Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks yesterday Columbia University, where he condemned U.S. efforts to sanction Iran (Getty Images). IAEA, Iran Discuss Centrifuges Iran opened a new round of discussions with International Atomic Energy Agency officials yesterday to discuss the country’s installation of uranium enrichment centrifuges, Agence France-Presse reported. “The negotiations between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran began today and are going to continue for two or three days,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini...Full Story

U.S. Might Pull North Korea From Terror List The United States could drop North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terror in exchange for continued moves toward denuclearization, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 24)...Full Story

U.S. Inspections Missed A&M Laboratory Mishaps Annual inspections by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention repeatedly failed to note numerous safety lapses at Texas A&M University’s biological defense program, the Dallas Morning News reported today (see GSN, Sept. 20).  The lapse ranged from improperly stored biological agents to cases of human exposure to deadly diseases (see GSN, Sept. 20)...Full Story

	Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Black Sea Powers Begin WMD Exercise Black Sea nations are scheduled to conduct a five-day WMD exercise this week to prepare coordinating a response to a possible accident or attack, the BTA Bulgarian news agency reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 20, 2005). Elements of the exercise would be conducted in Bulgaria, Georgia (see GSN, Feb. 5) and Romania  (see GSN, May 12, 2006) and would include U.S. participants from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Defense Department and the FBI, according to BTA. More than 50 Bulgarian officials from 13 domestic agencies would join the exercise, which would include an effort to locate mock criminals attempting to smuggle nuclear materials (BTA, Sept. 24). Back to top

IAEA, Iran Discuss Centrifuges Iran opened a new round of discussions with International Atomic Energy Agency officials yesterday to discuss the country’s installation of uranium enrichment centrifuges, Agence France-Presse reported. “The negotiations between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran began today and are going to continue for two or three days,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini. “The talks are focusing on P1 and P2 centrifuges,” he added, referring to Iran’s older P1 centrifuges and its new line of more reliable, higher-speed P2 centrifuges under development (Agence France-Presse I, Sept. 24). Meanwhile, the United States and five major powers planned to continue discussing the possibility this week of placing new sanctions on Iran for its continued refusal to halt disputed nuclear activities, AFP reported a senior U.S. State Department official saying yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 24). “We said we would continue those talks again on Wednesday and Thursday of this week, leading up to the ministerial meeting" on the matter scheduled for Friday at the U.N. headquarters in New York, said U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns.  “Probably both days,” he added (Agence France-Presse II, Sept. 24). Iranian Senior Foreign Ministry official Hamid Baidinejad told state media yesterday that if the U.N. Security Council enacts new sanctions, Iran would reconsider its plan to implement the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty’s Additional Protocol, Reuters reported. The protocol gives U.N. nuclear watchdog inspectors broader authority to carry out investigations beyond fuel cycle inspections to help them uncover clandestine nuclear activity (Reuters/Washington Post, Sept. 24). Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defended Iran’s nuclear program from international criticism in his speech at Columbia University yesterday, arguing that current economic sanctions on the country justify its nuclear ambitions. “They tell us, don’t make it yourself, we’ll give it to you,” he said, referring to a European Union offer to give Iran nuclear technology if Tehran agrees to freeze its uranium enrichment activities. “In the past, I tell you, we had contracts with the U.S. government, with the British government, the French government, the German government, and the Canadian government on nuclear development for peaceful purposes,” Ahmadinejad added.  “But unilaterally, each and every one of them canceled their contracts with us, as a result of which the Iranian people had to pay a heavy cost in billions of dollars.” “If you don't give us spare parts for civilian aircraft, what is the expectation that you'd give us fuel for nuclear development for peaceful purposes?  For 30 years, we've faced these problems for over $5 billion to the Germans and then to the Russians, but we haven't gotten anything.  And the words have not been completed,” he said. “It is our right.  We want our right.  And we don't want anything beyond the law, nothing less than international law,” he said (CQ Transcripts Wire/Washington Post, Sept. 24). Ahmadinejad told a group of Iranian political exiles yesterday that Iran has no need to pursue nuclear weapons development because nuclear weapons are not useful in the modern international setting, RIA Novosti reported. “Those who strive towards the possession of nuclear weapons are putting the brakes on world political processes.  If nuclear weapons really were effective in the current global situation, then the possession of thousands of nuclear warheads would have prevented the downfall of the Soviet Union” (RIA Novosti, Sept. 24). Meanwhile, a top Canadian official has said that Canada has not ruled out adding Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to its list of terrorist entities, the National Post reported yesterday. “We are very concerned about Iranian intervention in jurisdictions outside of their own, either if that's affecting our allies or if it's affecting us,” Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said. “Nothing's been ruled out, that's about all I can say at this point,” he said (Stewart Bell, National Post, Sept. 25). Back to top       U.S. Might Pull North Korea From Terror List The United States could drop North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terror in exchange for continued moves toward denuclearization, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 24). Rice left open the possibility that the United States could offer the incentive to North Korea, lifting various U.S. sanctions imposed on the Stalinist state, without first forcing Pyongyang to account for all Japanese citizens it has abducted over past decades.  Such a move could anger Japan and U.S. conservatives, AP reported. “I don't think that we want to get into a situation in which we have locked all of the steps that we might take with the North Koreans and lock them into a certain sequence with other steps that we think need to be taken,” Rice said. “We have to be able to use whatever incentives we have that are appropriate to the stage at which we are with the North Koreans,” she added. Christopher Hill, the senior U.S. nuclear envoy to North Korea, has said that a deal reached in 2005 by the United States, North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia could potentially allow North Korea to be removed from the U.S. terrorism list before it completely disables all of its nuclear programs (Mohammed/Pleming, Reuters I, Sept. 24). Meanwhile, top North Korean nuclear negotiator Kim Kye Gwan traveled to China today to resume six-party disarmament talks on Thursday, the Associated Press reported. “During this round of talks, if we can agree on measures to implement what we have already reached a consensus on, then we can proceed with the process,” Kim said upon arriving in Beijing (Associated Press/Live-PR.com, Sept. 25). “If we fail to come to an agreement we will go back to where we started,” Reuters reported him saying. However, a South Korean diplomat warned that the talks are not expected to end in a final agreement because of several issues that remain unresolved as well as lingering allegations that North Korea provided nuclear assistance to Syria. “The closure of Yongbyon wasn’t the key to this dispute.  It was the prelude to resolving the key issues,” said Zhang Liangui of Beijing’s Central Party School. “The key will be whether North Korea will agree to revealing its nuclear weapons in the declaration and how it will explain its uranium enrichment activities,” he said (Chris Buckley, Reuters II/Washington Post, Sept. 25). Back to top       North Korea Decries “Lunatics,” Israeli Attack Top North Korean nuclear negotiator Kim Kye Gwan yesterday dismissed allegations of North Korean nuclear support to Syria, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Sept. 24). “That matter is fabricated by lunatics, so you can ask those lunatics to explain it,” he told reporters in Beijing (Associated Press I/Live-PR.com, Sept. 25). Meanwhile, North Korea’s leading state-run newspaper denounced Israel’s air strike inside Syria as a “grave crime” and accused the United States of endorsing the attack, the Associated Press reported yesterday. “Israeli warplanes’ intrusion into the territorial airspace of Syria and bomb-dropping are an outright violation of Syria’s sovereignty and a grave crime that destroys regional peace and security,” the North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun said (Associated Press I/Jerusalem Post, Sept. 24). Back to top

U.S. Inspections Missed A&M Laboratory Mishaps Annual inspections by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention repeatedly failed to note numerous safety lapses at Texas A&M University’s biological defense program, the Dallas Morning News reported today (see GSN, Sept. 20).  The lapse ranged from improperly stored biological agents to cases of human exposure to deadly diseases (see GSN, Sept. 20). CDC officials stopped the laboratory’s “select agent” research in response to revelations this summer that several laboratory workers had been exposed to infectious agents and one had been infected, but federal overseers have not explained why they missed signs of problems at the laboratory, the Morning News reported. While visiting the A&M laboratory in 2004, 2005 and 2006, the inspectors noted sanitation and storage shortcomings, inadequate security measures, as well as poor training and record keeping.  They also reported cases of workers having unauthorized access to dangerous disease agents. However, they did not find that a laboratory worker was infected with Brucella in 2006, even though she was at sick at home and reporting symptoms of the disease when the inspections took place.  The laboratory did not report the Brucella infection or several cases of workers being exposed to Q fever. The reports have raised questions about how well the federal government conducts inspections at almost 350 other laboratories in the United States participating in biodefense research, according to the Morning News. Next month, the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee is expected to hold a hearing on the laboratory safety issues (see GSN, Aug. 13). “The (federal) biodefense program has cropped up all over the country, and we have far more people handling biological weapons agents than at any other time,” said Edward Hammond, director of the Sunshine Project in Austin, which finally uncovered the incidents in April 2007 by pushing for public records from the laboratory.  “What happened at Texas A&M makes me very suspicious of the quality level of any of the inspections.” “What's pretty clear is that the public information act, not the inspections, is what has alerted the government to the accidents that have occurred,” Mr. Hammond said (Emily Ramshaw, Dallas Morning News, Sept. 25). Back to top       Boston Conducts Bioterrorism Drill Boston authorities Sunday tested the city’s ability to distribute antibiotics during an anthrax attack, officials said Sunday (see GSN, Sept. 10). Postal workers dropped empty boxes outside 23,000 homes across two Boston neighborhoods in less than six hours, exceeding expectations for the drill. Printed on the boxes were the words, “This is only a test.” Boston residents generally approved of the drill, but some expressed skepticism that the distribution would be as efficient during an actual biological weapons attack (Associated Press/WPRI.com, Sept. 24). Back to top       University of Pittsburgh Opens Vaccine Center The University of Pittsburgh yesterday opened a new vaccine research center that could help study ways to combat potential biological terror viruses, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported (see GSN, Jan. 30). With funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the new Center for Vaccine Research contains a Regional Biocontainment Laboratory, just the second of 13 such sites scheduled to be built in the nation, according to the Post-Gazette. Initially, scientists plan to study some to the world’s most widespread plagues. “We’re going to address important infectious diseases that are causing serious problems around the world and for which there are not existing, effective vaccines,” said center director Donald Burke.  “Some because of a scientific problem, some because the diseases have been neglected because they are not in rich countries” (Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sept. 24). The center could also address diseases that could be used to create biological terror, such as West Nile virus and tuberculosis (see GSN, Sept. 10). “These are potential biological weapons that could be used against the U.S.,” Burke said (Luis Fabregas, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Sept. 24). Back to top

Czech Republic Extradites Terror Suspect to U.S. The Czech Republic has extradited a Lebanese-born Swedish terror suspect to the United States for allegedly explaining on a Web site how to produce chemical agents that could be used in a terrorist attack, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, July 31). The Czech justice ministry said that U.S. authorities had given assurances that they would detain 40-year-old Oussama Kassir in a civilian jail and not try him before a military court or imprison him at the U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay. The United States had long sought to detain Kassir, but Sweden refused to extradite him while he was in residence there.  Czech authorities arrested him while he was making a connecting flight to Beirut from Prague. Kassir was also accused of attempting to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon in 1999 (Agence France-Presse, Sept. 25). Back to top

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