Majority Of Afghan Refugees In Pakistan Unwilling To Return

 

ISLAMABAD -- More than 1.6 million Afghan refugees registered in Pakistan are due to be repatriated by the end of the year.

But with just three weeks to go, a recent United Nations survey found that roughly 80 percent have no intention of returning to Afghanistan.

According to the survey, most Afghan families living in Pakistan feel Afghanistan is just not safe enough to go back home. Others cited the inability to earn a living and the lack of anywhere to live in their native country.

Pakistani Minister for States and Frontier Regions Shaukat Ullah acknowledges the challenges involved in convincing refugees to return to their country after decades of living in Pakistan.

"After 32 years if a person is returning from a country where he has been born and he is going to a country like Afghanistan they will think 100 times," Ullah says.

Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in the 1990s, Pakistan has hosted one of the largest refugee populations in the world. Some 3.8 million refugees have crossed back over the border into Afghanistan.

The UNHCR has offered plastic buckets, soap, blankets, cash, and a one-way ticket for those still living in Pakistan, and succeeded in encouraging another 72,000 people to return to Afghanistan this year.

But there are still 1.6 million official Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

UNHCR representative Neill Wright says that organization is waiting to hear what Pakistan has planned for these refugees after the December 31 deadline.

"I know that the government is very actively engaged in considering what its policy will be in terms of the management of Afghan refugees in 2013, and in terms of supporting this continued partnership that we have with Afghanistan over voluntary repatriation, and I look forward to hearing what that strategy will be," Wright says.

Responding to concerns that there will be another wave of refugees from Afghanistan after international combat forces leave the country in 2014, Wright says contingency plans are under consideration.

"This is clearly an issue that I am involved in discussions with many people, senior politicians, people in Afghanistan, members of the international community," Wright says. "Of course, when you do contingency planning, you look at a worst case scenario and you look at a best case scenario, and if you are sensible you will probably look at something in the middle."

He declines to give any further details.

Many Afghan refugees live in very poor conditions in Pakistan.

According to the UNHCR, less than one-quarter of them work, and almost three-quarters of Afghan children are not going to school.

Russia To Finance Vietnam's First Nuclear Power Plant

 

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has announced that Russia is to lend Vietnam some $10 billion to build that country's first nuclear power plant.

Medvedev made the announcement on a visit to Hanoi where he is holding talks on boosting trade ties.

Medvedev also said the two countries have decided to start negotiations on a free trade agreement.

He said bilateral trade could reach $7 billion by 2015, up from less some $2 billion in 2011.

Medvedev also called for increased cooperation in oil and gas exploration, including more joint investment among the countries' energy companies.

Medvedev arrived in Hanoi from neighboring Laos where he attended a regional Asia-Europe meeting.

Russia, China Sign Deal For Nuclear Power Plants

 

Russian and Chinese officials have signed a protocol on construction of two more reactors for a Chinese nuclear power plant and discussed the possibility of building floating nuclear power plants.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao, signed the protocol on construction of the third and fourth units for China's Tianwan nuclear power plant in Moscow on December 6.

Russia's state nuclear company, Rosatom, built the first two units for Tianwan.

Rosatom chief Sergei Kiriyenko said his company should have the new reactors ready to launch in 2017 and start operations in 2018.

The two sides also discussed China's plans to add four more units to the Tianwan plant.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said his country was ready to build floating nuclear power plants for China.

Pakistan Test Fires Nuclear-Capable Ballistic Missile

 

Pakistan's military says it has successfully test-fired a medium-range ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

A military statement said the Hatf V Ghauri missile was launched on November 28 from an undisclosed location.

It says the missile can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads over a distance of 1,300 kilometers.

Pakistan became a declared nuclear power in 1998 when it carried out its first underground nuclear tests in response to nuclear tests carried out by its neighbor and rival, India.

Since then the two countries have regularly carried out missile tests.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir.

Pakistan rapidly developing its nuclear arsenal

Estimated to have more nuclear weapons than India, Pakistan is rapidly developing and expanding its atomic arsenal, spending about $ 2.5 billion a year to develop such weapons, a report has said.

“Pakistan has been rapidly developing and expanding its nuclear arsenal, increasing its capacity to produce plutonium, and testing and deploying a diverse array of nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles,” said the report ‘Assuring Destruction Forever: Nuclear Modernisation Around the World’

“Pakistan is moving from an arsenal based wholly on HEU to greater reliance on lighter and more compact plutonium-based weapons, which is made possible by a rapid expansion in plutonium production capacity,” said the 150-page report by Reaching Critical Will of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

“Pakistan is also moving from aircraft-delivered nuclear bombs to nuclear-armed ballistic and cruise missiles and from liquid-fuelled to solid-fuelled medium-range missile. Pakistan also has a growing nuclear weapons research, development, and production infrastructure,” it said.

According to the report Pakistan is estimated to have 90-110 nuclear weapons.

“A long-term concern now driving Pakistan’s nuclear programme is the US policy of countering the rise of China by cultivating a stronger strategic relationship with India. This may tie the future of Pakistan and India’s nuclear weapons to the emerging contest between the United States and China,” said the report.

Pakistan has a number of short—range, medium, and longer—range road—mobile ballistic surface—to—surface missiles in various stages of development.

“It has developed a second generation of ballistic missile systems over the past five years. It is estimated that Pakistan could have a stockpile of 2750 kg of weapon—grade HEU and may be producing about 150 kg of HEU per year,” it said.

Estimates suggest Pakistan has produced a total of about 140 kg of plutonium, the report said.

While not much information is available on the funding of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons project, the report said estimates indicate that Pakistan spends about $ 2.5 billion a year on nuclear weapons.

Despite extensive foreign military assistance, Pakistan’s effort to sustain its conventional and nuclear military programmes has come at increasingly great cost to the effort to meet basic human needs and improve living standards, the report said.

India, the report says, is estimated to have 80-100 nuclear warheads.

“It is also developing a range of delivery vehicles, including land— and sea—based missiles, bombers, and submarines,” it said.

“While nuclear weapons used to be seen as a ‘necessary evil’, there is no more enthusiasm for India to become a bonafide nuclear weapon power that can exercise its military might in the region,” it said.