U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice answers questions at a press conference in Beijing yesterday, a day after North Korea agreed to return to multilateral nuclear negotiations. Rice said progress must be made at the talks toward North Korean disarmament (Goh Chai Hin/Getty Images). North Korea Agrees to New Round of Nuclear Talks Pyongyang announced Saturday that it would resume multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations during the week of July 25, the New York Times reported yesterday (see GSN, July 8). A Beijing dinner meeting that included U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill and North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan was the setting for the agreement, according to a senior administration official traveling in Asia with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice...Full Story

Former Soviet State Stops Nuclear Smuggling Attempts The former Soviet state of Georgia over the last two years has stopped at least four attempts to smuggle highly enriched uranium through the country, a senior nuclear official told Reuters last week (see GSN, June 17)...Full Story

Changes to Nuclear Security Treaty Adopted Member nations on Friday adopted changes to the 1979 Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, Reuters reported (see GSN, July 5)...Full Story

	Monday, July 11, 2005

U.S. Terrorism Threat Level Could Soon Drop The U.S. Homeland Security Department could drop the mass transit terrorism alert level from high risk to elevated this week, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, July 8). U.S. authorities remain concerned about copycat attacks following the London subway and bus bombings. Such incidents tend to occur within two weeks of the first attack, counterterrorism officials said Friday (Associated Press/USA Today, July 11). Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said yesterday that his agency was examining additional ways to protect mass transit, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. “We want to do it in a disciplined way, we want to do it in a risk-focused way, and we want to be driven not just by last week’s events but by all kinds of threats — because, you know, we still worry about aviation, we worry about bioweapons,” Chertoff told ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” While the proposed fiscal 2006 White House budget for the Transportation Safety Administration contains $4.7 billion for aviation security, it designates $32 million for all forms of surface transportation combined, according to the Chronicle. “There’s an imbalance here,” Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) told “Fox News Sunday.” However, some of the $8 billion in unspecified Homeland Security grants issued last year could be applied to mass transit security, should local authorities wish to do so, said Chertoff (Joe Garofoli, San Francisco Chronicle, July 11). Senator Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee, said he remained most concerned about terrorists potentially smuggling weapons of mass destruction into the country and that protecting mass transit requires better intelligence rather than infrastructure improvement, AP reported yesterday. “It’s hard to protect mass transit, other than by increasing the visibility of police officers and having more bomb-sniffing dogs. A well-organized terrorist group is going to find some place in the transit system that they are going to be able to attack if that is their desire,” he said. “The real protection here comes from having better intelligence and from a stronger commitment to gathering intelligence so that we can stop people before they strike.” Gregg’s committee last month voted to reduce rail and transit security grants to state and local governments from $150 million to $100 million. The Senate is expected to restore that money, said a budget aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). The planned Homeland Security Department budget includes $1.4 billion for research on countering weapons of mass destruction (Associated Press/Portsmouth Herald, July 10). Some analysts remain concerned that terrorists could soon acquire chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, the Toronto Star reported Saturday. “We absolutely know from their correspondence that weapons of mass destruction are what they want to do,” said Matthew Devost, president of the Terrorism Research Center. “They’ve said that if they can acquire them, it’s their ‘moral obligation’ to use them.” If that happens, “it rocks the foundation of a nation. A country can recover from a small number of people being killed in a terrorist attack, but it would be much harder when the numbers are in the many thousands” (Lynda Hurst, Toronto Star, July 9). Back to top

North Korea Agrees to New Round of Nuclear Talks Pyongyang announced Saturday that it would resume multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations during the week of July 25, the New York Times reported yesterday (see GSN, July 8). A Beijing dinner meeting that included U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill and North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan was the setting for the agreement, according to a senior administration official traveling in Asia with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. China offered to again host the talks, and “all the parties have agreed,” the official told the Times (Brinkley/Sanger, New York Times, July 10). Kim also told Hill that North Korea would respond in detail to a U.S. proposal presented at the last round of talks to end Pyongyang’s nuclear program, senior U.S. officials traveling with Rice told Agence France-Presse (see GSN, June 24, 2004; Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 11). Washington is willing to be flexible on the terms of its proposal if Pyongyang presents the details of its concerns when talks resume, U.S. officials traveling with Rice said yesterday. “It was a proposal, not a demand,” one official told the Washington Post. “It was to get things started, which is why it is important to hear back.” U.S. officials have said they are still not sure whether the North’s decision indicates a genuine desire to resolve the dispute or is yet another effort to buy time to expand its nuclear arsenal, the Post reported (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, July 11). Rice and her Chinese counterpart, Li Zhaoxing, said Pyongyang’s decision was “only the first step,” Agence France-Press reported yesterday. “We agreed that this is only the first step, and the real issue is to make progress in the talks,” Rice said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 10). “It is not the goal of the talks to have talks,” she said. “It is the goal of the talks to have progress” (Washington Post, July 11). Other Bush administration officials also warned that they expected progress at the next round of talks, the Times reported. “We’ve made it clear they can’t just come back and lecture us, like the last sessions,” said a senior U.S. official in Washington. “Either they get on the path to disarmament, or we move to Plan B.” U.S. officials have recently said there are three main hurdles to a resolution of the standoff: whether Pyongyang is willing to completely and verifiably dismantle its nuclear program; whether it is willing to do so before receiving any promised rewards; and whether true verification of dismantlement would be possible, even if promised. However, while North Korea has in the past demanded turning the six-party talks into regional disarmament negotiations, it has made no such demand as a precondition for resuming talks, the senior U.S. official said (New York Times, July 10). A wide-ranging South Korean aid proposal for Pyongyang is expected to be revealed at the talks, Seoul’s top nuclear negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, said today (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 11). Pyongyang said yesterday it would do its “utmost” to make progress when negotiations resume, Reuters reported. “The resumption of the talks itself is important but the most essential thing is for the talks to have an in-depth discussion on ways of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula to make substantial progress in the talks,” the official KCNA news agency announced (Reuters, July 10). Increased contact and diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang, as well as a substantial incentive package from South Korea, led to the North’s decision, analysts told Reuters yesterday. “They believed that if they didn’t come back to the table soon, actions would be taken,” said Derek Mitchell, a Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Some analysts said that, even upon resumption of the talks, immediate progress was unlikely. “North Korea may try to change the agenda of the talks by seeking a peace treaty with the United States or by discussing a possible reduction of the military presence on the Korean Peninsula,” said Masao Okonogi, a professor at Tokyo’s Keio University (Reuters, July 10). Major differences remain between Pyongyang and Washington, including U.S. allegations that North Korea is running a parallel uranium enrichment program to its acknowledged plutonium-based program, one analyst told AFP today. “I don’t see how the process can move forward until North Korea admits it has such a program. It’ll be amazing if the U.S. is willing to set this aside, and the odds are very slim that North Korea will admit this,” said Ralph Cossa, executive director of the Pacific Forum. He also said Pyongyang’s decision to resume talks may be related to cooperation between the United States and China, Pyongyang’s largest aid provider, rather than any desire by Pyongyang to resolve the situation. “North Korea realized they had milked the playing-hard-to-get game for long enough but they are still very much playing politics,” said Cossa. “In my opinion it is still 60-40 that they will show up and 40-60 that they will engage in any meaningful dialogue,” he said (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, July 11). Back to top       Former Soviet State Stops Nuclear Smuggling Attempts The former Soviet state of Georgia over the last two years has stopped at least four attempts to smuggle highly enriched uranium through the country, a senior nuclear official told Reuters last week (see GSN, June 17). “There were four attempts at smuggling highly enriched uranium (HEU) via Georgia during the last two years,” said Soso Kakushadze, head of Georgia's Nuclear and Radiation Safety Department. “In all these cases, Georgian security officials prevented attempts to smuggle HEU through Georgia to other countries. The HEU had been brought to Georgia from abroad,” he added. Kakushadze did not specify where the uranium had originated. Speaking to the Associated Press, Kakushadze said the uranium was not weapon-grade and could not be used in a radiological “dirty bomb.” International Atomic Energy Agency spokesman Mark Gwozdecky confirmed that Georgia reported the most recent incident (George Jahn, Associated Press/ABC News, July 8). The International Atomic Energy Agency said the last confirmed case of HEU smuggling involved three individuals looking to sell half a gram of the material in July 2001 in Paris. A Western diplomat close to the U.N. nuclear watchdog said the agency learned of the smuggling attempts during a recent visit to Georgia, Reuters reported. The diplomat said the case indicates the possible existence of an active HEU black market. “It's unclear why the Georgians waited so long to tell the IAEA,” the diplomat said. IAEA officials went to Georgia last month to check the status of the country’s nuclear materials.  Kakushadze said the cases were not reported earlier because they were being investigated. Meanwhile, several IAEA officials said 9 kilograms of plutonium might be missing from a nuclear institute in Abkhazia. One IAEA diplomat, however, said that the plutonium may have come from Soviet nuclear generators used to create electricity and heat, making it unusable in a weapon (Margarita Antidze, Reuters, July 8). Back to top       Changes to Nuclear Security Treaty Adopted Member nations on Friday adopted changes to the 1979 Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, Reuters reported (see GSN, July 5). Australia, Canada, Japan, the United States and 20 European countries proposed the amendments, which would require signatories to create a competent regulatory body and adopt legislation to protect nuclear material, according to Reuters. A total of 89 countries voted in favor of the changes. Existing rules for securing shipments were broadened to cover nuclear materials being transported or stored within a country, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement. The changes would come into effect after ratification by two-thirds of the 112 member states to the original convention, which the agency said could take several years (Reuters, July 8). Back to top       Report Says New Steps Needed to Stop Nuclear Terror By David Francis Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — A recent report claims negotiation of a treaty to ban the production of fissile materials used in nuclear weapons and improved intelligence efforts are needed to prevent a terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon (see GSN, June 28). Dirty Bombs and Primitive Nuclear Weapons, written by Frank Barnaby and published last month by British think tank Oxford Research Group, also recommends reprocessing weapon-grade plutonium into mixed-oxide fuel for nuclear power reactors, funding for research to find alternative uses for radioactive materials and the expanded use of radiation detection systems. London’s Independent newspaper highlighted the report Sunday following last week’s bombings that left 50 people dead and more than 700 injured (Independent, July 10). Barnaby called for a crackdown on nuclear smuggling networks through cooperation between international agencies and increases in money and manpower dedicated to patrolling the nuclear black market. Emphasis should be placed on securing materials from the former Soviet Union, he said. Securing nuclear materials, while difficult, must become a priority, Barnaby said. “At the very least establishments using large radioactive sources should apply security measures such as keeping strict inventories, providing securely locked storage facilities and security guards,” he wrote. Finally, Barnaby called for improved intelligence on possible acts of nuclear terrorism. Terrorist group communications must continue to be monitored, but that needs to be supplemented by human intelligence from within the groups. Barnaby urged intelligence agencies to work to penetrate terrorist groups with undercover or double agents. Without these changes, Barnaby warned that terrorists could be capable of executing an attack with a radiological “dirty bomb” or a primitive nuclear weapon.   Barnaby estimated that a dirty bomb attack in central London would result in some deaths but would not cause as many casualties as a standard nuclear device. While many people would be exposed to radiation, levels would likely be low enough not to cause any long-term harm. However, Barnaby said a dirty bomb attack would cause “enormous social, psychological and economic disruption. … It would cause considerable fear, panic and social disruption, exactly the effects terrorist wish to achieve. The public fear of radiation is very great indeed, some say irrationally so.” Complicating these disruptions and adding to public fear would be decontamination following the attack, which could require destruction of buildings near the blast site and cost millions of dollars. Sources for radioactive materials that could be used in a dirty bomb are plentiful, Barnaby said. He noted that thousands of British facilities, including hospitals and blood banks, house radiological materials that could be used in a weapon. Fallout from an attack using a primitive nuclear weapon would be much more severe, Barnaby said. Casualties would likely be high, and decontamination could take years.  Barnaby argued that Russian nuclear weapons are not secure and could be obtained by a criminal organization for sale on the black market. Also worrisome is Russian nuclear material, which could be sold illegally. Once materials for a weapon are secured, terrorists would only need to fashion a crude weapon easy to produce with guidance from nuclear scientists. “The military demand that their nuclear weapons are highly reliable and explode with an explosive yield that can be accurately predicted,” according to Barnaby. “They want to be sure that their nuclear weapons will go off and to know the explosive power of the weapon. A terrorist group would be much less demanding and satisfied with a relatively unsophisticated device, much easier to design and fabricate than the very sophisticated nuclear weapons required by the military.” Back to top       Iran Should Resume Uranium Enrichment, Official Says Iran’s disclosures about its nuclear program should qualify it to be allowed to resume uranium enrichment, an Iranian lawmaker said yesterday (see GSN, July 8). “Previously there were many ambiguities in Iran’s case, but today many of the ambiguities have been removed,” said Alaeddin Borujerdi, the head of the Iranian parliament’s foreign affairs commission. “Therefore, more than before, the conditions have now become prepared so that we can once again resume our activities under the [International Atomic Energy Agency] regulations,” he said. European diplomats said they do not expect a long-awaited European Union proposal to satisfy Iranian demands that it be allowed to resume its fuel cycle work, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 10). Meanwhile, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said last week that he hoped the election of hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president would not change the course of Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the European Union, Newsweek reported. “Our Iranian colleagues have been saying this is business as usual, and I hope that’s the case,” said ElBaradei. He also said mastering the fuel cycle would give Iran greater power in the region. “I think they understand that the fuel cycle enables them to be part of the ‘big boys’ club, and it’s a smart insurance policy, if they can get that, because again, it sends a message to their neighbors,” said ElBaradei. He added that he hoped the negotiations would help to avoid any military confrontation. “I am still hoping that at the end of the day, with all the posturing, nobody can afford a confrontation. Confrontation is a lose-lose proposition,” he said (Christopher Dickey, Newsweek, July 11). Back to top

Maine Postal Facilities to Get Anthrax Detectors Two U.S. postal facilities in Maine plan to install a system that can detect anthrax in the mail, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, July 8). The mail-processing center in Portland is expected to install the Biohazard Detection System in mid-July, followed in September by the facility in Hampden. The postal sites are among 250 processing centers across the United States that are to receive the system, according to AP. Air samples are continuously passed through the system and tested every hour. An alarm sounds if anthrax is detected, according to postal officials (Associated Press/Times Argus, July 10). Back to top

Russia Extends Chemical Weapons Service Life Russia has extended the service life of chemical weapons at its storage facilities to 2006, Interfax reported Saturday (see GSN, June 24). “The technical condition of 83,100 rounds of aviation and 2,001,100 rounds of artillery ammunition containing war gases has been evaluated of late. All this arsenal has been provided with certificates extending their safe storage life until the end of 2006,” said a spokesman for the Russian state commission for chemical disarmament. The spokesman added that nearly 27,000 chemical weapons rounds had their gas-detecting coating replaced. This coat is expected to be replaced on more than 180,000 additional rounds (Interfax, July 9). Meanwhile, a chemical disarmament commission source told Interfax that it would be difficult to move chemical weapons from the depot at Kizner, Udmurtia, to the destruction facility at Shchuchye, according to BBC Worldwide Monitoring. “Such efforts will not be cost effective. The expenditure on chemical weapons transportation from Kizner to Shchuchye is estimated at about [$745.4 million], while the cost of building a facility for the destruction of these weapons in Kizner is merely [$457.7 million],” the source said (BBC Worldwide Monitoring, July 8). Back to top       Umatilla Contractor Fined for Safety Violations The operator of the Umatilla Chemical Weapons Depot in Oregon has been fined $7,200 for safety violations that occurred in October, the Associated Press reported last week (see GSN, June 10). Washington Demilitarization Co. was fined $3,300 for turning off an air monitoring system, a violation of the facility’s permit. The Oregon Environmental Quality Department also fined the company $3,900 for putting hazardous waste into an incinerator at the wrong temperature (Associated Press/KGW, July 8). Back to top

U.S. Missile Defense Testing Could Resume in Fall The U.S. Missile Defense Agency is preparing a new flight test schedule and could resume system testing in the fall, said agency spokesman Rick Lehner (see GSN, May 13). The Defense Department may not have a target missile ready, however, so the first exercise might not be an intercept test, the Associated Press reported today. In any case, the Pentagon will go ahead with plans to install 10 new interceptor missiles at Fort Greely, Alaska, officials said. The fledgling missile defense system has not had a successful intercept test since October 2002. “The system … has no demonstrated capability to defend the United States under realistic operational conditions,” said Philip Coyle, a former Defense Department testing chief. He added that 20 or 30 more developmental tests were needed before the system would be ready for realistic testing. “If it takes two or three years to get a success, at that rate, those 20 or 30 tests could take them 50 years. They obviously need to improve the pace as well as the realism, but they haven’t been able to do it,” he said (Associated Press/Baltimore Sun, July 11).     Back to top

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