“In all but three of the countries we visited – Britain, Germany and France – our interlocutors were very receptive,” he said. “I do think Britain could well have made a different judgment of its overall interests in such a way that it would not be quite so ostensibly in support of the French position.”What the row has exposed for old Commonwealth members such as Australia and New Zealand is that Britain is prepared to put its membership of the EU and the nuclear club well ahead of the Commonwealth. Mr Girard, the French ambassador, made the point with brutal frankness on Friday: “In their relations with the Australians, the British have been very normal in their reaction, considering they belong to the same group as we do.”Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser, who waged battles with Margaret Thatcher over her campaign to stop the Commonwealth imposing sanctions against South Africa in the 1980s, said the Commonwealth’s division with Britain over testing is shaping up to be even more of a crisis than that over apartheid.”People’s patience has gone,” he said. “There has been enough of a reaction around the world against France to make it an impediment against any nuclear testing or using these weapons at any time. Britain has taken the predictable, low-key role that the Foreign Office recommended.

For a long time, Britain doesn’t seem to have regarded the Commonwealth as important. It has failed to see what an active and constructive Commonwealth policy could do for Britain. It has been so preoccupied with its ambivalent and two-sided policy towards Europe, its Commonwealth policy is beyond British bureaucracy and leadership.”Malcolm Turnbull page 21. FRANCE’S second nuclear test carried out in the south Pacific last week may have been a flop. Scientists analysing seismic signals detected after the blast on Fangataufa atoll say that it created an earthquake of exactly the same magnitude as the first French test at nearby Mururoa. But the official French Defence Ministry statement described the yield of the test as “less than 110 kilotons” – which was taken as meaning it was five times more powerful than the 20 kiloton Mururoa test. The seismic shock should therefore have been significantly bigger.
The speculation arises that the main force of the blast came from the atomic bomb used to “trigger” the hydrogen fusion reaction of the H-bomb, which may not have gone off properly.Roger Clark, a seismologist at Leeds University, said the French had consistently overstated the yields of their tests.

“I have a cynical enough mind to say it [Fangataufa] could even be less than 20kt,” he said.In testing nuclear weapons, it is not enough simply to get a bang. The explosive yield and the radiation produced are closely measured to ensure that the device has performed according to its designers’ specifications. If the yield is lower than forecast, that may indicate a fundamental flaw in the design.Patricia Lewis of the London-based Vertic group, which monitors the explosions, said that the difficulty of measuring yields properly underscored the need for any test ban treaty to be completely comprehensive and not a “threshold” treaty, banning all tests above a certain size. Diplomats hope that a treaty might be attainable next year, after the French have finished, but some countries have suggested small nuclear explosions should be exempt.Dr Clark said that if the device exploded at Fangataufa had been buried deeper than the one at Mururoa, then it was possible for a bigger bang to have given the same magnitude, and it was possible that the rocks might somehow have further attenuated the signal.

But, he said, “It would be startling and unnerving from a seismologist’s point of view if the calibration is different for Fangataufa, which is only 40km from Mururoa. There won’t be a clear resolution of this until we have details of the yields of previous explosions. Past experience of analysing official announcements suggests that Fangatuafa could be a huge amount less than 110 kilotons.”. EVEN THE Arab prison warders like Sarah Balabagan. The Philippine embassy staff who are trying to save the 16-year old housemaid from execution before an Emirates firing squad have drawn hope from the affection that both prison officers and fellow prisoners show for the condemned girl in the Al-Ain jail. “They are very kind to her and I think she is prepared for the appeal hearing,” one of the diplomats said.