France to Vote in Favor of Palestinians’ U.N. Bid

 Support in Europe for a heightenedPalestinian profile at the United Nations grew on Tuesday when the French government said it would vote in favor of the Palestinians’ bid for nonmember observer status, embracing a move that Israel and the United States have opposed.
The announcement byFrance, a permanent member of theUnited Nations Security Council, is the most significant boost to date for the Palestinians’ hopes to be granted the enhanced status in the world forum, and with that greater international recognition. Russia and China, two other permanent members, have also thrown their weight behind the Palestinian bid.

The backing of France and other countries appeared calculated to provide diplomatic ballast to thePalestinian Authority’s president,Mahmoud Abbas, a moderate whose Fatah party governs in parts of the West Bank. The effort came after the militant group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, saw its credibility and standing with Palestinians rise after eight days of fighting with Israel.

But the French announcement was also a blow to Israel, whose diplomats have been working feverishly to try to ensure what they call a “moral majority” in the United Nations vote, meaning that even if a majority of nations voted in favor of the Palestinian bid, the major world powers would not.

The Palestinians said Tuesday that at least 12 European Union countries had confirmed that they were behind the Palestinian bid. With that support widening in Europe, Israeli officials acknowledged that the effort to gain a “moral majority” was crumbling.

Countries in the European Union are “slowly drifting toward support or abstention,” said Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius of France, speaking before the lower house of Parliament on Tuesday, said that on “Thursday or Friday, when the question is asked, France will reply, ‘Yes.’ ”

Though recognition at the United Nations would be viewed by many as an implicit recognition of statehood, the “concrete expression of a Palestinian state” can come only through negotiations “without conditions” between Palestinians and Israel, Mr. Fabius added.

Israeli officials also said they were not surprised by the French announcement. Ilana Stein, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said, “Of course, we remain in our opinion that this is a very harmful initiative by the Palestinians; our opinion has not changed.”

Muhammad Shtayyeh, the Palestinian special envoy for the United Nations bid, issued a statement from New York saying: “We are very thankful to France, and we call upon other European governments to announce their support for Palestinian freedom. This is long overdue.” The two other permanent members of the Security Council are the United States and Britain.

The vote on enhanced status is fraught with symbolism, and some analysts see it staying that way. It will fall on Nov. 29, the 65th anniversary of the United Nations decision to partition the territory of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.

If approved, it will do nothing to relieve the unresolved issues at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli disagreements.

“There is one basic reality,” said Robert M. Danin, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former State Department official. “The Palestinians still control less than half of the West Bank and will control less than half of the West Bank tomorrow and the day after until the Israelis decide otherwise.”

Last year, the Palestinians submitted an application to the Security Council to become a full member state of the United Nations, but the effort went nowhere; the United States made it clear it would veto the request.

The Palestinians still believe that broader recognition of their presence in the United Nations is a crucial step to a two-state solution. The draft resolution for the vote on status “reaffirms the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to independence in their state of Palestine on the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.”

The Israelis are concerned that the Palestinians could use enhanced status to try to join other bodies, like the International Criminal Court, where they could pursue legal claims against Israel. Israeli officials also view the Palestinian bid for enhanced status as a nonmember state as a violation of previous accords.

“This is in stark contrast to their commitment to resolve issues through negotiations,” said Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman.

While any vote supporting greater Palestinian status at the United Nations could help Mr. Abbas, a moderate, Mr. Danin said the bid, if voted in, could lead to heightened tension with Israel.

“For the Palestinian Authority and President Abbas it is a symbolic victory that I think he feels he badly needs right now, particularly in the wake of the recent violence in Gaza, but more generally as well,” he said. “Originally he posited this as a tool in a strategy leading to renewed negotiations. In the short term it will have the opposite effect.”

Also on Tuesday, the remains of Yasir Arafat, the longtime Palestinian leader, were exhumed in Ramallah as part of an inquiry into whether he had been poisoned. The atmosphere was subdued, with his people more fractured and less certain of their future than when he was alive.

Meanwhile, responding to unconfirmed reports that Washington and Israel were pressing the Palestinians to include a clause in the resolution pledging not to seek membership in the International Criminal Court, Palestinian officials said they would accept no limits on their statehood.

One Palestinian official denied the reports and said that the American pressure had been directed more generally at getting the Palestinians to drop the whole process. He said that the Palestinians had invited the Americans and the Israelis to be involved in the drafting of the resolution several months ago, but that they refused.

Mr. Regev said only that there were “ongoing talks” between the Americans and the Israelis.

Malta, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Portugal have said they will vote for the measure, while Germany and the Czech Republic are among the countries that have opposed the bid, news agencies reported.

Revealed: How the U.S. planned to blow up the MOON with a nuclear bomb to win Cold War bragging rights over Soviet Union

It may sound like a plot straight out of a science fiction novel, but a U.S. mission to blow up the moon with a nuke was very real in the 1950s.

At the height of the space race, the U.S. considered detonating an atom bomb on the moon as a display of America's Cold War muscle.

The secret project, innocuously titled 'A Study of Lunar Research Flights' and nicknamed 'Project A119,' was never carried out.

Plot: The U.S. was planning to launch an atomic bomb, like Fat Man, that would be launched into space in a scrapped plan to blow up the moon

Brains of the operation: Astronomer Carl Sagan, left, was involved in the planning of the mission and physicist Leonard Reiffel, right, was the man in charge

However, its planning included calculations by astronomer Carl Sagan, then a young graduate student, of the behavior of dust and gas generated by the blast.

Viewing the nuclear flash from Earth might have intimidated the Soviet Union and boosted U.S. confidence after the launch of Sputnik, physicist Leonard Reiffel told the AP in a 2000 interview.

Reiffel, now 85, directed the inquiry at the former Armour Research Foundation, now part of the Illinois Institute of Technology. He later served as a deputy director at NASA.

Sagan, who later became renowned for popularizing science on television, died in 1996.

The author of one of Sagan's biographies suggested that he may have committed a security breach in 1959 after revealing the classified project in an academic fellowship application. Reiffel concurred.

Under the scenario, a missile carrying a small nuclear device was to be launched from an undisclosed location and travel 238,000 miles to the moon, where it would be detonated upon impact.

The planners decided it would have to be an atom bomb because a hydrogen bomb would have been too heavy for the missile.

Reiffel said the nation’s young space program probably could have carried out the mission by 1959, when the Air Force deployed inter-continental ballistic missiles.

Military officials apparently abandoned the idea because of the danger to people on Earth in case the mission failed.

The scientists also registered concerns about contaminating the moon with radioactive material, Reiffel said. 

When contacted by the AP, the U.S. Air Force declined to comment on the project.

UN Offers to Assist Internet Counter-Terrorism Surveillance In Lieu of Global Directives

Susanne Posel

The United Nations (UN) is offering to assist sovereign countries in internet surveillance for anti-terrorism purposes. In a recently published reportentitled “The Use of the Internet for Terrorist Purposes” (UITP), the UN claims that social media sites are used for terroristic schemes in terms of organization and recruitment; specifically Skype, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

The National Security Agency (NSA) has begun scouting colleges and universities for the next generation of American grown hackers. The NSA wants an elite team of “computer geniuses” that are trained in hacking before they obtain their college degree. The students selected to train under this program will not be privy to the impact their work will have on cyber intelligence, military capabilities and law enforcement’s expansion of spying on Americans.

Neal Zing, technical director for the Information Assurance Directorate within the NSA, said: “We’re trying to create more of these, and yes they have to know some of the things that hackers know, they have to know a lot of other things too, which is why you really want a good university to create these people for you.”

Omission by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) explains that “terrorists use advanced communications technology” like the internet to remain anonymous while building a loyal audience.

In July of 2012, the Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT) claimed in a published document that cyber-attacks are on the rise. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) concurs with this summation because of 198 cases recorded since 2011.

According to the DHS, the most common “attacks” are referred to as spear-phishing where the hacker simply infiltrates the computer system in order to gather sensitive intelligence. The DHS has used cybersecurity to justify alliances “with public and private sector partners to develop trusted relationships and help asset owners and operators establish policies and controls that prevent incidents.”

In an attempt by the Obama administration to use fear-mongering to coerce the Congress into supporting a Big Brother cybersecurity legislation, members of the Senate met behind closed doors to attend a briefing by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), where a staged cyber-attack was performed with the intent “to provide all senators with an appreciation for new legislative authorities that would help the US government prevent and more quickly respond to cyber-attacks.”

The focus of the attacks were US banks, power grids and telecommunications systems. However these systems are not connected to the internet and therefore that argument is moot. In fact, the power grid and public water systems “are rarely connected directly to the public internet. And that makes gaining access to grid-controlling networks a challenge for all but the most dedicated, motivated and skilled — nation-states, in other words.”

Even the subsequent compromised version of the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 was voted down on Capitol Hill in August. The Obama administration responded by threatening to issue an executive order. Jay Carney, White House Press Secretary, said: “In the wake of Congressional inaction and Republican stall tactics, unfortunately, we will continue to be hamstrung by outdated and inadequate statutory authorities that the legislation would have fixed. Moving forward, the President is determined to do absolutely everything we can to better protects our nation against today’s cyber threats and we will do that.”

The UN UITP report explains that WiFi networks manipulated at “cybercafes could provide an important data source for criminal investigations… There is some doubt about the utility of targeting such measures at Internet cafes only when other forms of public Internet access (e.g. airports, libraries and public Wi-Fi hotspots) offer criminals (including terrorists) the same access opportunities and are unregulated.”

Another point of weakness is the use of violence in role-playing video games where acts of terrorism are glorified. The UN cites that this conditioning to accept the role of a “virtual terrorist” downplays the seriousness of the matter. The collaboration of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force, which counts the World Bank, Interpol, the World Health Organization, and the International Monetary Fund demonstrations a decisive path of the globalist-controlled international community.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), an extension of the UN, became the UN’s official move toward totalitarian control over the internet. And in December of this year, Dubai, India will be hosting their conference which will decide the globalist stance on the free flow of information on the Web.

Hamadoun Toure, the ITU secretary-general, statedthat: “When an invention becomes used by billions across the world, it no longer remains the sole property of one nation, however powerful that nation might be.”

The UN’s ITU proclaims that because the internet is a “global entity” that the UN should have jurisdiction over it, manage its abilities according to global UN standards and engage restrictions that could be installed at the fundamental level of the internet to prevent any infractions of international mandates. The UN wants to include the domain-name system along with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which is currently a privately owned US non-profit organization.

It is expected that the ITU would begin a sort of taxation that international telecommunications corporations would be expected to pay for the ITU’s handling of web traffic as it flows across the world. ITU members would be privy to the new found cash flow that would be in the hands of international governance; which could begin to line the pockets of the UN in record time.

In late 2011, representative from China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan submitted a proposalcalled the International Code of Conduct for Information Security (ICCIS) to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that called for international consensus of a global set of rules and regulations that standardize information flow on the internet.

The ICCIS sets forth specific “principles of maintaining information and network security which cover the political, military, economic, social, cultural, technical and other aspects.”

This document will also mandate that countries not be allowed to use information and telecommunications technologies “to conduct hostile behaviors and acts of aggression or to threaten international peace and security and stress that countries have the rights and obligations to protect their information and cyberspace as well as key information and network infrastructure from threats, interference and sabotage attacks.”

The Obama administration created the International Strategy for Cyberspace (ISC) which makes an international governance policy priority. Obama’s desire to facilitate the US government’s push toward global engagement, the ISC encompasses a new vision for cyberspace. By using economic prosperity dependent on revamping cyberspace, Obama places the need for over-reaching cybersecurity over the internet.

By militarizing the control over the web, Obama claims the internet as a “strategic national asset” malleable by the US government. Obama contended that protecting the internet will be a national security priority and that: “We will ensure that these networks are secure, trustworthy and resilient.”

HR 628 claimed to support “preserve, enhance, and increase access to an open, global Internet.” The legislation laid out that there be a “proposed international code of conduct for information security or a resolution inconsistent with the principles above comes up for a vote in the United Nations General Assembly or other international organization, the Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations or the United States representative to such other international organization should oppose such a resolution.”

The UTI and HR 628 are evidences of the end of free flowing information that is protected by and for the people. As governments place more stringent controls on the web, and the soon-to-be ratification of the UTI in December of this year, we can be assured that we will very quickly only have access to information that is approved by the UN.

Globalists Suggest Engineering Smaller Humans to Preserve Natural Resources

Herman Daly, ecological economist and professor at the School of Public Policy (SPP) of the University of Maryland, has assisted in developing guidelines for defining sustainable development. Daly is a formersenior environmental economist for the World Bank. His work as an eco-visionary for economics established the discipline of eco-economies, policies and programs that placed the ideals of eco-fascism and the global acquisition of all biodiversity over the necessities of the world’s population.

Daly has recently warned in a publication that part of the population problem is that populations require resources to sustain a specified metabolic rate which is somehow correlated to environmental depletion and excess of pollution. Because sustaining life is a symbiotic relationship between humanity and the planet, it is humanity that is dependent on the biodiversity of earth.

In this way, Daly asserts that the adage, “more for everyone” has become “the defacto purpose” of consumerism which is the weakening glue that holds society together. Daly offers that a “cure for overpopulation” may be the development of technologies that maintain lower birth rates while controlling the necessities of sustenance for those already born.

As an economist, he views this dilemma as such: “Our economy has a growth-oriented focus on maximizing production flows (birth rates of artifacts) that keeps us in the pre-transition mode, giving rise to growing artifact populations, low product lifetimes, high GDP, and high throughput, with consequent environmental destruction. The transition from a high-maintenance throughput to a low one applies to both human and artifact populations independently. From an environmental perspective, lower throughput is desirable in both cases, at least up to some distant limit.”

Other economists claim that overpopulation is causing poverty in underdeveloped nations. In the Philippines, there is an initiative to control the burgeoning population by forcing family planning onto the citizens. Josefina Natividad, director of the University of the Philippines’ Population Institute (UPPI), explains: “If you increase access to contraceptives for women … you will have births averted.”

The UPPI began with a grant from the globalist think-tank the Ford Foundation in 1964. They influence the Philippine government with research and coercion to push population control agendas with a focus on its impact on local and international communities. The UPPI works with UN-sponsored non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to receive technical assistance in providing reproductive health products.

Back in April, S. Matthew Liao, Anders Sandberg, and Rebecca Roache published a paper that called for human beings to become more energy efficient for the sake of lowering our ecological carbon footprint.

Liao suggests that taking a pill that would cause nausea when a person ate meat would eventually create a lasting aversion to meat-eating. The UN Food and Agricultural Organization (UNFAO) have reported that 18% of the world’s greenhouse gases and CO2 equivalents can be directly contributed to livestock. If we had less animals raised for consumption, we could cull considerable environmental benefits.

Engineering human babies to be smaller is used in pre-implantation genetic diagnosis in fertility clinics today. Embryos are selected for implantation on the basis of certain characteristics. Why not choose to create smaller babies?

To control the world’s human population, many different schemes have been deployed simultaneously in order to cover their intended purpose. When all fronts are joined together in the assault, it is difficult pin-point the origin of the problem.

According to the RAND Corporation, the push for family planning services have had a tremendous effect on the human population globally. It is in a massive decline that will begin to show itself beginning in an estimated 50 years. Based on the agendas of the UN fertility rates worldwide have fallen in underdeveloped nations and these trends are expected to continue.

Because the global Elite claim that global population growth drains our economy and resources, as well as provide a costly burden to the citizens of a nation, the women of developing nations must be refocused to believe that family planning programs and contraception will improve their lives.

Liao, like Daly, believes that parents could use genetic engineering or hormone therapy to birth smaller babies that would be less resource-intensive throughout their lifetime. Larger people consume more food and energy over their life. Smaller people consume less. Liao states that larger people use more fuel per mile in their cars, need more clothing to cover them, wear out their shoes, carpets and furniture faster because of their weight. Liao suggests that the average US citizen’s height should be reduced by 15cm. This would reduce the body mass by 21% for men and 25% for women. A massive reduction in height and mass would slow down metabolic rates by 15% – 18%, meaning less energy and nutrient needs.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have in their arsenal Depo-Preovera; an implantable fertility control provided from Shanghai Dahua Pharmaceuticals, and donations from Merck to further theiradvancement of the UN’s Millenium Development Goals which states that there be a 75% reduction in births under the guise of maintaining maternal mortality.

By 2020, Melinda Gates hopes to extend the use of forced sterilization through manipulation of foreign governments to further the scheme of preventing 80 million of “unwanted pregnancies” in places like Africa, India and Southeast Asia. Gates believes she can prevent 40% of people who would otherwise have been born, thereby justifying family planning as a scheme to make women healthier who have “families are more successful and their communities are more prosperous.”

Population stabilization, the true meaning behind family planning is evident in the World Bank and UN Population Fund’s push against sovereign nations to reduce their populations by rule of the “global consensus” which dictates human rights policy by deeming some fit to live and others not.

Based on the Rockefeller Commission report, population stabilization is an endeavor worth pursuing, although its success would take decades because of the high incidents of reproduction by marriage. However, with the destruction of the family, this problem could be solved. Furthermore, the stabilization of the global population would reallocate resources to be better spent in terms of quality versus quantity.

Concluding that the best way to achieve population stabilization is to coerce the nation’s citizens that they freely choose abortion and not having a child at all as part of an acceptable societal norm. By way of implementation of social barrier and cultural pressures, the average citizen would rather go with the flow and chose not to procreate for the sake of being part of the herd.

Simultaneously, by reforming the acceptable amount of children born into a married household, the impact of population growth would seem to be natural. And trends would take care of social conformity. Those who had more children would be shunned.

Increasing access to abortion clinics with the inception and popularity of Planned Parenthood would give unacceptable pregnancies a viable solution. This would distract and control another Baby Boom from occurring. Using images on television, film and print media control the ideals of the modern family to fit the model of a population stabilized by no longer being plagued with “run-a-way” births; but focusing on the example of small-families as the best way to go.

Iran accuses U.S. Navy of ‘illegal and provocative acts’

Iran has accused the United States of "illegal and provocative acts," including repeated violations of Iranian airspace, in a letter submitted Friday to the United Nations.

The message from Iran’s U.N. ambassador, Mohammad Khazaee, first obtained by the Associated Press, argues that the U.S. Navy has regularly conducted flights over Iranian territory in the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman.

The letter was sent to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the U.N. Security Council. It details seven specific incidents in October and November during which American drones entered Iranian airspace, despite radio warnings.

Earlier this month, an Iranian jet shot at an American predator drone in the Persian Gulf. According to the Pentagon, the drone was performing "routine surveillance" over international waters but not ultimately hit.

In December of last year, a surveillance drone crashed in eastern Iran. Iranian officials said then that they were able to bring down the drone via a cyberattack, but according to CBS News, American officials have neither confirmed nor denied that claim.

In the letter to the U.N., Khazaee asks the U.N. to warn Americans ‘‘against the continuation of acts in violation of international law and of the adverse consequences of any provocative and dangerous acts for which the United States government would be held responsible.’’

The White House did not return a request for comment.

Myths of Israeli Invincibility

Israel’s indiscriminate attacks on Gaza have once again raised the issue of Israel’s legitimacy. Muslim rulers decided not to break from the past and have once again undertaken actions which in no way reverses the Israeli occupation.  It’s these rulers who have recycled the invincibility of Israel argument and knowingly or unknowingly pushed that the Muslim world should accept the existence of Israel and negotiate with what remains of Palestine. Here are 10 examples to refute the invincibility of Israel argument.

• Strategic depth – Israel is an artificial nation created by colonial powers. The nation is so small that in any war scenario Israeli territory would suffer from significant loss and damage as it will have to fight from within its own territory. A hostile fighter could fly across all of Israel (40 nautical miles wide from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea) within four minutes.

• Internal cohesion – Domestic stability has always been a problem for Israel as it was established upon a racist basis. The reality of secular Israel is that it practices racism on a state level, even upon the Jews. The close correlation between ethnicity and socio-economic class in Israel remains the main axis along which the Ashkenazi – European Jews – and Oriental – Middle Eastern Jews – division is drawn. The formation of an Israeli ethnic-class divides the Jewish society of Israel from within. This apartheid has now been entrenched into a system of laws, regulations and practices which govern the operation of state institutions.

• Small population – Israel’s biggest problem is its small population relative to the region. Israel has a population of 7.9 million and must have an increasing demography if it is to survive in the region. As Israel is vastly outnumbered by the nations surrounding it, it has a big reliance on migration. In the last decade no other country in the world has had such a large percentage of new immigrants preparing to leave. Due to security fears, growing numbers of Israelis want to leave and Israel is now in a situation where every year more Jews leave Israel for Europe and the US than emigrate to Israel.

• Labour problem – The knock on effect of such a small population is a labour shortage.                     Israel only has a labour force of 3.3 million. Economic development and industrial development are labour intensive and dependent on knowledge and skills retention. With such a small labour force Israel is heavily reliant upon foreign knowledge and expertise.

• Economy – Israel’s economy is worth $245 billion, this is just too small to cater for Israel’s population. This has a knock on effect on how much tax the government collects as it subsidises the world’s Jews to migrate to Israel to normalise its occupation. As a result Israel has focused on key industries for its survival. This means many industries such as mining and manufacturing have been neglected. To compensate for this Israel relies on technology, military and foreign aid transfers. It also relies on influential Jews across the world, especially in the US to manipulate foreign policies of these states in favour of Israel. Israel has a heavy dependency on the goodwill of other states. If it was to lose favour  it is too small a country to be self-sufficient.

• Poverty – One effect of such an economy is poverty in Israel. Twenty-four per cent – over 2 million Israeli citizens – live below the poverty line. The small budget of the Israeli government has led to many to resort to utilizing family links to gain wealth. One report in 2010 highlighted 18 Israeli families controlled 60% of all Israeli companies. Their wealth is concentrated in four of Israel’s largest industries: banking and insurance, chemicals, high tech, and military/homeland security.

• Lack of resources – Israel will never become self-sufficient as it will always have to import energy. Israel relies heavily on external imports for meeting most of its energy needs, spending significant amounts from its domestic budget for its transportation sector which relies on gasoline and diesel fuel, while the majority of electricity production is generated using imported coal. Whilst the region has an abundance of oil and gas, none of this is in Israel.

• Reliance on exports – Foreign markets are critical for Israel. Due to having a very small domestic market (due to its small population) it is forced to search for foreign markets to generate wealth. Industrialised nations generally focus 10% of their economy towards foreign trade (imports and exports). However 30% of the Israeli economy relies on exports, which is very high. Israel’s main exports 10 years ago were Jaffa oranges and other agricultural products. Today an estimated 80% of the products Israel exports are high-tech and electronics components. Forty per cent of Israeli exports end up on US shores even though the US can make the same agricultural goods and computer hardware. A reliance on foreign markets makes an economy dependent on foreigners constantly consuming and ties the fortunes of ones economy with others.

• Agriculture – The geography of Israel is not naturally conducive to agriculture. More than half of the land area is desert, and the climate and lack of water resources do not favor farming. Only 20% of Israel’s land area is naturally arable. Whilst Israel is now able to produce most of what it needs it has to also export produce to earn much needed foreign income. Israel’s Achilles-Heel however is its need to import grain. Eighty per cent of its grain is imported, which is another strain on government tax revenues.

• Water – Israel suffers from a chronic water shortage. In recent years it is feared Israel may find it difficult to adequately supply municipal and household water requirements. Israel’s water sources are considered to be running out with 95% already consumed. New sources for water are considered to be small and will be unable to fully replace its main source when it runs out.

New idea of halting militancy

London: Britain’s House of Lords member Lord Gilbert on Friday advised his government to drop a neutron bomb in the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, in order to eliminate the safe heavens of militant outfits.

During a debate over eliminating nukes across the world, the member of the upper house of the UK’s parliament said that the borders could be made safe after dropping ERRB warheads commonly known as neutron bombs in the respective areas.

“Your Lordships may say that this is impractical, but nobody lives up in the mountains on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan except for a few goats and a handful of people herding them. If you told them that some ERRB warheads were going to be dropped there and that it would be a very unpleasant place to go, they would not go there. You would greatly reduce your problem of protecting those borders from infiltration from one side or another

According to reports, the members of the House of Lords were shocked after listening to an unexpected speech from Gilbert. The parliament members heavily criticized Gilbert and rejected his suggestion saying that it was not possible to drop a bomb in the Pak-Afghan border areas.

Labour former defence secretary Lord Browne of Ladyton rounded on Lord Gilbert over his remarks, accusing him of being at his “most challenging and contrarian”.

Cabinet Office spokesman Lord Wallace of Saltaire said the Government did not share Lord Gilbert’s “rumbustious” views on the sensitive issue. “The UK retains a firm commitment to the long-term goal of a world without nuclear weapons,” he said. “Our aim is to build an international environment in which no state feels the need to possess nuclear weapons – an environment that will allow nuclear states to disarm in a balanced and verifiable manner.”

It is to be mentioned here that Taliban and al-Qaeda militants have been using the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan as safe heavens to launch attacks on US, Nato and Afghan forces in Afghanistan and on Pakistani law enforcing authorities inside Pakistan.