MOSCOW, June 8 -- Six days after winning election as president of the UN General Assembly, Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman sat down with Sergey Lavrov at Zinaida Morozova's Mansion in Moscow and made a request that had nothing to do with the usual diplomatic pleasantries: Bangladesh wants more of Russia's nuclear and space technology.

"We expressed interest in Russia's achievements in space technology and nuclear energy," Rahman told reporters at a joint news conference Monday. "We are seeking to find ways to expand cooperation in these areas."

The timing is not incidental. At the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, 160 kilometres northwest of Dhaka, uranium fuel has been loading into the reactor core since late April - the final ...