already achieved it's goal. Since Zia had only taken over barely two years before we can see who was the father of the bomb.

I am convinced that 1978 coup was made possible by USA. Washington despised Bhutto. The tragedy is his daughter ruined her dad's legacy. She was not particularly smart like her dad. I think her brother Murteza had got his fathers political genius but it was wasted. Bhutto will be turning in his grave to know that along came a street hustler like Zardari and turned his legacy into a money making racket.

 

[ghazi52]

IAEA awards Pakistani nuclear institution, scientists

Dawn.com
June 24, 2021

The logo of the International Atomic Energy Agency is seen at their headquarters. — Reuters/File



The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) have jointly conferred awards on Pakistan’s Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology (NIAB) and five of the country's scientists, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The statement, issued on Wednesday, says the NIAB and the scientists have been given the awards in recognition of "Pakistan’s advancement in the application of nuclear technology for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals, including food security".

Among the Pakistani recipients of the awards, the NIAB has bagged the Outstanding Achievement Award, a group of four scientists in the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) has bagged the Team Achievement Award and another PAEC scientist has been given the Young Scientist Award for his work in plant mutation breeding and related technologies, the statement adds.

Award certificates will be presented to the recipients during the IAEA’s 65th General Conference in September 2021.

"Extensive civilian nuclear applications in Pakistan are directly contributing to the well-being of the people and national development in the areas of public health, medicine, agriculture, industry and nuclear power generation," the Foreign Office said in the statement.

 

[ghazi52]

Eric Gordon Hall HJ SJ HI (12 October 1922 – 17 June 1998)

He was a Pakistani fighter and bomber pilot, and former Director-General of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). A two-star general in the Pakistan Air Force, Hall had served as the Vice Chief of Air Staff and was one of the most distinguished pilots belonging to the Christian minority who had participated in all of the major India−Pakistan wars, most notably the First Kashmir War, the Second Kashmir War and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

He had also served as the Director-General of the Pakistan Air Force's Air Force Science Research Laboratories (AFSRL) where he led atomic weapons research efforts as part of Pakistan's nuclear technology project.

 

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Defence Science & Technology Organization (DESTO)

DESTO was established in 1963 by the Ministry of Defence on the recommendation adopted from the National Science Commission. The DESTO was established in a view of avoiding any technological surprise from India. Since its foundation, scientists at DESTO reportedly started studying the Wind tunnel and the applications of the fluid dynamics; its contribution in the field of research and development is significant. During this time, DESTO began its secret programme on developing the rocket propelled 120-mm caliber high explosive mortar ammunition, variable time fuze, and free flight rockets.

Its further programmes included the evaluation and reverse engineering of the foreign technology for the use of by the military. DESTO conducts research and development on weapon systems, military technologies, and renders technical advice on weapons–related technological issues to the government.

DESTO retains its expertise on variety of disciplines such as aerodynamics, propulsion, electronics, computer systems, engineering, explosives, metallurgy, chemical and biological defence.

Since 2001, DESTO's multi-disciplinary infrastructure base is now available to public sector industry under commercial arrangements. Projects and research work at DESTO remains under strict secrecy and very few details of the projects are known to the public.

Involvement in nuclear weapons

By the early 1970s, DESTO maintained its classified projects towards the Wind tunnels and successfully reverse engineered its own version of the wind tunnel in 1974 roughly based on Dutch firm, the Stork-Werkspoor. Following the surprise nuclear test, Smiling Buddha, by India in 1974, PAEC chair Munir Ahmad Khan and Abdus Salam chaired a meeting with the officials of DESTO over the technological surprise of India.

Zaman Sheikh—a chemical engineer from DESTO—was tasked to developed chemical explosive lenses, tampers, and triggering mechanized system, necessary in the technology of the fission weapon together with Hafeez Qureshi—a mechanical engineer. The codename for this project was Wah Group Scientists (WGS), and the work was done in the Metallurgical Laboratory at the Wah Cantonment in 1978.

Later, it was renamed as Directorate for Technical Development (DTD), and was charged with the design testings of the weapons. After Pakistan conducted nuclear tests—codename: Chagai-I and Chagai-II—in May 1998, the United States Government identified and sanctioned DESTO for involvement in Pakistan's nuclear and missile programmes. The exact details of the work and contribution to missile systems remains under strict secrecy.

However, after Pakistan's heavy contribution on war on terror, the American government uplifted the sanctions on DESTO.

 

[ghazi52]

Under construction at Karachi 2021

Karachi nuclear power plant’s new units and reactor design details

Kanupp-2 and Kanupp-3 will each consist of a nuclear island, conventional island and balance of plant.

Each nuclear island will house a Hualong One or HPR1000 (formerly ACP-1000) reactor from China.

“Reactor units will have a design life of 60 years and account for approximately 10% of the country’s total generation capacity.”

HPR1000 is a generation III+ three-loop PWR based on the design improvements over the China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN)’s ACPR-1000 and China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC)’s ACP-1000 reactor models. All the six main pumps of the nuclear reactors were approved by March 2020.