India Covertly Upping Thermo-Nuclear Weapon Capability In Race With China, Pakistan: IHS

[link to www.ibtimes.com]
India is expanding a covert uranium enrichment plant capable of developing thermonuclear weapons, and it's likely to heighten tensions in a nuclear arms race with neighboring China and Pakistan, defense research group IHS Inc.

IHS said it discovered the plant's activity using satellite imagery and announced it on Friday.

IHS defense and security intelligence experts identified the facility near Mysore in southern India at an existing rare metals plant and said it could be operational as soon as mid-2015. The new units would increase India’s ability to produce weapons-grade uranium to twice the amount needed for its nuclear-powered submarine fleet, according to IHS.

“The enrichment plant was originally built to provide uranium for submarine reactors. But there is now significant excess capacity for other purposes, most likely nuclear weapons," IHS proliferation editor Karl Dewey said in a statement Friday.

The news could indicate a weak policy of nuclear precautions under India’s new prime minister, Narendra Modi, and comes as Iran seeks to lift sanctions from six world powers over its own nuclear program, with a deadline in negotiations set in a month and significant differences between the two sides remaining.

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Last Edited by Uncle Fuck Stick on 06/21/2014 11:04 PM