North Korean envoy Kim Kye Gwan waves today as he enters the Beijing airport to return home after refusing to join the most recent round of six-party nuclear talks (Frederic Brown/Getty Images). North Korea Refuses to Talk, Nuclear Negotiations Recess North Korea’s lead nuclear negotiator left China today after refusing to meet with other envoys in what was supposed to be the latest round of six-party talks, Reuters reported (see GSN, March 21). Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan made no comments as he prepared to fly home. “Our delegation went home because there was no progress on the promised transfer of the funds,” according to a North Korean government source in Beijing...Full Story

Lawmakers See Lax Enforcement of Iran Sanctions Act By Jon Fox Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — U.S. senators yesterday suggested tightening restrictions on firms that continue to invest in Iran and eliminating the president’s ability to waive sanctions on those companies (see GSN, March 7)...Full Story

U.S. Health System Said Unready for Nuclear Strike A recent study found that the medical infrastructure of the United States could not manage the aftermath of a nuclear strike, Bloomberg News reported yesterday (see GSN, March 2)...Full Story

	Thursday, March 22, 2007

New Zealand to Fund Nuclear Smuggling Prevention New Zealand plans to pay nearly $500,000 to help prevent smuggling of nuclear materials in Ukraine, the Xinhua News Agency reported today (see GSN, Dec. 22, 2005). “New Zealand’s funding of more than 680,000 NZ dollars ($490,000) will be helping the U.S. Department of Energy to train and provide better detection equipment on the Ukrainian border with Russia,” said Prime Minister Helen Clark.  “This assistance will help the Ukraine battle those who might be trying to smuggle nuclear and radioactive material.” The funds are being supplied through the Group of Eight Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction (Xinhua News Agency, March 22). New Zealand is also scheduled to host from March 26 to 28 a meeting of 20 nations participating in the Proliferation Security Initiative, the U.S.-led program to interdict unconventional weapons and WMD material on the high seas, Agence France-Presse reported. “The PSI provides a clear deterrent to weapons of mass destruction movements, and a means of preventing or stopping those movements if deterrence is not enough,” said Defense Minister Phil Goff. Nations attending the meeting include Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States (Agence France-Presse, March 22). Back to top

North Korea Refuses to Talk, Nuclear Negotiations Recess North Korea’s lead nuclear negotiator left China today after refusing to meet with other envoys in what was supposed to be the latest round of six-party talks, Reuters reported (see GSN, March 21). Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan made no comments as he prepared to fly home. “Our delegation went home because there was no progress on the promised transfer of the funds,” according to a North Korean government source in Beijing. Pyongyang said it would not begin to follow through on its Feb. 13 denuclearization agreement until the United States lifted economic sanctions.  Washington closed its investigation of the Banco Delta Asia in Macau, which has been linked to illicit North Korean financial activities, which opened the door for the bank to transfer $25 million in frozen funds to the Stalinist state. That has not yet occurred, and in the meantime the delegation from Pyongyang refused to participate in multilateral meetings. “The day I’m able to explain to you North Korean thinking is probably the day I’ve been in this process too long,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, calling for the issue to be resolved quickly. “It’s really a waste, especially with everyone gathered here,” said Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki. Officials from the nations negotiating with North Korea — China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States — continued to meet after the officials from Pyongyang left town, Reuters reported (Ueno/Kim, Reuters/Yahoo!News, March 22). Negotiators agreed to a recess in the talks following Kim’s departure, the Associated Press reported. “It is our strong view that we are still on schedule” to meet the 60-day deadline for the first steps in North Korean denuclearization, Hill said. North Korea in that period is to halt operations at its Yongbyon nuclear reactor and allow international inspectors back into the country.  In return, it would receive 50,000 tons of heavy fuel aid and equivalent assistance (Bo-Mi Lim, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, March 22). The fund transfer appears to be held up by the Bank of China’s concerns over the money, which it would place in a North Korean account, Agence France-Presse reported. “Although the Bank of China will be able to undertake this transaction, we need to consult with them,” said lead Chinese nuclear negotiator Wu Dawei.  “The bank has its own concerns, and the government needs to help them in addressing these concerns” (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, March 22). U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice successfully led the press within the Bush administration to release the $25 million in order to promote progress on the nuclear deal, the Financial Times reported. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson approved the move, despite objections from agency officials who deal with terrorism financing. This came after the Treasury Department spent 18 months saying that actions against Banco Delta Asia were a “law enforcement” matter not connected to the nuclear negotiations, according to Korea expert Gordon Flake, executive director of the Mansfield Foundation. The change in policy makes it clear there was a political aspect to the blacklisting of the bank, he said. “We have traded away the pressure we had on” North Korea, he said (Sevastopulo/Yeh, Financial Times, March 21). Back to top       Lawmakers See Lax Enforcement of Iran Sanctions Act By Jon Fox Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — U.S. senators yesterday suggested tightening restrictions on firms that continue to invest in Iran and eliminating the president’s ability to waive sanctions on those companies (see GSN, March 7). In a move similar to steps taken to financially isolate North Korea, the Treasury Department has cut off Iran’s largest state-owned bank from any access — direct or indirect — to the U.S. financial system based on its U.S.-alleged role in financing terrorism. The United States, under an executive order, has also frozen U.S.-based assets of  19 individuals and entities, including another Iranian bank, which the administration says are involved in Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. Still, in recent weeks pressure has been building in Congress to strengthen restrictions on U.S. and international companies that continue to invest in and deal with Iran, even as the U.N. Security Councils considers punishing Tehran further over its nuclear program (see related GSN story today). While Iranian officials contend their nuclear research is for peaceful energy-production purposes, the United States and other nations believe it is part of a weapons program (see GSN, Feb. 8). With representatives of the State, Treasury and Commerce departments testifying before them, members of a Senate banking committee pushed the Bush administration officials on what they see as lax enforcement of the Iran Sanctions Act. The act allows for the United States to issue a variety of sanctions on entities that do business with Tehran, including preventing companies investing in Iran from raising capital in U.S. financial markets. “Despite more than $125 billion in reported investments in Iran’s energy sector by foreign investors, not one foreign energy concern has been sanctioned,” said committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.).  “I and other members of the committee are anxious to hear from our witnesses this morning why this has been the practice.” He later called for an end to the presidential waiver allowed under the law.  “This section of the law ought to go,” he said.  “You’ve got to get a lot tougher than this in my view or we’re going to pay an awful price in the end.” Dodd, using a poster board chart in the Senate hearing room to illustrate his point, asked Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns why the act has not been more effective in dissuading significant foreign investments in Iran’s natural gas and oil fields. Burns said that the act is “useful as a deterrent” and has dissuaded some investment in Iran, “but obviously not all, as your chart shows.” “There has still been significant activity,” he said. “The problem comes in application.” Noting that both the Clinton and first Bush administrations used the presidential wavier, Burns said aggressively sanctioning foreign companies could fracture the international alliance that has been brought to bear on Iran.  The act was first passed in 1996 and renewed by Congress last year. Under President George W. Bush, the administration has not determined that the law has been violated and sanctions therefore triggered.  There have been no sanctions to waive. “The problem is … we want the pressure of the sanctions to be on Iran itself, and not so much on our allies, because that would disrupt and maybe disassemble our coalitions,” he said.  “Right now we’ve succeeded in getting France and Britain and Germany and Russia and China all on the same music sheet with us.” Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) called for the United States to compile a list of foreign subsidiaries dealing with Iran that are owned by U.S. firms.  “I think that knowledge publicly might go a long way in curtailing the activities of these companies,” he said. Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey said that, while he has no information about how many subsidiaries are involved with Iran, anecdotal evidence leads him to believe companies are pulling out on their own. “It seems to me that it’s not enough that our current sanction law permits foreign subsidiaries of United States companies to violate the spirit of U.S. law,” Senator Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said. Senator Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) questioned why there has only been one finding of a violation of the Iran Sanctions Act over the past decade.  “I find that to be rather incredible,” he said. In the House of Representatives, both Republicans and Democrats are proposing legislation to make investing in Iran more difficult.  A bill advanced by Representative Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) would end the administration’s ability to grant sanction waivers and would prohibit U.S. nuclear trade agreements with any nation deemed to be aiding Iran’s atomic program. A bill proposed by Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) would require U.S. government pension funds to pull investments from any company that has invested more than $20 million in Iran’s energy sector. Back to top       U.S. Health System Said Unready for Nuclear Strike A recent study found that the medical infrastructure of the United States could not manage the aftermath of a nuclear strike, Bloomberg News reported yesterday (see GSN, March 2). Researchers studied the effects of 20-kiloton and 550-kiloton blasts in Atlanta, Chicago, New York or Washington, D.C.  They found that hospitals in those cities were bunched together and likely to be destroyed, and the hundreds of thousands of burn victims would overwhelm the U.S. medical system. “The hospital system has about 1,500 burn beds in the whole country, and of these maybe 80 or 90 percent are full at any given time,” University of Virginia health scientist William Bell said in a statement.  “There’s no way of treating the burn victims from a nuclear attack with the existing medical system.” Cities would be destroyed by fire following a nuclear detonation, and most initial survivors would suffer exposure to lethal levels of radiation.  Fallout from a 550-kiloton blast in New York could extend across Long Island and kill more than 5 million people, according to the study published this month in the International Journal of Health Geographics. Tens of thousands of people could be saved through improved training and heightened public awareness, according to the study.  Bell and co-author Cham Dallas called for increases in mobile beds and for training both medical and nonmedical personnel on treating significant numbers of people with second-degree burns.  Hospitals should relocate medical records away from urban downtown areas to ensure they are not destroyed in an attack. “We need to substantially increase our preparation,” Dallas, a toxicologist at the University of Georgia’s Center for Mass Destruction Defense, said in the statement.  “The likelihood of a nuclear weapon attack in an American city is steadily increasing, and the consequences will be overwhelming (Tom Randall, Bloomberg News, March 21). U.S. lawmakers yesterday also received warnings about the potential for acts of nuclear terrorism against the United States, Voice of America reported. “I view us on the precipice of entering a new and dangerous nuclear era with the spread of technology, which means, in particular, the enrichment of uranium, which makes it possible for more societies to enter the nuclear club,” said Stanford University arms control expert Sidney Drell.  “That raises the danger of nuclear weapons getting in the hands of terrorist groups and others unrestrained by the norms of civilized behavior as we know it and therefore these weapons become more likely to be used.” “The most likely [nuclear threat] is that a terrorist group, al-Qaeda or an al-Qaeda cousin, would acquire a nuclear weapon and introduce it into the United States,” said Robert Gallucci, former assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs.  “It seems to me that that is a threat against which we have neither a defense nor a deterrent” Nuclear materials around the world must be secured to ensure they are not obtained by terrorists, Gallucci said. “If we discover that a country has purposely transferred fissile material or a nuclear weapon to a terrorist group, we ought to be telling them in advance that we will treat them as through they were the one who launched the attack and they should expect devastating retaliation” (Meredith Buel, Voice of America, March 21). Back to top       Security Council Needs More Time for Iran Sanctions The U.N. Security Council failed to agree yesterday to impose new economic sanctions against Iran for its refusal to freeze its nuclear program, Reuters reported (see GSN, March 19). Backers of a draft resolution had hoped for a council vote this week, but that target is becoming less likely, said council president Dumisani Kumalo, South Africa’s ambassador. The current proposal was negotiated by the five permanent council members and Germany who circulated the draft to the rest of the council late last week. South Africa has since proposed major revisions to the resolution, while Qatar and Indonesia have offered lesser amendments, according to Reuters. The draft resolution would expand sanctions set in December by prohibiting nuclear and missile trade with Iran, freezing the assets of a larger list of Iranian officials and firms, prohibiting U.N. nations from buying Iranian weapons, and discouraging nations from allowing certain Iranian officials to travel within their borders. The draft was prepared after Iran ignored a 60-day deadline, set in December, to freeze its uranium enrichment program.  The draft resolution would give Iran another 60 days to freeze its sensitive activities. The South African revision would eliminate the asset-freeze provisions and the arms embargo, Reuters reported, with the nation arguing that those measures were not directed toward the nuclear program and were therefore inappropriate (Reuters I/New York Times, March 21). South Africa has also proposed a 90-day time out in the crisis, offering to suspend all U.N. sanctions if Iran simultaneously halts its sensitive nuclear projects. Most of the draft resolution’s backers spoke out vehemently against the South African amendments yesterday following a council meeting. “We think it would be perverse in response to that situation to say, ‘Oh, by the way, we now lift the obligations which are currently applied to Iran.’  It would be totally perverse,” said British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry. “In order to have Iran responding,” said French Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, “you have to increase pressure.  Decreasing pressure won't do the job.  We think that increasing the pressure is the right thing to do.” De La Sabliere added that he thought “a large majority” of council members supported the current draft, but the resolution backers were willing to keep talking if such discussions would lead to a consensus decision. “I think we will be in a position to make some concrete proposals and changes in order to reach a unanimous Security Council,” de La Sabliere said of the next council meeting, scheduled for today (Edith Lederer, Associated Press I/International Herald Tribune, March 22). The Qatari and Indonesian amendments sought to introduce language into the resolution that would call for a WMD-free zone in the Middle East, AP reported (Edith Lederer, Associated Press II, March 21). Swiss Track Meanwhile, Switzerland has been quietly pursuing an additional diplomatic track to seek a resolution to the nuclear crisis, Reuters reported yesterday.  Iranian and Swiss officials, including Swiss Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Ambuehl, have exchanged visits in recent weeks. “The purpose of (Ambuehl's) visit was to promote a Swiss initiative to reach a compromise with Iran over its nuclear file and resume talks on nuclear-related issues,” according to a one-page report about the trip given to Reuters by a Western diplomat. The Swiss plan seeks some middle ground from a Western offer to sit down for talks with Iran only after Tehran freezes its nuclear program. The Swiss recommendation encourages the talks to proceed without a total freeze by allowing Iran to develop and test its uranium enrichment centrifuges without using any uranium, according to Reuters. The diplomatic initiative has not received U.S. or European support. “Trying to establish a second track is not an approach we wish to take,” said one U.S. official (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters II/Yahoo!News, March 21). Back to top       Russian Nuclear Fuel Site Could Open This Year Russia expects to open an international uranium enrichment facility in Siberia by the end of 2007, a Russian nuclear official said yesterday (see GSN, March 20). The Angarsk site would produce fuel for nuclear power reactors as part an effort to discourage developing nations from enriching their own uranium fuel, a process that could also yield nuclear weapon materials. The Russian site could be the first of an international network, said Nikolai Spassky, deputy head of Russia’s nuclear energy agency.  He spoke following a meeting with visiting officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency, ITAR-Tass reported. “Such centers will be set up in other places and not only in Russia after experience of cooperation with the IAEA is accumulated,” Spassky said (ITAR-Tass, March 22). Back to top

Firm Seeks Human Testing of New Anthrax Drug Biopharmaceutical firm Emergent BioSolutions has requested approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin human safety testing of a new anthrax drug, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 13). The clinical trial of the Anthrax Immune Globulin would involve 105 volunteers and last for roughly one year. The FDA review process is expected to last 30 days (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, March 21). The globulin would be used to treat people exposed to anthrax, the Lansing State Journal reported.  The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases provided a $3.7 million grant to help fund development of the drug. Emergent is the make of BioThrax, the sole anthrax vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration (Jeremy Steele, Lansing State Journal, March 22). Back to top

Pakistan Tests Nuclear-Capable Cruise Missile Pakistan today tested a cruise missile that can carry a nuclear warhead to targets 700 kilometers away, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, March 21, 2006). The launch of the Babur, or Hatf 7, missile was “part of Pakistan's ongoing efforts at consolidating its strategic capability and strengthening national security,” said a military statement. While India and Pakistan have a missile-launch notification agreement (see GSN, Oct. 3, 2005), Islamabad did not notify its nuclear rival of the test because the agreement applies only to ballistic missiles, AP reported (Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, March 21). Back to top

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