"Read All About It In The Idler"
22 March 2002
UPI Hears
By Martin Walker
Expect another flurry of alarms and military alerts on the Indo-Pakistani frontier before June, with some interesting reverberations in China. India is getting ready to stage a new test of its nuclear-capable Agni III missile. Sources close to Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes say they will be ready "within three months." The version of the missile to be tested, just one stage of India's first seriously long-range missile, would have a range of 500 miles. The full version of the Agni III has a range of up to 2,500 miles - just enough to reach the Chinese city of Shanghai. India in January tested a short-range version of its Agni I missile, with a range of 400-plus miles, which means potential targets in Pakistan, whose foreign minister condemned the test as a "direct threat" to the country's national security.
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The latest U.S. military venture into formerly Soviet Georgia, plumb in the middle of the highly tense Caucasus region, looks ripe for complications. A U.S. Air Force delegation in Baku, capital of oil-rich Azerbaijan, has been told by Azerbaijani Defense Minister Colonel General Safar Abiev that neighboring Armenia was supplying arms to Kurdish and other militants in the region. A shaky truce still holds between Armenia and Azerbaijan after the 1990s fighting over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
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Saddam Hussein's appetite for weapons of mass destruction is well-known; his taste for women from the Western hemisphere less so. Executive Secretary of the Foreign Chamber of Commerce in Brazilia Roberto Gianetti da Fonseca has created a sensation with the publication of his memoirs "Memorias de um trader " ("Memoirs of a Trader.") In 1981 Fonseca accompanied a Brazilian trade mission to Baghdad which was renewing a contract to supply meat to the Iraqi government in return for continued access to Iraqi oil, a critical concern for the Brazilian government. In the middle of negotiations, Fonseca was startled when Hussein himself showed up at the trade talks. Hussein insisted on three conditions for the negotiations to go forward. First, he wanted Brazil's civilian ambassador replaced by a serving military officer, preferably a general. Secondly, he wanted more access to Brazil's burgeoning defense industry with increased supplies of missiles, tanks, and other military hardware. Last but not least, "tell President Figueiredo that I will order the release and return of the Brazilian women who are now here being kept by the delegation members who visited Rio de Janeiro during the last Carnival, but I don't want any fuss made about it." Fonseca was startled to learn that Iraqi "delegates" were holding six Brazilian women as virtual slaves.
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With a name like that, maybe he had to join Special Forces. In charge of Britain's 45 Commando, heading off to deploy their elite mountain warfare skills in Afghanistan, is Lt. Colonel Tim Chicken.
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One of the more hopeful prospects of Indo-Pakistan cooperation seems to have been by-passed, after Iran's National Iranian Oil Company signed a contract with India and the Italian Snamprogetti engineering group for feasibility studies on a new 1,200-mile deep sea pipeline. The cost in cash has yet to be calculated, but for India the priority is the strategic advantage of avoiding the obvious land route through Pakistan. A land pipeline route has been costed at $3.5 billions. The deep-sea venture could double that, but Indian officials claim that money could be saved on operating costs, with Pakistan unable to control the natural gas flow, or 'accidentally' age the pipeline in times of crisis. For the state-owned Iranian group, the fast-growing Indian market is a major prize, and also allows Tehran to thumb its nose at the continuing U.S. attempts to use sanctions to block Iran from exploiting its energy resources.
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A small storm in a diplomatic teacup. The Czech Republic's minister for education Eduard Zeman was most put out during a recent trip to the U.S. to be put through the usual security procedures at airports. His cases were searched, he was asked to remove his coat and shoes and on one traumatic occasion, this dignitary was actually made to enter the aircraft in his socks. "Even in the U.S. they should know what a diplomatic passport is," Zeman told the Prague press, adding that he had written a letter of complaint to the U.S. Ambassador. His Excellency Craig Stapleton replied with a short, polite note that mainly consisted of the words September 11.