U.S. Representative Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) spoke to reporters today in Beijing following a trip to North Korea (AFP photo/Frederic Brown). Lantos Says North Korea Ready to Returns to Nuclear Talks U.S. Representative Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) ended his visit to North Korea today saying that he believed Pyongyang was ready to resume six-party talks on its nuclear program, Reuters reported (see GSN, Jan. 10)...Full Story

EU, Iran to Resume Trade Talks Tomorrow Trade talks between Iran and the European Union are scheduled to resume tomorrow in Brussels, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Jan. 10)...Full Story

Bush Selects Homeland Security Secretary Nominee U.S. President George W. Bush has selected federal appeals court judge Michael Chertoff to replace Tom Ridge as homeland security secretary, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Dec. 13, 2004)...Full Story

	Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Bush Selects Homeland Security Secretary Nominee U.S. President George W. Bush has selected federal appeals court judge Michael Chertoff to replace Tom Ridge as homeland security secretary, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Dec. 13, 2004). Bush is expected to later formally announce the nomination, two U.S. officials said. Chertoff led the U.S. Justice Department’s criminal division from 2001 to 2003 and has been credited with creating the U.S. legal response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, AP reported (Associated Press/ABC News, Jan. 11). Ridge said today that he has already spoken with his potential successor, and said Chertoff has “a great intellect, a great energy.” “He comes well equipped by experience, temperament and background,” Ridge said (Joe Fiorill, Global Security Newswire, Jan. 11). Back to top

French Port of Marseilles Implements CSI The French port of Marseilles last week became the 34th port to implement the U.S. Container Security Initiative (see GSN, Dec. 17, 2004). As part of the initiative, French customs officials at the port will work with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers to screen cargo containers suspected of posing terrorism risks. “The primary purpose of CSI is to protect the global trading system and the trade lanes between CSI ports and the U.S. By expanding CSI to the port of Marseilles, the government of France is helping to make a safer, more secure world trading system,” said Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert Bonner. The French port of Le Havre began operating under the initiative in December 2002 (U.S. State Department release, Jan. 10). Back to top

Lantos Says North Korea Ready to Return to Nuclear Talks U.S. Representative Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) ended his visit to North Korea today saying that he believed Pyongyang was ready to resume six-party talks on its nuclear program, Reuters reported (see GSN, Jan. 10). Lantos encouraged North Korea to emulate Libya’s renunciation of weapons of mass destruction. While North Korean officials said they support continuing the talks, they added that they would wait to see the makeup of the second Bush administration before declaring their intentions, Lantos said. “They indicated that they view their nuclear program as important, but I had the very strong impression that they are ready to discuss the matter because they understand that we are determined to do so,” Lantos said. “The composition of the U.S. administration should be evident by now,” he added. “There is no conceivable reason for anyone to expect a significant change of U.S. policy toward the Korean Peninsula.” Lantos said he would brief President George W. Bush and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s nominee for secretary of state, when he returns to Washington (John Ruwitch, Reuters, Jan. 11). Meanwhile, a U.S. congressional delegation led by Representative Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) arrived in North Korea today, Agence France-Presse reported. The lawmakers are expected to stay in North Korea until Friday, according to AFP (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Jan. 11). Elsewhere, a North Korean professor argued that Pyongyang’s pursuit of a nuclear deterrent is “totally legal” under international law, the Korea Times reported. “We have every right to have a nuclear deterrent because the United States is openly pressuring us with the threat of nuclear attacks with a scheme to wage a nuclear war against North Korea by turning South Korea into a nuclear armory,” Professor Rim Tong Chun of Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang wrote in a recent contribution to the university’s bulletin. Pyongyang has the right to defend itself because Washington terminated two bilateral agreements reached in June 1993 and October 1994, Rim argued, adding that North Korea’s attempt to arm itself with a nuclear deterrent was a self-defense measure which it believes necessary in the wake of U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (Park Song-wu, Korea Times, Jan. 10). Back to top       EU, Iran to Resume Trade Talks Tomorrow Trade talks between Iran and the European Union are scheduled to resume tomorrow in Brussels, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Jan. 10). “The decision to resume TCA (trade and cooperation agreement) negotiations follows the Paris agreement between Iran and the [United Kingdom], France and Germany, and the subsequent verification of the suspension of Iran’s enrichment and reprocessing activities as confirmed by the [International Atomic Energy Agency] resolution of November 2004,” the European Commission said (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Jan. 11). Meanwhile, an Iranian official said yesterday that Tehran might resume uranium enrichment in March if talks with the European Union on Iran’s nuclear program go poorly, Reuters reported. Iranian nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian told Reuters that Tehran is prepared to extend its enrichment freeze until June if negotiations go well. “If the talks end without any result, March itself could be the date for resuming enrichment,” said Mousavian. “I am optimistic that we will reach an agreement on the objective guarantees by June and I believe this period is sufficient for reaching a mutual understanding,” he added. Mousavian said, however, that Iran would only give “objective guarantees” that it would not divert nuclear fuel to weapons manufacture. The fuel cycle itself is not up for debate, he said. “If the Europeans’ problem is the fuel cycle, then negotiations are useless,” he said. “But if they are concerned about us building nuclear bombs, we are fully prepared for a comprehensive arrangement to give all assurances that Iran will not seek nuclear bombs,” he said (Parisa Hafezi, Reuters, Jan. 10). Elsewhere, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said yesterday that he is confident inspectors would find traces of a nuclear weapons program at Iran’s Parchin military complex if there is anything to find, IOL reported. The agency’s equipment was sensitive enough to detect long latent nuclear activity, ElBaradei told Austrian ORF radio (IOL, Jan. 10). Back to top       NNSA Modifies Request for Los Alamos Proposals The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration has altered the criteria that will be used to select the contractor to oversee the Los Alamos National Laboratory in order to assure effective government oversight, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 10). The changes to the Dec. 1 draft request for proposals were made at the request of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, according to AP. The contract to manage Los Alamos is set to be awarded this fall (Associated Press, Jan. 10). Back to top       U.S. Environmental Group Complains of Lack of Access to Documents on Planned MOX Fuel Tests An environmental group has complained of being denied access to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission documents it claims could show that security measures being taken by a U.S. energy company seeking to use mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel are inadequate, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Nov. 26, 2004). The U.S. company Duke Energy plans to begin tests of the MOX fuel, which contains weapon-grade plutonium, this spring at a nuclear power plant in South Carolina. The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, which opposes the project, has said that the company should not have been granted exemptions from some security measures for protecting the fuel, AP reported. The commission decided that the facility does not need a tactical response team or to put up additional barriers, which are normal safeguards for protecting plutonium. Duke Energy has said that it already has similar security measures in place.  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is set today to hold a closed hearing on Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League’s claims, AP reported. However, the environmental group has not been allowed access to documents on what level of invading force plutonium-using facilities are expected to be able to repel. Without that, it cannot know if the Duke Energy site is meeting NRC standards, the group said. “In effect, the commission has tied one hand behind our backs,” said Diane Curran, the environmental group’s attorney in Washington (Associated Press/Charlotte Observer, Jan. 11). Back to top

Kansas City to Install Biohazard Detection Equipment at Postal Service Processing Center The Kansas City, Mo., postal processing center is expected to install a new biohazard detection system on Jan. 22, U.S. Postal Service officials said yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 10). The system would become the 83rd of 107 devices the Postal Service plans to install in the first phase of its deployment plan. The agency over time plans to place the equipment in every postal facility in the country that handles outgoing mail, the Associated Press reported. Such a system could have more quickly halted the anthrax mail attacks that killed five people in 2001, said Postal Service district manager Ormer Rogers Jr. “Within 90 minutes, every piece of mail that would have gone through would have been stopped,” Rogers said. “The two (postal workers) infected would probably be alive today. They didn’t even realize they were contaminated until later.” Anthrax spores were found in a Kansas City postal facility on Halloween 2001, apparently originating on envelopes that came from a Washington, D.C. postal site, AP reported (Bill Draper, Associated Press/Jefferson City News Tribune, Jan. 10). Back to top       Vanderbilt University, Private Company Jointly Develop Biological Agent Detector Vanderbilt University’s Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education has entered into a joint partnership with Pria Diagnostics to develop a new, portable device that could determine whether a person is the victim of a biological weapons attack, Medical News Today reported today (see GSN, Jan. 6). The device is expected to have the ability to monitor the health of small groups of cells, making it able to detect the presence of unknown toxins as long as they affect cell metabolism, Medical News Today reported. The device is also expected to be able to detect other types of infectious diseases (Medical News Today, Jan. 11). Back to top

U.S. Lawmaker Plans to Reintroduce Bill to Improve Security of Hazardous Material Shipments U.S. Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.) yesterday announced plans to reintroduce legislation intended to improve the security of hazardous material shipments (see GSN, Jan. 10). Markey’s announcement came on the heels of a railroad accident last week in South Carolina that released chlorine gas from a damaged tank car and killed nine people. “Last week’s derailment in South Carolina was a tragedy, and if the tanker had been in a heavily populated urban area, even more innocent lives would have been lost. We need to implement more safeguards to reduce the risks associated with the shipment of these toxic chemicals,” Markey said in a statement. Markey’s bill would require making tank cars more puncture-resistant, notifying local emergency personnel before hazardous material shipments enter their jurisdiction, creating regulations to reroute shipments of the most dangerous materials around densely populated or other sensitive areas and increasing training for employees working with hazardous material shipments. Markey first introduced H.R. 4824 in 2004 (Representative Edward Markey release, Jan. 10). Back to top       Umatilla Sees Slow Start in Chemical Disposal The Umatilla Chemical Depot in Oregon last week destroyed 327 sarin-filled M55 rockets, bringing the total number of munitions destroyed since the incinerator began operating in September to 2,600, the East Oregonian reported (see GSN, Jan. 3). In comparison, an identical weapons disposal facility in Anniston, Ala., eliminated more than 15,000 M55 rockets within the same time period, according to the East Oregonian. Disposal work has been suspended twice at the Oregon facility due to worker error, officials said (see GSN, Dec. 21) “We didn’t do as well in the startup period as I thought we would have done,” U.S. Army site manager Don Barclay said Friday. “A lot of people focus on the numbers, but that is not the point. The rockets will be gone someday.  It’s a matter of how well we do it. ... We’re not going where we need to be going yet.” The facility has also faced a series of mechanical problems. Last week, for example, workers fixed a long-standing drainage measurement malfunction, according to the East Oregonian. “We’re disappointed we’re not further along than we are, but we’re hopeful we’ll see some significant progress soon,” said Dennis Murphey, administrator for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality’s chemical demilitarization program (Amy Jo Brown, East Oregonian, Jan. 8). Back to top       Aberdeen Begins Container Cleanout Operations Steel containers that have been emptied of mustard agent at the Aberdeen Chemical Agent Disposal facility in Maryland are now being decontaminated and bisected, the U.S. Army announced yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 6, 2004). Work began Friday at the pilot facility. Containers are moved on conveyers through the Ton Container Cleanout Facility, a sealed area consisting of 11 stations. One station punches holes in the containers; another sprays them with hot water to dislodge hardened material. The rinse water is then removed from the container and neutralized, according to the Army statement.  A robotic arm removes valves and plugs from the container, which then moves to the next station to be cut in half by a remotely operated machine. The halves are then completely cleansed with hot water, steamed and dried to complete decontamination. Aberdeen has neutralized 80 percent of its mustard agent stockpile since April 2003, according to the statement (U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency release, Jan. 10). Back to top

Lockheed Martin Completes Aegis Testing Lockheed Martin has finished land-based testing of the first deployable Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system, the company announced yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 14, 2003). “This marks a significant milestone toward an initial, sea-based capability to defend the United States, deployed forces and allies from the threat of short- and medium-range ballistic missile attack,” the company said in a press release. Two Aegis cruisers are scheduled to be outfitted with the capability during the next year for use in Ballistic Missile Defense system testing. The cruisers could, however, be deployed in response to a national security emergency prior to completion of full testing in 2006, according to the press statement. The U.S. Navy and the Missile Defense Agency are jointly developing the Aegis as part of the Ballistic Missile Defense System. They expect to outfit 15 Aegis destroyers and three Aegis cruisers with the system using Standard Missile 3s to shoot down missiles, according to Lockheed Martin (PR Newswire/Yahoo!News, Jan. 10).).   Back to top

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