Pakistan upgrades nuclear arsenal

Pakistan will soon be able to strike every city in India using a new arsenal of plutonium warheads developed with Chinese help, according to senior generals and defence analysts. Lieutenant General Talat Masood, a former Pakistani defence minister, said this weekend that his country’s enhanced nuclear capability exposed a “secret arms race”, triggered by rivalry between India and China. The scale of Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions was revealed last week in a report by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, which published satellite pictures of a plutonium production site at Khushab in Punjab. Analysts said the plant included a reactor capable of producing enough plutonium for 50 warheads in a year, more than doubling its current strength. China has an estimated 450 warheads and India has about 100.