US may deploy non-nuclear yet effective weapons

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From Fazle Rashid
NEW YORK, April 23: US is considering deploying a non-nuclear option that could be as lethal as a nuclear arsenal, President Obama made a high profile foray into nation's commercial capital yesterday chastising banks for their reckless behaviour and two top US rating companies Moody's and Standard and Poor widely known by its acronym S&P had wilfully ignored signs of frauds that precipitated the financial crisis.
These were the news that unfolded yesterday. But most significant among the three is the disclosure about the new weapon.
First the weapon. President Obama in coming years will decide whether to deploy a new class of weapons capable of reaching any corner of the world from the United States in under an hour with such accuracy and force that they would greatly diminish America's reliance on nuclear arsenal, the New York Times disclosed this in a front page story today.
Called Prompt Global Strike, the new weapon is designed to carry out tasks like picking off Osama bin-Laden from a cave, taking out a North Korean missile while it is being rolled on to launch pad and destroy an Iranian nuclear site, all without crossing the nuclear threshold. In theory the weapon will hurl a conventional warhead of enormous weight with high speed and with pinpoint accuracy, generating the localised destructive power of a nuclear warhead, NYT reported.
The United States has set its face against demands by several European NATO allies to withdraw its ageing nuclear stockpile from Europe. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressing a gathering of NATO foreign ministers said " Obama administration is not opposed to cuts in these battlefield weapons mostly bombs and short range missiles locked in underground vaults in air bases in five NATO countries. As long as nuclear weapons exist NATO will remain a nuclear alliance, Hillary Clinton said.
And on the economic front President Obama came to Wall Street yesterday to chide bankers for their reckless behaviour and to push for tighter regulations to avert any financial crisis in future. His battle is against battalions of financial industry lobbyists and the withering force of economic elite, Obama was quoted as saying. He asked Wall Street titans not to oppose the reforms. "Unless your business is dependent on bilking people there is little to fear from these new rules," the president said. "I want to urge you to join us instead of fighting us in this effort. I am here because I believe that these reforms are in the end not only in the best interest of our country but in the best interest of the financial sector as well," President was quoted as saying.
The two famous rating companies Moody's and the S&P came in for a good deal of drubbing for their failure to read the risks of investments on subprime mortgage that had triggered the worst financial crisis since the great depression. In response to Senate findings, Moody's said it has rigorous and transparent methodologies, and processes and S&P said it had learned some important lessons from the recent crises and taken steps to increase the transparency, governance and quality of our ratings.