North Korean nuclear negotiator Kim Kye Gwan greets his U.S. counterpart Christopher Hill at six-nation talks in Beijing today (Greg Baker/Getty Images). No Nuclear Deadline Set at North Korea Negotiations The latest round of six-nation talks ended today without a set deadline for North Korea to carry out the second phase of its denuclearization pledge, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, July 19). Pyongyang halted operations at its Yongbyon nuclear complex days before this week’s meetings in Beijing.  ..Full Story

Congress Agrees on Overseas Cargo Scanning By Jon Fox Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Lawmakers yesterday reached an agreement on legislative language to require all cargo containers to be scanned for radiation abroad before being loaded on U.S-bound ships (see GSN, July 18)...Full Story

Suspected Nuclear Peddler Pleads Not Guilty A nuclear cleanup worker charged with stealing and attempting to sell uranium enrichment equipment pleaded not guilty yesterday in federal court in Tennessee, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, July 19)...Full Story

	Friday, July 20, 2007

Congress Agrees on Overseas Cargo Scanning By Jon Fox Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Lawmakers yesterday reached an agreement on legislative language to require all cargo containers to be scanned for radiation abroad before being loaded on U.S-bound ships (see GSN, July 18). In the House version of a security bill implementing a number of the Sept. 11 commission’s recommendations, legislators called for cargo to be scanned at all overseas ports within five years. The Senate legislation called for 100-percent radiation scanning abroad but did not set a timeline. Lawmakers in a House-Senate conference committee yesterday agreed on an amendment that sets a five-year deadline for complete screening at foreign ports but would also give the homeland security secretary broad powers to make exceptions. Advocates of the measure have said such steps are necessary to prevent terrorists from using a cargo container to convey a radiological or nuclear weapon to the United States, while opponents say the requirement is impractical and could damage the flow of trade. Under the agreed language the secretary could grant two-year extensions for specific ports indefinitely for a variety of reasons including the determination that implementing such a scanning system would “significantly impact trade.” The deadline could also be extended if the available technology “does not have a sufficiently low false-alarm rate.”  Sufficiently low is not defined. While the bill is intended to promote counterterrorism recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission — including strengthening airline security and moving to risk-based security grant allocations — 100 percent radiation scanning abroad was not among the suggestions made by that panel. Domestically, a $1.2 billion plan to deploy next-generation radiation scanners that advocates say would reduce false alarms has been plagued by doubts about the efficacy of the new technology (see related GSN story, today). Back to top

No Nuclear Deadline Set at North Korea Negotiations The latest round of six-nation talks ended today without a set deadline for North Korea to carry out the second phase of its denuclearization pledge, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, July 19). Pyongyang halted operations at its Yongbyon nuclear complex days before this week’s meetings in Beijing.  Negotiators had hoped to secure an agreement for North Korea by the end of 2007 to fully disable the facilities and to submit a complete declaration of its atomic programs. Talks were extended to a third day today, but ended inconclusively, AP reported. “Ultimately, we decided not to put in deadlines — yet,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill.  “We’ll put in deadlines when we have the working groups and we know precisely what we’re talking about.” “With a little luck, we can wrap this up by the end of the year,” he added.  “It’s going to be difficult, but we’ll do our best.” Working groups on second-phase issues from the February denuclearization agreement are expected to meet before the end of August, said Chinese negotiator Wu Dawei.  Six-party talks would reconvene early in September to “work out the roadmap,” followed by a meeting of the foreign ministers from the six nations, he said. North Korea “reiterated that it will earnestly implement its commitments to a complete declaration of all nuclear programs and disablement of all existing nuclear facilities,” Wu said. Pyongyang stands to collect 1 million tons of fuel oil for shuttering its nuclear program, along with diplomatic and security concessions from the other negotiating nations — China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States.  South Korea has already begun shipping some fuel to the North.  “Further fuel oil is contingent on further denuclearization,” Hill said (Burt Herman, Associated Press I/Time, July 20). Host nation China made the decision not to include any deadline in the end-of-session statement indicating the six nations’ continued support for the February deal, Agence France-Presse reported. “It was the decision of the Chinese chair not to include that opinion,” Hill said. However, he added that “this session absolutely built momentum.  Look how far we have come in the last seven days” (Kwanwoo/Hiyama, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 20). Meanwhile, North Korea warned yesterday that the denuclearization process could be undermined if Japan continues to push the issue of Japanese citizens abducted by the Stalinist state, AP reported. The dispute “brings another crisis, not only to North Korea-Japan relations, but also to the six-party talks on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula,” according to the North Korean Foreign Ministry. Pyongyang has acknowledged abducting 13 Japanese citizens to provide information for spies on their nation’s language and culture.  Five abductees were released in 2002; North Korea said the rest had died.  Tokyo was not convinced, and believes additional people had also been kidnapped (Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, July 19). Back to top       Suspected Nuclear Peddler Pleads Not Guilty A nuclear cleanup worker charged with stealing and attempting to sell uranium enrichment equipment pleaded not guilty yesterday in federal court in Tennessee, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, July 19). Roy Lynn Oakley was indicted on two counts of possessing hardware used in uranium enrichment.  Undercover FBI agents posing as French diplomats caught Oakley in January peddling metal rods from the East Tennessee Technology Park, a decommissioned uranium enrichment plant where he was a contract employee. Oakley worked to break up rods called “barriers” in gaseous diffusion activity, the indictment stated.  Uranium hexafluoride gas is filtered by the porous barrier rods during the enrichment process, AP reported. An official involved in the case said Oakley was approaching buyers with the rods.  The accused had “reason to believe the materials would be used to injure the United States and secure an advantage to a foreign country,” prosecutors said. Oakley’s lawyer denied his client had malevolent intentions with the equipment. “[Prosecutors] say they are ‘appliances.’  We say they are trash,” said defense attorney Herb Moncier. “To have this become a matter of national security … is stunning, is unfounded, is unfair,” he added (Duncan Mansfield, Associated Press/International Herald Tribune , July 20). The Energy Department yesterday underscored the scrupulous security system at the Oak Ridge Reservation, where the technology park is located. “The East Tennessee Technology Park, and the entire Oak Ridge reservation, are protected by multiple layers of security systems and detection programs— both visible and unseen, meant to identify rogue employees,” said Oak Ridge manager Gerald Boyd in a statement. “In this case, our layered approach … successfully interrupted the accused individual’s apparent intentions,” he added (U.S. Energy Department release, July 19). Back to top       DOE to Convert More Plutonium in MOX Program The U.S. Energy Department could convert more weapon-grade plutonium into nuclear reactor fuel than it originally planned, a senior official said yesterday (see GSN, June 20). The United States and Russia agreed to each convert 34 metric tons of plutonium into a mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel to be used in commercial nuclear power plants, but the agency recently concluded that the process could be used for greater amounts of weapons material, the Associated Press reported. “It will be significant,” said Thomas D’Agostino, chief of the department’s nuclear weapons division, when prompted for the specific additional tonnage.  The exact amount to be converted would remain secret until negotiations with the military conclude, he added. The decision would have no effect on the joint U.S.-Russia plutonium conversion initiative, D’Agostino said (see GSN, Sept. 18, 2006).  The agency had determined it “can add more plutonium into the [conversion] mix” and does not plan to urge Russia to increase its tonnage in tandem, he said. “We want to get into a leadership position here globally and look at what minimum we need to do and what more can we do from a leadership standpoint,” D’Agostino added. The Energy Department is set to begin building a conversion plant this year at the Savannah River nuclear facility in South Carolina, AP reported (see GSN, April 16; Joseph Hebert, Associated Press/Forbes, July 19). Back to top       DHS Oversold Radiation Sensors, Report Says A new Government Accountability Office report has raised more questions about the Homeland Security Department’s promotion of a $1.2-billion radiation detector program put on hold by Congress last year, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, July 18). The new detectors are intended to eliminate the false alarms that have plagued existing devices.  Homeland Security said they would have a 95 percent detection rate for highly enriched uranium. “What this next generation of detection equipment is going to let us do is make those determinations much more precisely, much more easily and much more quickly,” Chertoff said in 2006 while announcing contracts for the detectors. Congress delayed the project when GAO auditors found that sensors tested by the Homeland Security Department had detection rates as low as 17 percent and never more than about 50 percent.  The auditors told Congress last week that the department had overstated the reliability of the machines in its report on the cost and benefits of the sensors and failed to follow its own guidelines to ensure the report was accurate and complete. Senate homeland security committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) said that Congress would not green-light the project without first receiving details about the monitors. “As DHS develops costly new technology critical to the nation's security, Congress must be able to rely on [the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office’s] claims about the technology,” Lieberman said in an e-mailed statement.  “DNDO's estimates of costs and benefits must be based on facts, not assumptions.  And, while taking into account the effects this technology will have on commerce, it must be based first and foremost on how best to prevent nuclear smuggling.” Counterterrorism officials have considered radiation sensors at U.S. ports a key defense against attacks by nuclear and radiological weapons since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.  In that time, the government has spent $200 million on detectors that proved unable to distinguish nuclear devices from radiation from sources such as ceramic tiles and cat litter (Robert O’Harrow Jr., Washington Post, July 20). In a separate project to begin scanning all cargo containers entering the country in oceangoing vessels by September 2009, seven radiation sensors valued at $200,000 each are now being installed at Port Everglades, Fla. and are expected to start operating by mid-August, the Miami Herald reported today. “This is an enhancement to securing the borders and an enhancement to the various layers we have to detect potential threats that could be devised from some source of radiation,” said Zachary Mann, special agent and spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (Ina Paiva Cordle, Miami Herald, July 19). Back to top       U.S., India Report Progress in Nuclear Talks U.S. and Indian negotiators could not finalize a nuclear trade agreement yesterday, but insisted they were making progress in closing the deal two years in the making, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, July 18). “We have overcome many of the outstanding issues.  We just need to go the extra couple of feet,” said U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, who has led the U.S. delegation in the talks.  Burns added that an agreement still must be approved by lawmakers in the two countries. An anonymous U.S. official said that negotiators have “broken the logjam,” adding that officials in Washington are “very optimistic” they will close the deal (P. Parameswaran, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 19). A proposal from New Delhi would draw a concession from Washington, sources told Reuters. “There's goodwill, we've made progress and we're very hopeful that we can hammer out the remaining differences in the coming days and weeks,” State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters yesterday.  “I wasn't given the impression that you should look for an announcement today or some kind of definitive conclusion” (Giacomo/Eckert, Reuters/Yahoo!News, July 19). Back to top       China Displays New Medium-Range Missile, Study Says Internet sites in China this week posted a photograph of what is believed to be the country’s new medium-range Dongfeng 25 missile, according to an upcoming think tank report (see GSN, June 14). The new study by the International Assessment and Strategy Center said that few hard facts are known about the missile, but its estimated 1,860-mile range would give Beijing the ability to target Taiwan or U.S. forces in Japan and elsewhere in Asia, the Washington Times reported. One Chinese Web site indicated the missile had a 2,000-mile range and could be armed with three multiple nuclear warheads. Richard Fisher, the Chinese military expert who authored the report, said in the study that the new missile is a component of China’s ongoing nuclear and conventional arms increases. “China's missile threat is likely to strengthen resolve in Tokyo and possibly Delhi to proceed with increased missile defense cooperation with Washington,” he said in the report. “The significance of these revelations is that China is upgrading its regionally targeted missile forces, which will soon pose additional threats to, among others, India, Russia, Japan, South Korea and to U.S. forces in the East Asian region,” Fisher told the Times. Fisher’s assessment also said that China’s military has unveiled an updated Dongfeng 21 short-range missile, which he said is designed for use against warships such as U.S. aircraft carriers (Bill Gertz, Washington Times, July 20). Back to top

CDC Lab Power Loss Raises Biosafety Concerns Containment systems for deadly germs shut down last month at a leading U.S. bioterrorism defense lab, underscoring security doubts within the biological research industry, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported today (see GSN, July 5). Generators running germ-trapping air pumps were knocked out for an hour during a lightning storm, potentially jeopardizing the safety cordon around sensitive research areas at the facility in DeKalb County, Georgia. “I don’t think there is anything we’ll ever be able to do to totally prevent power outages at CDC,” said spokesman Tom Skinner of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which operates the laboratory.  “What we have to do is move toward minimizing the duration of the time we are without power.” While the venting system went down, scientists were able to safely secure their experiments using 15 to 20 minutes of reserve battery power, said laboratory architect Jon Crane. The site contains facilities that have worked on avian influenza, anthrax and the 1918 pandemic flu virus, though it is not known what experiments were under way when the lightning struck. A biosafety expert called for closure of the research facility until the power loss is fully explained and addressed, the Journal-Constitution reported. “This is an astonishing design lapse,” said molecular biologist Richard Ebright of Rutgers University.  “It’s just remarkable that a building of such national prominence, intended for work with some of the most lethal agents, was designed and constructed without an effective backup power system.” The CDC laboratories have reinforced containment systems that protect workers and the public in power outages, the agency and other experts said.  Potentially contaminated air did not leak outward when the pumps went down, said Casey Chosewood, CDC health and safety officer. Ebright said he worried about the laboratory workers who depend on constant air ventilation. “In those cases, there could be potential exposure of the individuals carrying out the experiments,” he said. At the DeKalb County facility, more than just safety systems rely on a constant power supply, said security expert Jeanne Guillemin of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “All your security that’s relying on power just went down.  It’s not good,” she added (Alison Young, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 20). Back to top

Japanese Cult Member Loses Death Sentence Appeal A member of the Aum Shinrikyo cult lost his appeal of the death sentence he received for participating in the lethal 1995 sarin nerve agent attack on the Tokyo subway system, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, July 13). Japan’s highest court refused to overturn the sentence of Masato Yokoyama, said a judicial spokesman.  Yokoyama, 43, is set to be executed for his part in the gas attack that killed 12 people and caused thousands to become sick. None of the more than 12 death sentences issued to Aum members have been carried out to date (Associated Press/PR-inside, July 20). Back to top       Montenegro Names CWC National Authority Montenegro has designated its Foreign Affairs Ministry as the country’s national authority for the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons announced yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 21). The treaty requires each member state to designate or create an agency responsible for implementing the provisions of the convention at the national level (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons release, July 19). Back to top

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