Dragon Fire (novel)
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Dragon Fire (novel)
''Dragon Fire'' is a 2000 novel by BBC political and foreign correspondent Humphrey Hawksley about a 2007 war between China, India and Pakistan, which draws in Australia, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, Tibet, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and threatens to escalate to nuclear war. While a work of fiction, the novel attempts to raise awareness of real geopolitical issues in the region. Description This novel gives us nightmare scenarios where the world's worst fears begin on 10:00 a.m. on 3 May 2007. A SFF (Special Frontier Force) unit led by Major Gendun Choedrak assaults Drapchi prison with paratroopers to free Tibetan religious leaders who are being incarcerated there. Far out west, Pakistan launches an attack on the strategic outpost of Kargil, promptly raising the green crescent flag on Indian soil. China accuses India of attacking Chinese soil and declares war. It's Pakistan and China vs India now, 3 nuclear powers. Nuclear arsenals are being mo ...
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Humphrey Hawksley
Humphrey Hawksley is an English journalist and author who has been a foreign correspondent for the BBC since the early 1980s. Education Hawksley was educated at St Lawrence College, Ramsgate in Kent, after which he joined the Merchant Navy to work his passage to Australia.Old Lawrentians' Society - Humphrey Hawksley Speech
Date: 5 December 2010. Access date: 26 October 2011.


Life and career

Humphrey Hawksley has reported on key trends, events and conflicts from all over the world. His work as a BBC foreign correspondent has taken him to crises on every continent. He was expelled from Sri Lanka, opened the BBC’s television bureau in China, arrested in Serbia and initiated a global campaign against enslaved children in the chocolate industry. The ca ...
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United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many List of islands of the United Kingdom, smaller islands within the British Isles. Northern Ireland shares Republic of Ireland–United Kingdom border, a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. The total area of the United Kingdom is , with an estimated 2020 population of more than 67 million people. The United Kingdom has evolved from a series of annexations, unions and separations of constituent countries over several hundred years. The Treaty of Union between ...
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Cross-Strait Relations
Cross-Strait relations (sometimes called Mainland–Taiwan relations, or Taiwan-China relations) are the relations between China (officially the People's Republic of China) and Taiwan (officially the Republic of China). The relationship has been complex and controversial due to the dispute on the political status of Taiwan after the administration of Taiwan was transferred from Japan to the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China at the end of World War II in 1945, and the subsequent split between the PRC and ROC as a result of the Chinese Civil War. The essential question is whether the two governments are still in a civil war over One China, each holding within one of two "regions" or parts of the same country (e.g. "1992 Consensus"), whether they can be reunified as One country, two systems, or whether they are now separate countries (either as "Taiwan" and "China" or Two Chinas). The English expression "cross-strait relations" is considered to be a neutral te ...
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Pakistan And Weapons Of Mass Destruction
Pakistan is one of nine states to possess nuclear weapons. Pakistan began development of nuclear weapons in January 1972 under Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who delegated the program to the Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) Munir Ahmad Khan with a commitment to having the device ready by the end of 1976. Since PAEC, which consisted of over twenty laboratories and projects under reactor physicist Munir Ahmad Khan, was falling behind schedule and having considerable difficulty producing fissile material, Abdul Qadeer Khan, a metallurgist working on centrifuge enrichment for Urenco, joined the program at the behest of the Bhutto administration by the end of 1974. As pointed out by Houston Wood, "The most difficult step in building a nuclear weapon is the production of fissile material"; as such, this work in producing fissile material as head of the Kahuta Project was pivotal to Pakistan developing the capability to detonate a nuclear weapon by the ...
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India And Weapons Of Mass Destruction
India possesses nuclear weapons and previously developed chemical weapons. Although India has not released any official statements about the size of its nuclear arsenal, recent estimates suggest that India has 160 nuclear weapons and has produced enough weapons-grade plutonium for up to 200 nuclear weapons. In 1999, India was estimated to have of separated reactor-grade plutonium, with a total amount of of civilian plutonium, enough for approximately 1,000 nuclear weapons. India has conducted nuclear weapons tests in a pair of series namely '' Pokhran I'' and '' Pokhran II''. India is a member of three multilateral export control regimes — the Missile Technology Control Regime, Wassenaar Arrangement and Australia Group. It has signed and ratified the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention. India is also a subscribing state to the Hague Code of Conduct. India has signed neither the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty nor the Nuclear ...
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People's Republic Of China And Weapons Of Mass Destruction
The People's Republic of China has developed and possesses weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and nuclear weapons. The first of China's nuclear weapons tests took place in 1964, and its first hydrogen bomb test occurred in 1967. Tests continued until 1996, when China signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). China has acceded to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1984 and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in 1997. The number of nuclear warheads in China's arsenal is a state secret. There are varying estimates of the size of China's arsenal. China was estimated by the Federation of American Scientists to have an arsenal of about 260 total warheads as of 2015, the fourth largest nuclear arsenal amongst the five nuclear weapon states acknowledged by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and one of 320 total warheads by the '' SIPRI Yearbook 2020'', the third largest. According to some estimates by US intellig ...
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Kargil War
The Kargil War, also known as the Kargil conflict, was fought between India and Pakistan from May to July 1999 in the Kargil district of Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere along the Line of Control (LoC). In India, the conflict is also referred to as Operation Vijay ( hi, विजय, ), which was the codename of the Indian military operation in the region. The role of the Indian Air Force in acting jointly with the Indian Army was aimed at flushing out both the Pakistan Army and paramilitary troops from vacated Indian positions along the LoC,http://>.nic.in/content/op-safed-sagar in what was designated as Operation Safed Sagar ( hi, ऑपरेशन सफेद सागर, label=none, ). The conflict was triggered by the infiltration of Pakistani troops—disguised as Kashmiri militants—into strategic positions on the Indian side of the LoC, which serves as the ''de facto'' border between the two countries in the disputed region of Kashmir. During its initial sta ...
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Kashmir Conflict
The Kashmir conflict is a territorial conflict over the Kashmir region, primarily between India and Pakistan, with China playing a third-party role. The conflict started after the partition of India in 1947 as both India and Pakistan claimed the entirety of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. It is a dispute over the region that escalated into three wars between India and Pakistan and several other armed skirmishes. India controls approximately 55% of the land area of the region that includes Jammu, the Kashmir Valley, most of Ladakh, the Siachen Glacier, and 70% of its population; Pakistan controls approximately 30% of the land area that includes Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan; and China controls the remaining 15% of the land area that includes the Aksai Chin region, the mostly uninhabited Trans-Karakoram Tract, and part of the Demchok sector. After the partition of India and a rebellion in the western districts of the state, Pakistani tribal militias invad ...
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Flag Of Pakistan
The flag of Pakistan ( ur, ) traces its current form back to a meeting of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on 11 August 1947, three days before the Partition of British India, when it was adopted by the All-India Muslim League as the official flag-to-be of the Dominion of Pakistan. It was retained upon the establishment of a constitution in 1956, and remains in use as the national flag for the present-day Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The flag is made up of a green field with a stylized tilted white crescent moon and five-pointed star at its centre, and a vertical white stripe at its hoist-end. Though the specific shade of green on the flag is mandated only as 'dark green', its official and most consistent representation is in Pakistan green, which is shaded distinctively darker. Most notably, the flag is referred to in the third verse of Pakistan's national anthem, and is widely flown on several important days of the year, including Republic Day, Independence Day a ...
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Kargil
Kargil ( lbj, ) is a city and a joint capital of the union territory of Ladakh, India. It is also the headquarters of the Kargil district. It is the second-largest city in Ladakh after Leh. Kargil is located to the east of Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir, and to the west of Leh. It is the centre point of the Suru River. Etymology The name ''Kargil'' is said to derive from the words ''Khar'', meaning castle, and ''rKil'' meaning "centre". "Kargil denotes a place between many forts, a central place where people could stay". It appears to be a fitting description for a place that is equidistant from Srinagar, Leh and Skardu Historically, the region around Kargil was called Purig. A major study of the history of Purig is included in the 1987 book ''Qadeem Ladakh'' by Kacho Sikander Khan, which includes genealogies of various dynasties that ruled the region. History Kargil is the main town in the historical region of Purig, which consists of the Suru river basin. It was no ...
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Tibetan People
The Tibetan people (; ) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Tibet. Their current population is estimated to be around 6.7 million. In addition to the majority living in Tibet Autonomous Region of China, significant numbers of Tibetans live in the Chinese provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, and Yunnan, as well as in India, Nepal, and Bhutan. Tibetan languages belong to the Tibeto-Burman language group. The traditional or mythological explanation of the Tibetan people's origin is that they are the descendants of the human Pha Trelgen Changchup Sempa and rock ogress Ma Drag Sinmo. It is thought that most of the Tibeto-Burman speakers in Southwest China, including Tibetans, are direct descendants from the ancient Qiang people. Most Tibetans practice Tibetan Buddhism, although some observe the indigenous Bon religion and there is a small Muslim minority. Tibetan Buddhism influences Tibetan art, drama and architecture, while the harsh geography of Tibet has produced ...
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Drapchi Prison
Drapchi Prison, or Lhasa Prison No. 1 (, lit. "four corners"; ), is the largest prison in Tibet, China, located in Lhasa. Drapchi is named after its location and was originally a military garrison until it was converted into a prison after the 1959 Tibetan Uprising. It is roughly one mile from the city centre and is the main prison for judicially sentenced prisoners in Tibet. It was the primary place for the detention of political prisoners before 2005 when the newer and modernised Chushur (Chinese: Qushui) Prison was built. Drapchi also goes by the name Delapuxie prison, which has sometimes been listed as a separate prison online. According to Central Tibetan Administration, the prison has gained a notorious reputation and is feared by the Tibetans due to its strong management. Reports of brutality have been alleged by Tibetan exile groups. In November 1994, 13 nuns were sent to Drapchi to serve a 5-year sentence for endangering state security by protests against the Chinese ...
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