Word: desertic
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...story of how India revived the nuclear nightmare begins in December 1995. The government of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao is secretly readying an underground nuclear test when U.S. spy satellites orbiting over the Thar Desert in Rajasthan near the Pakistani border snap pictures of thick electric cables being installed in a hole at the Pokhran test site. The Clinton Administration leaks word of the preparations to the press, then dispatches a diplomatic team to confront the Indian government with the satellite photos. Rao is forced to abort the test...
...connotes a giant step toward fully operationalizing nuclear policy." The State Department dismisses the letter as crying wolf and files it in the false-alarm drawer. By then, India's preparations are well under way. Scientists and engineers have been moving in small groups from their laboratories to the desert testing site in Rajasthan. They travel by rail, switching trains in mid-journey and using false names to throw any human spies off their trails. They tell their wives they are attending routine meetings in New Delhi and cannot be telephoned...
Around noon on Monday, Indian soldiers descend on villages just a few miles from the desert test range and order the pacifist Bishnoi herdsmen, who refuse to kill animals or cut down trees, to evacuate. At precisely 3:45 p.m., three devices explode in five seconds: a normal fission bomb, a low-yield bomb for tactical battlefield use and something like a hydrogen bomb, which U.S. officials later insist could have been only a less powerful "boosted" weapon using tritium fuses to amplify the fission chain reaction. Altogether they unleash around 80 kilotons of atomic power, six times as powerful...
...Deputy Secretary Talbott winged toward Islamabad, Pakistan gave every sign that it was about to set off nuclear tests of its own. "We are like a cook waiting for the orders," said Abdul Qadeer Khan, the country's top nuclear scientist. U.S. satellites spying on the Baluchistan desert recorded preparations. In a phone chat, Prime Minister Sharif would not promise Clinton to desist, despite the prospect of being slapped with the same economic sanctions if he didn...
...Turkmenistan. "They wanted me to have the experience, so I stayed one night," says Kaplan. "I was sitting in the middle of the yurt, on Turkmen carpets, and they roasted a lamb outside. The vodka is sitting in the middle of the yurt in the middle of the desert." Though Kaplan enjoyed his stay, being the affable guest can take a toll. "You're not sure all the time what you're eating," he says. "You're up late, and the host always wants you to drink far too much. So it gets a little draining...