Help for Pakistan ......

Kuwait, has announced a US$ 100 Mn aid package for Pakistan.(Since then The UAE emirates of Abu Dhabi and Dubai have each offered US$100Mn.)

A statement issued after the weekly Kuwaiti Cabinet meeting said half will be offered in the form of relief assistance while the other US$50 Mn will be used to repair infrastructure damaged by the quake.

Speaking at his monthly press conference in Downing Street, Tony Blair, UK Prime Minister (who has obviously been watching the TV news) said “the scale of the tragedy was becoming more apparent by the day.” He confirmed that Department for International Development has committed just over £2 million of direct assistance and stands ready to respond to further needs.

"The people of the United States offer our deepest sympathies for the loss of life and destruction caused by the earthquake that struck outside of Islamabad," said President Bush today – Odds on he didn’t point out where it was on the map.

"At this difficult time, the United States stands with its friends in Pakistan and India, just as they stood with us and offered assistance after Hurricane Katrina," said Condoleeza Rice, rushing into Pakistan, after her drive by diplomacy stop-off in Afghanistan where she has brought opium production and drug trafficking to a halt along with eternal peace.

The U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan said the United States will provide up to $50 million for earthquake relief and reconstruction in Pakistan.

The last time Condi was in Pakistan was in March this year. She had stopped off to seal a US$3Bn arms deal and to release sixteen F16 fighters that Pakistan bought and paid for in 1990, that the US never delivered .... so what’s US$50Mn between friends ?

This was after Jack Straw (pursuing New Labour's "ethical" arms export policy) managed to sell £1Bn worth of Hawk "trainers" to India...which oddly British Aerospace show as carrying a bristling array of guided missiles. (see pic (c)CNN).

Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan the German trained Indian born metallurgist brought knowledge of gas centrifuge technologies to Pakistan that he had acquired through his position at the classified URENCO uranium enrichment plant in the Netherlands.

He planned, built, equipped and ran Pakistan's Kahuta facility, which was established in 1976. A man of colossal vanity who sees himself (as do many) as the nation's saviour - he named them, the Khan Research Laboratories, or KRL. UN Documents show he offered to supply nuclear technology to Saddam before the 1991 Gulf War and also to Iran, Libya, and North Korea. "Sacked" as President Mushariff's "advisor", he remains a free man. Curiously the US have not asked to meet him and have a fireside chat with Pakistan's "Father of the Bomb" and about what he got up to peddling nuclear technology for so many years.

On May 11 and 13 1998 India conducted 5 nuclear tests, on May 28, 1998 Pakistan announced that it had successfully conducted five nuclear tests, which generated a seismic signal of 5.0 on the Richter scale, with a total yield of up to 40 KT (equivalent TNT). Dr. A.Q. Khan claimed that one device was a boosted fission device and that the other four were sub-kiloton nuclear devices. 2 days later a 12 Kiloton nuclear warhead was tested.
-------
PS - The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today warned that its operation to feed more than 1.45 million internally displaced people (IDPs) in northern Uganda will run out of donations in December. (pic of mutilated child (C)BBC)

WFP urgently needs US$58 million in cash donations to buy food locally to feed almost the entire population of Northern Uganda, who have been living for years in 135 overcrowded and unsanitary camps after fleeing their homes for fear of attacks by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).