Japanese Authorities Arrest Man for Attempted Biological Weapons-Related Technology Export

A man was arrested in Japan today for smuggling equipment that could be used to produce biological weapons, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Feb. 17).

The man said he knew the freeze dryer he is charged with shipping to North Korea in 2002 had potential military applications. Freeze dryers can be used to dry bacteria for biological weapons, according to Kyodo News.

The man did not obtain approval from the Japanese Trade Ministry for the shipment and allegedly hid the transaction from authorities by using a Taiwanese trading house, Kyodo reported (Associated Press, Aug. 10).

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U.S. Trims Candidate List for New Biodefense Lab

The U.S. Homeland Security Department yesterday said it has winnowed the number of candidate sites for the planned National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility from 29 to 18 (see GSN, June 29).

The new site would replace the Plum Island Animal Disease Center in New York. Scientists from various federal agencies would have access to multiple laboratories for research on foreign animal, human and zoonotic diseases, some of which could be used in acts of terrorism.

“DHS plans for the NBAF to develop vaccine countermeasures for foreign animal diseases, and provide advanced test and evaluation capability for threat detection, vulnerability, and countermeasure assessment for animal and zoonotic diseases,” the agency said in a release.

Entities that made the first candidate cut: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California; the Georgia Consortium for Health and Agro-Security, which proposed two sites; Heartland BioAgro Consortium in Kansas — two sites; the Kentucky and Tennessee NBAF Consortium; the Mid-Atlantic Bio-Ag Defense Consortium in Maryland; the Gulf States Bio and Agro-Defense Consortium based in Mississippi — three sites; the University of Missouri at Columbia; North Carolina State University-College of Veterinary Medicine; Oklahoma State University; Texas A&M University; Brooks Development Authority and Brooks City-Base Foundation in Texas; Texas Research and Technology Foundation; Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research in Texas; and the University of Wisconsin-Madison site at the Kegonsa Research Facility.

Remaining candidates now can offer more details on their proposals. A list of finalists is expected to be ready by the end of 2006, with the final selection made in 2008 (U.S. Homeland Security Department release, Aug. 9).

Factors considered in making the first cut included community support for the Biosafety Level 4 facility, the available labor pool, research capabilities, and purchasing, building and operational matters, said Homeland Security spokesman Jarrod Agen (Ben Evans, Associated Press/Daily Comet, Aug. 9).

While Plum Island itself is no longer a candidate to house the laboratory, it is still due to receive $35 million in federal funding for security and infrastructure upgrades, Newsday reported today.

Local officials said they hope the money is a sign that Plum Island would continue to operate even after the new facility opens in 2013.

“To my mind this is very good news,” said Representative Timothy Bishop (D-N.Y.). “The community does not want a Biosafety Level 4 facility and I am pleased to say we won’t be getting one. I am also pleased that important upgrades will be made to the security and infrastructure (which) … strengthen the case that Senator [Hillary] Clinton (D-N.Y.) and I have been making that Plum Island continues to serve a vital role in our nation’s biodefense.”

A new 8,000-square-foot animal wing is to be built at Plum Island, and improvements made to water and electrical systems and the wastewater decontamination system, Newsday reported.

Homeland Security’s Agen said that does not necessarily mean Plum Island would continue to operate for an extended period. “We need to ensure that during the next seven to 10 years that the facility has the proper resources,” he said (Carol Eisenberg, Newsday, Aug. 10).

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U.K. Disrupts Airline Terror Plot

British authorities said today they had stopped a terrorist plan to detonate explosives on passenger airliners flying from the United Kingdom to the United States, the Washington Post reported (see GSN, Jan. 17).

Police arrested 21 people in London and Birmingham after an extended investigation, said London Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson.

“Had this plot been carried out, the loss of life to innocent civilians would have been on an unprecedented scale,” said British Home Secretary John Reid.

British officials said terrorists planned to smuggle explosive equipment onto airliners in order to bring down at least 10 aircraft, the Post reported (Barbash/Anderson, Washington Post, Aug. 10).

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the plot involved disguising liquid explosives as beverages and detonators as electronic devices, the Associated Press reported today.

“It was sophisticated, it had a lot of members and it was international in scope. It was in some respects suggestive of an al-Qaeda plot,” he said.

“We were really getting quite close to the execution phase,” Chertoff added.

A top U.S. counterterrorism official said that possibly as many as 50 individuals were involved in the plan, according to AP (Danica Kirka, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Aug. 10).

U.S. officials raised the threat level for air transport to red, the highest alert, the Post reported. The terrorists had targeted flights operated by American Airlines, Continental Airlines and United Airlines, a U.S. official said.

However, Chertoff said officials had no reason to believe that U.S.-based attacks were part of the plot.

“We believe that these arrests [in London] have significantly disrupted the threat, but we cannot be sure that the threat has been entirely eliminated or the plot completely thwarted,” he said. 

The Transportation Security Administration announced that any type of liquid or gel — including beverages, shampoo, toothpaste, hair gels and similar items — would be prohibited from passengers’ carry-on luggage. The agency said medication and baby formula would have to be inspected prior to bringing them on aircraft. Passengers in the United Kingdom were required to taste such liquids in the presence of authorities, according to the Post (Barbash/Anderson, Washington Post, Aug. 10).

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Intern Prepares New Disaster Readiness Web Site

An intern at the Federation of American Scientists has prepared a disaster preparedness Web site that the organization says is a significant improvement over the version offered by the U.S. Homeland Security Department, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, May 3, 2005).

The official Ready.gov site since 2003 has provided more than 20 million visitors information on dealing with a WMD incident or natural disaster. Critics, however, have said some of the advice is obvious or of questionable value.

The primary problems, according to an analysis by University of Virginia engineering student Emily Hesaltine, “include generic advice, unnecessarily lengthy descriptions, and verbatim repetition of details on multiple pages, all encapsulated within a confusing navigational structure.”

Following research and consultations with experts, Hesaltine prepared ReallyReady.org, which is designed to be more complete and more factual while being easier to understand. The Web site went online last week, the Post reported.

“FAS hopes to see Ready.gov updated so that it is more useful to the public that has paid for it, especially since a 20-year-old college student was able to single-handedly complete the same task in only two months,” Michael Stebbins, the Washington organization’s biology policy director, wrote in his Web log.

Homeland Security was not amused.

“However well intended, the work done by the Federation of American Scientists, relegated to an intern, runs the risk of confusing rather than benefiting the public,” spokeswoman Joanna Gonzalez said in a prepared statement.

The home pages for both sites are largely identical, using the same color scheme and photograph of an apparent four-person U.S. family.

Hesaltine and Stebbins offered specific criticisms of the department’s online information.

According to the official Web site, “If you see signs of a chemical attack … consider if you can get out of the area or if you should go inside the closest building and ‘shelter-in-place.’” However, Hesaltine said a RAND Corp. study showed that “trying to get away from the chemical cloud after the attack is dangerous because it’s hard to tell which direction the wind is blowing.” The FAS site encourages people to immediately seek shelter that can be sealed shut.

Users of Ready.gov are told to “quickly assess the situation” if a nuclear attack occurs without warning. “Duhhhhhh,” Stebbins said.  ReallyReady tells users how to identify an atomic strike and how to respond (Zachary Goldfarb, Washington Post, Aug. 10).

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U.S. Backs HEU Recovery Effort

Technicians from the U.S. National Nuclear Security Agency, aided by Polish authorities, Russian officials and International Atomic Energy Agency experts, yesterday removed 40 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from a nuclear facility located about 20 miles from Warsaw, the Boston Globe reported today (see GSN, July 14).

The material, fresh fuel for the research reactor at Otwock-Swierk, was transferred under armed guard to a facility in Russia, where it is due to be blended down into a proliferation-resistant form.

Nonproliferation experts hailed the effort, the latest conducted under the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, but said additional efforts are needed to secure dangerous materials at more than 160 sites worldwide.

“This is an important development,” said Anthony Weir, a research associate at Harvard University’s Project on Managing the Atom. “But there is a long way yet to go. The important thing is to keep the eye on the ball of all the nuclear material, not just the material that is currently being dealt with. We need a comprehensive package for all the threats we are facing around the world.”

“Are we doing more? Yes.  Are we doing everything we need? No,” said Joseph Cirincione, vice president for national security studies at the Center for American Progress. “It is as if we have all the time in the world. And we don’t.”

U.S. officials discovered the existence of the material at Otwock-Swierk earlier this year. Washington funded security upgrades for the site until the removal operation could be conducted, the Globe reported (Bryan Bender, Boston Globe, Aug. 10).

The United States plans to assist Polish efforts to convert the research reactor to use low-enriched uranium fuel beginning in 2009, according to an Energy Department release.

The department is also helping to secure radioactive materials in Poland, having completed security upgrades at 37 Polish facilities and with work continuing at six additional sites (DOE release).

IAEA Project Manager Arnaud Atger called the operation “another critical step towards enhancing the security of fissile material, by eliminating stockpiles of HEU.”

The agency is also working with Poland to convert its powerful research reactor, MARIA, from using highly enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium fuel.

“Poland serves as a model of cooperation for other eligible countries, to encourage them to ship back their remaining inventories of fresh HEU fuel and convert their research reactors to proliferation-resistant LEU,” Atger said.

More than 100 research reactors around the globe still use weapon-grade uranium, according to an agency press statement (International Atomic Energy Agency release, Aug. 10).

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Officials Balk at ElBaradei Comments on Iran

European and U.S. diplomats have accused International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei of being overly forgiving with Iran regarding its controversial nuclear program, the Belgian De Standaard newspaper reported Monday (see GSN, Aug. 9).

Diplomats criticized remarks ElBaradei made recently at the Clingendael Institute in The Hague, where he said the world must understand what causes a country to seek nuclear weapons.

“Give such a country security guarantees so that it has no reason to develop a nuclear weapon,” said ElBaradei

A correspondent for the Dutch periodical M said “the Iranian ambassador who was in the audience at Clingendael nodded his head in agreement. But civil servants from EU countries who are negotiating with Iran, and the Americans, could scarcely believe their ears. They believe ElBaradei is giving Tehran an excuse for continuing to play for high stakes.”

“The three European countries that have been trying to get Iran to see reason since 2003 [France, Germany and the United Kingdom] believe that ElBaradei is not following the rule book. They believe he is acting like a politician and not an ‘independent technocrat’ as laid down in his job description,” the M report says.

ElBaradei’s predecessor, Hans Blix, also criticized his comments.

“A director general must not make any statements that can be interpreted as partisan,” Blix said (De Standaard/BBC Monitoring, Aug. 8).

Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said U.S. President George W. Bush’s failure to respond to a letter sent in May “will not have a good ending,” the Associated Press reported yesterday.

“Well, I wanted to open a window toward the light for the president so that he can see that one can look on the world through a different perspective. ... We are all free to choose,” Ahmadinejad told CBS in an interview Tuesday. “But please give him this message, sir: Those who refuse to accept an invitation will not have a good ending or fate.”

Bush “believes that his power emanates from his nuclear warhead arsenals,” he said. “The time of the bomb is in the past, it’s behind us. Today is the era of thoughts, dialogue and cultural exchanges.”

White House spokesman Tony Snow said in response yesterday that Bush does not “respond publicly to private correspondence,” referring the May letter (Associated Press/Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Aug. 9).

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Pakistan Splits Nuclear Weapons Among Three Services

Pakistan has equipped three units in its armed forces with nuclear weapons and missiles, Kyodo News reported yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 7).

“We have an army strategic force command, we have the air force strategic force command and the naval strategic force command. ... They are being controlled by responsible people,” Defense Ministry spokesman Shaukat Sultan told Kyodo. “The strategic force in the army is headed by a three-star general and they have various missile groups under them.”

Army nuclear silos and warehouses are spread around the country, largely underground, officials and experts said.

“There might be up to 100 facilities where missiles and nuclear weapons and their parts are stored in peacetime,” said one source.

The army’s strategic force has nearly 6,000 troops, according to Kyodo, while the air force has U.S.-supplied F-16 fighter jets and French-manufactured Mirage aircraft, both able to carry nuclear bombs.  

The navy has a new cruise missile that could be used to carry nuclear warheads, Kyodo reported. However, defense analysts said Pakistan has yet to test-fire a nuclear-capable missile from a naval platform.

Sultan said Pakistan’s nuclear devices and delivery systems are not kept together in storage.

“The launch mechanism, the device and various other mechanisms, they are kept at different places. To launch them, you have to first put them together,” he said. He added that few personnel have access to codes required to operate the weapons (Kyodo News/Yahoo!News, Aug. 9).

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Adamov Free Pending Russian, U.S. Trials

The Russian Supreme Court last month ordered that former atomic energy chief Yevgeny Adamov be freed from custody while he awaits trials in both Russia and the United States, The Moscow News reported (see GSN, April 24).

Adamov was indicted last year in the United States for allegedly diverting $9 million in U.S. nuclear safety aid sent to Russia. He is charged with fraud and abuse of office in his home nation.

It remains in doubt whether officials in Moscow would allow Adamov’s extradition to the United States for trial. He said, though, that he plans to be present to hear the U.S. case against him.

“It seems the trial in Pittsburgh will not start before the spring of 2007,” he told the News. “By that time, the trial in Russia should be over, and therefore I will no longer be under a restraining order.”

“This trial is an excellent opportunity to prove that not all state and government officials in Russia are corrupt, as the U.S., as well as the Russian, public has been led to believe,” Adamov added. “It is also a very good opportunity to explain to U.S. society the real motives behind the prosecution of some Russian state and political figures” (Dmitry Starostin, The Moscow News, Aug. 10).

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Ethiopia Ratifies Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

Ethiopia on Tuesday ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Aug. 8).

The Vienna-based organization that administers the treaty announced yesterday that 135 nations have now ratified the pact. Ethiopia became the 33rd African country to do so, according to AP.

Ten nations with nuclear facilities on their soil must still ratify the treaty for it to enter into force (CTBTO release, Aug. 09).

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Residents, Watchdog Groups Oppose Increase in Plutonium Pit Production at Los Alamos Lab

Watchdog groups and New Mexico residents this week have criticized U.S. plans to increase production of nuclear bomb triggers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (see GSN, June 27).

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to increase annual plutonium pit production at the facility from 20 to 80, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported yesterday.

The agency needs new pits to refresh triggers in nuclear weapons and for tests of production technology, Thomas D’Agostino, agency deputy administrator for defense programs, said in June.

Opponents said the plan would lead to additional environmental contamination and lead Los Alamos away from a focus on research.

“We can be assured that accidents will happen,” said Greg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group. “We just don’t know how severe they’ll be.”

The proposal would turn Los Alamos into “a manufacturing center for a new generation of nuclear weapons,” Mello said (Andy Lenderman, The New Mexican, Aug. 9).

“Science at Los Alamos is an endangered species,” he added, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

Speakers at a public hearing Tuesday in Los Alamos questioned the plan’s implications for the global nonproliferation regime and the laboratory’s ability to manage additional waste.

“Currently, we don’t have adequate and safe plans to dispose of waste we have already produced,” said Albuquerque pastor Daniel Erdman.

The nuclear agency is preparing an environmental impact statement on the proposal. Public comments are to be included in the document, the Journal reported (John Arnold, Albuquerque Journal, Aug. 9).

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Tooele to Begin Final Chemical Agent Disposal Effort

The Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Utah this month is expected to begin destroying the final chemical weapons stored at the Deseret Chemical Depot, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, June 8).

Incineration could begin Aug. 17 of 6,208 tons of mustard agent contained in 124,627 munitions and storage containers. The program is expected to last six years.

Deseret contained the largest U.S. stockpile of chemical weapons. The incinerator has already eliminated about half of the nation’s arsenal of sarin and VX nerve agents. That effort lasted 10 years, and was followed by a 14-month shutdown to clean and reconfigure the facility for destroying mustard agent.

“Everything’s in order,” said Gary McCloskey, a general manager for disposal contractor EG&G Defense Materials Inc. “The physical work is done.  We’re now in the paperwork phase.”

The United States to date has eliminated 39 percent of its chemical weapons stockpile, AP reported.

McCloskey said he worries about the dangers posed by deteriorating munitions more than the threat that terrorists might gain access to the weapons. Vapor leaks from stored weapons are becoming an increasing problem, he said (Paul Foy, Associated Press, Aug. 9).

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U.S. Considers Fresh North Korea Sanctions

The United States is looking at imposing additional sanctions against North Korea in response to last month’s missile launches, Asia Pulse reported today (see GSN, Aug. 9).

“We are going to discuss with the regional leaders here and determine what is appropriate but we’ll make sure that North Korea realizes that if they do launch missiles (again) they will be shot down by the U.S.,” U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), part of a five-member congressional delegation in Seoul, said yesterday.

The lawmakers also plan to visit Singapore and the Philippines, according to Asia Pulse (Asia Pulse/Yahoo!News, Aug. 10).

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun told the delegation that he was skeptical about the effectiveness of new sanctions, the Associated Press reported.

He “felt a carrot was more useful with the North Koreans than a stick,” House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) said after meeting with Roh.

“He expressed a lack of enthusiasm for more sanctions,” Hyde added (Burt Herman, Associated Press, Aug. 10).

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