CDC Blasts Universitys Disease Research Management

A team of inspectors from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found numerous problems with the operations of Texas A&Ms disease research program, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 2).

The College Station institution must fix at least 12 problems before it would be allowed to resume federally funded research of certain disease agents, according to a report from Robbin Weyant, head of the U.S. Public Health Services Select Agents and Toxins Division.

The ban was instituted this summer after a Texas watchdog group reported separate 2006 incidents in which one university researcher became infected with brucella and three were exposed to Q fever.

A team of 18 CDC inspectors spent five days at the university in July. Its 19-page report was released yesterday.

Inspectors found that the university failed to conduct annual checks on each laboratory that stored or used toxins, did not maintain records proving that prior problems had been addressed, and performed unauthorized research on at least one pathogen. It placed the blame on the university official responsible for managing the laboratories, AP reported.

Some laboratory personnel lacked proper medical entry requirements and some failed to use adequate protective gear such as face masks, according to the report.

Administrative controls in place to prevent workers from being exposed to biohazards were not adequate, the report states. The inspectors also expressed concern regarding waste handling and the age and conditions of the laboratories.

University personnel failed to maintain records of those who entered laboratories containing toxic agents, according to the report. There were also discrepancies between the inspectors list of authorized laboratory users and the list given to the CDC team, along with differences between inventory records and the actual count of toxin containers (Associated Press/KRISTV.com, Sept. 4).

The university could not account for several vials containing the infectious bacteria brucella, Dallas Morning News reported. There were at least seven instances in which people accessed Q fever and other select agents without obtaining authorization, inspectors found.

The university must implement a better security plan for its laboratories, keep unauthorized personnel away from infectious agents, revamp training policies, and make other improvements, the report states.

The CDC report set no schedule for resumption of disease research at Texas A&M, but university leaders expressed optimism that the ban would not prove permanent.

They pretty much spelled out what we did wrong, and what weve got to fix, said Chancellor Mike McKinney. We have got to do a better job of documenting, of monitoring what were doing. We cant always assume were dong what were supposed to do.

There has been no word on a possible fine, McKinney said. The head of the watchdog group that went public with the research failings argued that the penalties could include criminal charges.

The breadth of the problem is so wide, said Edward Hammond, director of the Sunshine Project. Its going to be awhile before they get their permit back, and when they do, I doubt theyll get any major new select agent work for a long time (Emily Ramshaw, Dallas Morning News, Sept. 5).

Inspectors are expected to return to Texas A&M after Weyant receives written notification from the university that the problems were resolved, AP reported (Associated Press).

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Judge Affirms Win for Plaintiffs in Anthrax I Case

By Elaine M. Grossman
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON  For the first time, a federal judge last month declared six U.S. defense personnel the definitive winners in a four-year court battle over the anthrax vaccine (see GSN, Aug. 21).

The Aug. 21 decision, which revolves around payment of attorneys fees, is the latest chapter in a protracted struggle over whether the Defense Department can require service members to take the anthrax vaccine. U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan decided the government defendants must pay the plaintiffs expenses because the plaintiffs won the case.

The litigants  defense personnel who were required to take anthrax vaccine shots in a Defense Department effort that began in 1998  won the first round of litigation in October 2004, when Sullivan issued a permanent injunction banning mandatory inoculations. Based on a finding that the vaccine was never certified to protect against weaponized airborne anthrax spores, the judge declared the Pentagons mandatory vaccinations illegal (see GSN, Oct. 28, 2004).

However, the Food and Drug Administration 14 months later certified the drug for preventing inhaled anthrax. Citing the FDA move, an appellate court in February 2006 officially dissolved the injunction (see GSN, Dec. 16, 2005).

The Pentagon restarted its mandatory shots program early this year.

In the latest matter under dispute, Justice Department attorneys argued the so-called Anthrax I plaintiffs were ineligible for government reimbursement of attorneys fees and expenses because they had not prevailed on appeal. The government defendants insisted they had won at the appellate court, where a three-judge panel allowed the Pentagon to restart its vaccine program.

Sullivan concluded otherwise, declaring: There is no question that plaintiffs have prevailed overall as they achieved the permanent injunctive relief that they sought.

The judge noted that the appellate court sent the case back to the lower court only after the Food and Drug Administration issued a final ruling that certified the anthrax vaccine for use in preventing inhaled anthrax. That was the exact result the plaintiffs sought, according to Sullivan.

In the end, then, the government appeal was unnecessary, Sullivan said. He thus termed it reasonable for the government to reimburse the plaintiffs for their expenses, as they ultimately prevailed.

The decision might well strengthen the hand of the two plaintiff attorneys, Mark Zaid and John Michels, who filed a second legal challenge to the Pentagons anthrax vaccination program last December.

Known as Anthrax II, the latest lawsuit alleges that the December 2005 FDA certification was invalid and that the Pentagon has resumed administering treatments inconsistent with the approved drug license. Zaid and Michels are asking the federal judge hearing that case, Rosemary Collyer, to impose another ban on the defense effort until the vaccine is properly tested and licensed for Pentagon use.

In last months decision, Sullivan bolstered from the bench the arguments the new set of eight plaintiffs make in their lawsuit. The judge clearly rejected the governments long-standing contention that the original drug license allowed the vaccine to be used for the prevention of anthrax regardless of the route of exposure, including disease contracted through the lungs. The license cited a more narrow use for the vaccine: to prevent disease in mill workers, veterinarians or laboratory personnel, who might contract anthrax through the skin by handling animals or pelts.

When the Food and Drug Administration issued its court-mandated certification in 2005, the license was updated to reflect the agencys contention that the vaccine could be used more broadly to prevent disease from airborne spores.

Sullivans new decision reaffirms the plaintiffs view that the vaccine was proven safe and effective only in limited circumstances and that a lack of data permitted no meaningful analysis of the [vaccines] effectiveness against inhalation anthrax.

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U.S. Bomber Mistakenly Flies With Nuclear Weapons

By Greg Webb
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON  A U.S. Air Force strategic bomber flew with at least five nuclear-armed cruise missiles last week, apparently violating nuclear weapons handling policies that stretch back nearly 40 years (see GSN, March 7).

On Aug. 30, the bomber carried the nuclear-tipped Advanced Cruise Missiles on its wings from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., the Military Times reported today. Each of the missiles carried a version of the W-80 nuclear warhead that can detonate with an adjustable yield ranging between five and 150 kilotons.

Air Force officials launched an investigation immediately but said there was little risk posed by the error, Military Times reported.

Air Force standards are very exacting when it comes to munitions handling, said spokesman Lt. Col. Ed Thomas. The weapons were always in our custody and there was never a danger to the American public.

The risk of flying accidents, however, led the United States to abandon all nuclear-armed bomber flights in 1968, according to Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert with the Federation of American Scientists.

Until then, the Air Force kept about 12 strategic bombers in the air at all times, with each one usually carrying two to four nuclear gravity bombs.

Several accidents occurred (see GSN, June 20, 2005), including a crash in Spain in 1966 and then a crash at an air base in Greenland on Jan. 21, 1968. The planes nuclear weapons did not explode in the latter incident, but their radioactive fissile material was dispersed at the crash site.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara that day ordered the grounding of all nuclear-armed aircraft, a policy that has continued for four decades. Instead of flying with nuclear weapons, armed bombers were kept on alert on the ground with flight crews nearby to enable the planes to take off within minutes, if necessary.

In 1991, President George H.W. Bush reduced the bomber alert status further by ordering nuclear weapons to be removed from the aircraft and kept in nearby storage facilities.

To my knowledge, the recent incident was the first time that a live nuclear weapon has been flown on a U.S. bomber in the air since 1968, Kristensen said. But Im sure there are bound to be some surprises in the classified files somewhere.

U.S. nuclear weapons are routinely transported around the nation and the world, he said, but special transport aircraft are employed to maximize safety.

The incident reflects a major lapse in the command and control systems that ensure the proper handling of U.S. nuclear weapons, according to Kristensen.

Its not a matter of an air crew picking the wrong one from a storage site, he said. Moving nuclear weapons requires multiple authorizations from high-ranking Pentagon officials.

Handling nuclear weapons has always received unusually strict Pentagon guidance, agreed nuclear analyst Robert Norris, of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Everyone from day one has assumed a special responsibility when it comes to nuclear weapons, he said. Because theyre special, the Defense Department has required a special set of procedures and training and has made special efforts to identify responsible people to handle these weapons.

Still, you can have all sorts of security features, but humans are doing this and all sorts of mistakes can happen, Kristensen added.

The error drew criticism from Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.), co-chairman of the House Bipartisan Task Force on Nonproliferation.

Nothing like this has ever been reported before and we have been assured for decades that it was impossible. The complete breakdown of the Air Force command and control over enough nuclear weapons to destroy several cities has frightening implications not only for the Air Force, but for the security of our entire nuclear weapons stockpile, he said in a statement today.

The event should spur the Bush administration to slow its interest in developing a new U.S. nuclear warhead, he said (see GSN, July 25).

This frightening incident highlights that the Bush administrations plan to design and build a new arsenal of nuclear warheads is dangerous, especially when we cant keep track of the warheads we already have, he said. We should put the breaks on the presidents program for new nuclear weapons, and solve the daunting challenges posed by those weapons we already own.

The Air Force is nearing the end of a process to decommission its arsenal of 400 nuclear-armed Advanced Cruise Missiles, Kristensen said, a policy that raises questions of why the service was trying to transport the bombs to a different air base. Barksdale was scheduled to get rid of all of its ACM systems, he said.

Normally, Air Force nuclear weapons slated for decommissioning are sent to Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., where the warheads are separated from the rest of the weapon and shipped to the Energy Departments Pantex dismantlement facility near Amarillo, Texas, according to Kristensen.

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U.K. Reportedly Developing New Nuclear Warhead

The United Kingdom is preparing a design for a new nuclear warhead in an effort similar to the U.S. Reliable Replacement Warhead program, the London Herald reported yesterday (see GSN, March 7).

Dubbed the High Surety Warhead, the weapon under construction at the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston is expected to have fewer degradable components and an extended lifespan. The new warheads are intended to be dependable enough to eliminate the need for underground bomb tests in violation of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Less than one year ago, several British ministers insisted there were no plans for improvements or refurbishment to the estimated British stockpile of 160 submarine-launched nuclear warheads.

British Defense Secretary Des Browne said in December 2006 that decisions on whether and how we may need to refurbish or replace the warhead stockpile are likely to be necessary in the next Parliament.

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, an advocacy group, said the warhead work would violate international arms control and nonproliferation agreements.

Dr. Strangelove is alive and well and working at Aldermaston, said John Ainslie, coordinator for the Scottish branch of the organization. A lot of money and research is going into the design of the warheads, no matter what is said in Parliament.

Everything is geared towards making the weapons more reliable and more accurate. That contravenes every aim of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It's impossible to be working towards the goal of nuclear disarmament while you're in the business of producing better ones for your own forces, Ainslie said (Ian Bruce, London Herald, Sept. 4).

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Polish Reactor Turns Over Nuclear Fuel

By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON  A U.S.-funded convoy under heavy guard last week returned nearly 20 pounds of highly enriched uranium from Poland to Russia to be blended down to a more proliferation-resistant form of fuel (see GSN, Sept. 4).

It was the 13th such repatriation of fresh highly enriched Russian nuclear fuel arranged under the National Nuclear Security Administrations Global Threat Reduction Initiative, U.S. officials said. Including shipments of spent fuel, more than 500 kilograms of highly enriched uranium has been shipped back to Russia from nine countries.

Highly enriched uranium nuclear fuel, which in some cases is enriched to as much as 90 percent U-235, could pose serious proliferation concerns and could be used to make a nuclear weapon.

The initiative, which was announced by the United States during a meeting with International Atomic Energy Agency officials in 2004, had the original goal of repatriating all fresh fuel by the end of 2005 and all spent Russian fuel by 2010.

The optimistic schedule of moving all fresh fuel by the end of 2005 was missed largely as a result of the reams of paperwork required to organize and execute the movement of the material, said Matthew Bunn, a senior researcher at Harvard Universitys Project on Managing the Atom.

I think it was just a matter of the time it took to get things organized, he said.

Bunn said the program within the next three years should complete repatriation of the all the fresh fuel for which repatriation agreements have been arranged. Agreements for other material, such as fuel in Ukraine and Belarus, has not yet been hashed out. And that involves a lot of HEU, he said.

The 8.8 kilograms of Russian fuel from the Polish site were delivered to the Luch nuclear facility in Podolsk, where nearly 8 metric tons of Russian-origin fresh highly enriched uranium has already been downblended.

We have a strong partnership with Russia and we will continue working with Rosatom and other Russian agencies to counter the global threats of terrorism and nuclear proliferation, William Tobey, head of NNSA nonproliferation programs, said last week in a statement.

The uranium was transferred from the Maria Research Reactor in Otwock, Poland, in five containers provided by Russia. Transported to a Polish airport under armed guard, the material was then airlifted to Russia where it then passed customs and was moved to the Luch facility, U.S. officials said.

The National Nuclear Security Administration contributed $490,000 to the International Atomic Energy Agency to pay for the transfer.

During a similar transfer in August 2006, IAEA officials moved 40 kilograms from the research reactor in Otwock.

The reactor continues to burn Russian-origin highly enriched uranium fuel but in 2004 the National Nuclear Security Administration assisted Poland to achieve security upgrades at the site. The agency is also assisting in efforts to convert the reactor to one which can burn low-enriched fuel by 2009 (see GSN, Aug. 10, 2006).

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Diplomats Challenge Iranian Centrifuge Claim

Diplomats have expressed skepticism about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejads assertion that Iran has 3,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges installed and running, Reuters reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 4).

According to nuclear analysts, Iran could enrich enough uranium to use in a nuclear weapon if it can operate 3,000 centrifuges in tandem for extended sessions over about one year.

When asked if Iran possesses the technical mastery to operate 3,000 centrifuges, however, one diplomat said that theres no evidence.

Ahmadinejads statement also seemed to challenge the findings of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors who examined Irans Natanz enrichment facility.

According to a quarterly agency report on Iran issued Thursday, fewer than 2,000 centrifuges were enriching uranium in unison when inspectors visited the facility Aug. 19. About 650 more centrifuges, meanwhile, remained in different installation and testing stages.

Ahmadinejad may just be reflecting the number of centrifuges installed, said a second diplomat close to the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

The 3,000 figure is symbolically important for Iran. Ahmadinejad is seizing on it to show his domestic public that the program has not bogged down  or buckled to U.N. pressure to stop, said a European diplomat (Mark Heinrich, Reuters/Yahoo!News, Sept. 4).

U.S. officials yesterday responded to a moderate former Iranian presidents election to an influential clerical body by calling for reasonable officials in Tehran to open negotiations over Irans controversial nuclear program, Agence France-Presse reported.

Certainly we would hope that reasonable individuals in Iran would see the positive opportunity given to it by the international community to enter negotiations and be able to achieve a peaceful nuclear program while still reassuring everyone else that it is not simply a cover for building a nuclear weapon, said State Department spokesman Tom Casey.

Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has expressed more willingness to negotiate over Irans nuclear program than Ahmadinejad.

I'd like to believe that there are individuals in the Iranian leadership that would want to take what is in effect a rather unique and important opportunity, to allow Iran to engage with the rest of the international community, Casey said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 4).

The U.S. Defense Department has prepared a strategy to obliterate Irans military by launching air strikes against 1,200 targets in the country over three days, the London Times reported Monday.

U.S. war planners were not planning pinpoint strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, said Alexis Debat, terrorism and national security director at the Nixon Center. Theyre about taking out the entire military.

One source said the Bush administration would consider using massive and rapid force if it decided to go ahead with military action (Sarah Baxter, London Times, Sept. 2).

Meanwhile, German authorities are investigating a Russian businessman who allegedly routed German industrial equipment to Irans Bushehr nuclear plant despite an export ban on the material, Der Spiegel reported yesterday.

The businessman identified as Dmitry S. between 2001 and 2004 purchased German equipment that included electromagnetic brakes, spring elements and switchgear.

Prosecutors in Potsdam, Germany, expressed hope they can prove that Dmitry S. and his shuttered firm Vero Handels GmbH acquired the equipment on behalf of Russias state-controlled nuclear plant construction firm Atomstroiexport, which is building the Bushehr facility.

It looks as if Putins nuclear firm deliberately violated German law, said an investigator.

Dmitry S. and two of his employees are no longer in Germany, while evidence is not yet sufficient to implicate the executives of the Russian firm, Der Spiegel reported (Andreas Wassermann, Der Spiegel, Sept. 4).

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Questions Remain on North Korea Nuclear Schedule

It remains to be seen if North Korea is willing or able to follow through on the U.S. announcement that the Stalinist state would fully declare and disable its nuclear program in 2007, the McClatchy-Tribune news service reported Monday (see GSN, Sept. 4).

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill announced the schedule following bilateral meetings last weekend with his North Korean counterpart.

However, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan did not discuss a possible deadline while talking to reporters, saying only that North Korean diplomats showed clear willingness to declare and dismantle all nuclear facilities.

The reality is that these are going to be far more prolonged and difficult negotiations than probably anybody understands or foresees, said Daniel Sneider of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. But we are going to move fairly soon to a place where people will be able to see the landscape ahead of us.

One question is whether North Korea would actually declare its entire nuclear complex  possibly including a suspected uranium enrichment program  and then dismantle it to the point of no return, according to McClatchy (McClatchy-Tribune/Baltimore Sun, Sept. 3).

There is as yet no agreed definition for declaration and disablement, the Yonhap News Agency reported yesterday. One question is whether North Korea is willing to eliminate its suspected handful of nuclear weapons.

There are many ways to disable a nuclear reactor, the key issue is how the facilities are disabled; it could take three months to reverse the (disabling) process or two years, said one official.

Disablement and declaration are mandated by the February denuclearization agreement reached by the six-party nations  China, Japan, Russia, the United States and both Koreas. In return for eliminating its nuclear program, Pyongyang is to receive energy aid and diplomatic and security benefits.

The next round of six-party talks is expected later this month in Beijing.

What we need and are expecting to have in the next round is a detailed roadmap, similar to that of February, for the Norths declaration and disablement of its nuclear programs, said a South Korean Foreign Ministry official. It is too early to predict whether we will be able to reach such an agreement, but we can guess the North might bring to the table a rough list of nuclear programs subject to discussion (Yonhap News Agency, Sept. 4).

Pyongyang is moving toward removal from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, Agence France-Presse reported today.

North Korea said Washington agreed during the weekend talks to take it off the list as part of the denuclearization process. Hill subsequently said the announcement was premature.

My understanding is [Hill] made it pretty clear to them that the remaining issues  at least on the terrorism list piece of this  are not that extensive, said a U.S. official.

Washington is still looking for Pyongyang to explain its suspected role in the 1987 bombing of Korean Airlines Flight 858 that killed 115 people, the official said.

What I am also trying to get away from is the notion that this is purely going to be, we just decide we are going to do it and they dont have to answer the questions about (the KAL issue) and a couple of other things that got them on the list in the first place, the official said.

The U.S. State Department has not connected North Korea to any acts of terrorism since the airliner bombing, AFP reported (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, Sept. 5).

Japan worries that its concerns regarding North Korea  including the issue of abducted Japanese citizens  could be pushed aside in a rush to take Pyongyang off the terrorism list, the London Times reported today.

The United States has notified us that it will not carry forward the U.S.-North Korea relationship by sacrificing the Japan-U.S. relationship, said Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura (Richard Lloyd Parry, London Times, Sept. 5).

Japanese and North Korean diplomats met today for talks on normalizing diplomatic relations, AFP reported. The two-day session is one of several working-level meetings addressing various issues related to the denuclearization process.

Among the issues to be discussed are the kidnappings and Japans 1910-1945 occupation of the Korean Peninsula (Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, Sept. 5).

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India Creates Panel to Study Nuclear Deal

Indian leaders have created a 15-person commission to study the ramifications of a pending nuclear trade agreement with the United States, the Associated Press reported today. The panels creation marks an effort by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to keep control of his political leadership, which has been threatened by communist parties opposition to the nuclear deal (see GSN, Sept. 4).

The new commission, announced yesterday by Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, consists of ruling Congress party members, lawmakers from communist parties, and other leaders in the ruling coalition. While not formally part of the coalition, the communist parties offer key political support to Singhs leadership.

Its a mechanism. Let us see how it works, said Gurudas Dasgupta, a leader of the Communist Party of India.

The communist parties have argued that the United States would gain too much leverage over Indian affairs in the nuclear deal, which calls for International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to monitor the nations civilian nuclear activities. Indian nuclear weapon sites would remain closed off (Ashok Sharma, Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, Sept. 5).

Similar opposition has been voiced by the right-wing opponents.

Separation of our atomic programs into civil and military programs will have dangerous consequences, said a statement from nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh. If we separate our nuclear programs this way, we will bring three-fourths of our program and scientists under control of the IAEA, which will be against our national interests (Times of India, Sept. 5).

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Nuclear Smuggler Pleads Guilty, Gets No Prison Time

German engineer Gerhard Wisser is not expected to serve time in prison after pleading guilty to involvement in a nuclear smuggling ring yesterday in South Africa, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Aug. 1).

The Pretoria High Court handed down an 18-year suspended sentence against Wisser. Under a plea agreement, the sentence is to be suspended for five years, though Wisser must serve three years of correctional monitoring. He also must give up more than $4.6 million he collected as a participant in the smuggling ring once led by top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan (see GSN, Aug. 22).

Prosecutors in South Africa in 2004 charged that Wisser and Swiss engineer Daniel Geiges unlawfully and intentionally imported, held in transit and exported goods which may contribute to the design, development, production, deployment, maintenance or use of weapons of mass destruction without a permit.

They were charged with violating South Africas Nuclear Energy Act and Nonproliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction Act.

Geiges case is scheduled to be heard on Sept. 21, AP reported (Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, Sept. 4).

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U.S. Awards Grant to Improve Nuclear Detectors

The U.S. Homeland Security Department and National Science Foundation have funded an initiative at the University of California, Berkeley, to develop radiation sensors that can distinguish smuggled nuclear materials from benign radiation sources such as bananas and kitty litter, the San Francisco Chronicle reported yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 16).

A team of five researchers has received a $1.4 million grant  and could be given up to $7.1 million over five years  to design technology able to better distinguish nuclear materials. The scientists were also charged with improving risk assessment capabilities and training new experts to handle the growing threat of nuclear materials proliferation.

Critics have questioned the accuracy, speed and thoroughness of radiation sensors now being deployed at U.S. ports, because common radiation sources can raise false alarms that require expert training to resolve, said nuclear engineering professor Edward Morse, the Berkeley teams leader.

They're not going to set things up so that they have a bunch of professors sitting around with monitors looking at every container for 12 hours, Morse said of the U.S. port system. Talk about disrupting the economy  it would stop the economy (Charles Burress, San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 4).

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Dominican Republic Ratifies Test Ban Treaty

The Dominican Republic ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty yesterday, becoming the 140th nation to approve the pact (see GSN, Aug. 7).

The country signed the treaty on Oct. 3, 1996, just days after it became available for signature on Sept. 24, 1996, according to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization.

Since its establishment, 177 nations have signed the agreement and 140 have ratified it. For the pact to enter into force, it must be ratified by 44 nations that possessed nuclear power or research reactors at the time it was established. So far, 34 of these nations have ratified the treaty, including France, Russia and the United Kingdom, which all possess nuclear weapons.

At the Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Force of the CTBT, scheduled for Sept. 17-18 in Vienna, diplomats plan to discuss possible means to accelerate the process of entering the agreement into force (Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization release, Sept. 5).

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U.S. Reviews Bids to Operate Savannah River Site Lab

The U.S. Energy Department has received two bids from companies looking to handle laboratory operations and environmental cleanup at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 2).

Washington Savannah River Co., the sites current main contractor, and a partnership led by the Fluor Corp. each placed bids in June for the contract to manage the Savannah River National Laboratory.

The contract would employ about 6,200 people and is estimated to be worth roughly $722 million.

The bids are in and were evaluating them, Energy Department spokesman Jim Giusti said yesterday.

Washington Savannah River Co. became the main contractor at Savannah River in 1989 after buying Westinghouse Government Services. The companys current contract, worth more than $1 billion, is set to expire in June 2008, Giusti said.

The company is also seeking a separate contract to handle nuclear waste management at the site, AP reported. The Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions partnership does not plan to submit a bid for that contract (Jim Davenport, Associated Press/Orangeburg Times Democrat, Sept. 4).

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Nevada to Receive Sandia Research Reactor

A research reactor used to test radiations effect on electronics and materials is being moved to Nevada from the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico in an effort to consolidate U.S. nuclear materials, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, June 4).

Sandia operated three separate pulsed reactors, which create powerful neutron bursts, from 1961 until around 2000. The newest of the reactors, dubbed SPR III, was used again in experiments from 2005 through September 2006.

SPR III is being moved to the Nevada Test Site for storage while materials from an older reactor, SPR II, are being moved to the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina for processing and disposal. The United States decommissioned the SPR I reactor several decades ago.

The National Nuclear Security Administration, which manages the U.S. nuclear stockpile, has ordered the Sandia facility to remove its category 1 and 2 nuclear material by the end of 2008. The agency hopes to reduce the cost of securing the material (Associated Press/Albuquerque Journal, Sept. 4).

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Push Continues for Chemical Weapons Pact Membership

The monitoring organization for the Chemical Weapons Convention is continuing its effort to have nonmember states join the international pact, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, June 27).

We are working to convince such nations to join the convention, said Santiago Onate, adviser to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The latest meeting was last week in Lebanon. We also have talks with Israel, Egypt and Iraq.

The convention banning the development, production, stockpiling or use of chemical weapons now has 182 states parties (see GSN, March 13). Thirteen nations have yet to join the treaty, including North Korea, the Bahamas, Myanmar and Syria.

Representatives from 28 Asian convention member states met this week in Qatar.

The organization has had no luck yet in persuading North Korea to join the convention, one OPCW official said. The Stalinist state is believed to hold thousands of tons of agents including mustard, phosgene and sarin, according to the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

The Hague-based organization will continue to use all available fora and seek to convince them that by joining the OPCW, they are contributing to their own security as well as reinforcing international peace and security, said Kalimi Mworia, in a speech on behalf of OPCW Director General Rogelio Pfirter.

Half of the nations yet to join the treaty are in the Middle East. Arab nations justify their position by citing Israels refusal to join any of the treaties banning weapons of mass destruction, said chemical weapons expert Mohammad Daoudi.

Pfirter has argued that joining the convention could be part of the Middle East peace process (see GSN, Dec. 8, 2006; Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Sept. 4).

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Boeing Warns of U.S. Missile Defense Laser Delay

Budget cuts proposed in Congress could delay a laser-based antimissile system for at least two years, a Boeing Co. executive said yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 4).

U.S. President George W. Bush requested $549 million in fiscal 2008 for the Airborne Laser, which would be fired from a Boeing 747 aircraft to destroy enemy missiles during their boost phase of flight, the Associated Press reported.

The Senate and House Armed Services committees both recommended reducing the projects funding, and the House Appropriations Committee agreed in July to enact a $51 million cut.

Boeing Vice President Greg Hyslop said the proposed cuts would add two years to the project, adding that the company would require the full amount requested by the White House to complete the project on time (Donna Borak, Associated Press/MSNBC, Sept. 4).

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