U.S. Response:  Student Tracking System to Be Operational by July

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service is expected to have a new computerized system operational by July to track 1 million non-U.S. students in the United States, Justice Department sources said yesterday (see GSN, May 9).

The INS was “supposed to keep up with (students) — and obviously the schools were not cooperating — but the bulk of the problem was the system itself was antiquated,” a Justice official said.  “You can’t push a million students through a paper system and expect to get accuracy.”

The system will provide current information on non-U.S. students, such as name changes or dropouts, an official said.  Each school will have 24 hours to record new information electronically, according to the Washington Post.  The system will connect U.S. embassies and consulates with every INS port of entry in the United States and every U.S. school that can enroll foreign students, said Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education.

A student applying for a visa to study in the United States must first be accepted by a school, which, according to the INS plan, will enter the student’s personal information into the database, the Post reported.  According to the plan, the student will pay a $95 registration fee and receive a receipt to be presented along with the school’s acceptance letter, when applying for a visa, Hartle said.

INS officials have said, however, that they lack the agents needed to track down non-U.S. students who leave school or never show up for classes.

“This [system] will create the possibility of monitoring international students far more carefully and in real time,” Hartle said.  “But the INS will still have to act on the information it receives.  Whether INS will have the resources to act on the information it receives remains to be seen” (Cheryl Thompson, Washington Post, May 10).

Foreign Scientists Go Home, U.S. Agriculture Department Says

The U.S. Agriculture Department last month enacted a policy to no longer allow non-U.S. scientists and students to apply for visas to work in USDA laboratories, Science reported today.

Currently, there are 200 non-U.S. scientists working at USDA Agricultural Research Service laboratories, most of whom have H1-B visas, Science reported.  The new policy will allow those scientists to stay until their visas expire but will not allow them to request an extension.  The department also will not sponsor any new visa applications from non-U.S. scientists.  Non-U.S. scientists may still work at ARS laboratories if they are hired outside of the department, such as by a university, according to Science.

The department does not plan to make exceptions for scientists from countries or fields of study that pose little risk to the United States, according to a USDA spokesperson.

“It’s just easier for us to do this across the board,” said a spokesperson for Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman.

USDA scientists, however, have said the new policy will hurt the department by limiting all scientists’ access to department laboratories.

“It’s going to make it more difficult to get good researchers,” said James Tumlinson, a team leader at an ARS laboratory in Florida (Martin Enserink, Science, May 10).

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Iran:  U.S. Assigns Penalties for WMD and Missile Transfers

More details emerged today about the U.S. decision to impose sanctions on several non-U.S. companies and individuals for transferring WMD and missile technology to Iran (see GSN, May 9).

The U.S. State Department yesterday said it is imposing sanctions on certain Chinese, Armenian and Moldovan companies for alleged transfers to Iran in violation of international agreements.  The sanctions apply to 14 entities for two years and will limit U.S. government contracts with the firms, State spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday.  U.S. authorities will identify the companies with a notice in the Federal Register in the next several days, he said.

The sanctions apply only to the specific entities and do not extend to the Chinese, Armenian and Moldovan governments, Boucher said, adding, “We appreciate the efforts that Moldova and Armenia in particular have made in nonproliferation.”

A U.S. official reportedly indicated the Moldovan and Armenian companies are probably fronts for Russian entities, but Boucher said the State Department had no evidence to indicate that (U.S. State Department release, May 9).

The sanctions are applied under the 2000 Iran Nonproliferation Act, which imposes penalties on companies that sell items to Iran controlled by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Australia Group, the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Wassenaar Arrangement, the Washington Times reported.

U.S. intelligence officials said the sanctions are a response to a Chinese transfer of naval missiles to Iran in January, according to the Times.  A senior administration official said the sanctions were related to chemical weapons technology transfers.

Not the First Time for China

This is the first time the United States has imposed sanctions on Armenian or Moldovan companies but the third time in the last eight months the United States has imposed penalties on Chinese entities, according to the Times.  Some of the Chinese companies penalized under the new sanctions have been under U.S. sanctions before, the administration official said.

The United States imposed sanctions in January on two Chinese companies and one individual for selling chemical and biological weapons equipment to Iran (see GSN, Jan. 24).  The Bush administration also imposed sanctions in September on a Chinese company and a Pakistani company for missile transfers that allegedly violated a November 2000 U.S.-Chinese agreement (see GSN, April 17).

Chinese Reaction

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman called the sanctions unfair.  “We oppose the unreasonable sanctions by the United States, if the news is for real,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said.

“China has consistently and firmly opposed any weapons of mass destruction,” he said, adding China has fulfilled its international obligations and imposed strict export controls (Bill Gertz, Washington Times, May 10).

Little Evidence Iran Developing Shabab-4

Meanwhile, a think tank analysis found little support for U.S. claims that Iran is developing a missile capable of striking Europe (see GSN, May 8).

“There is little evidence that Iran has successfully finished its work on the Shahab-3, much less come close to nearly doubling the range of this missile in the Shahab-4,” wrote Andrew Krepps, a junior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The Shahab-3, with a range of 1,300 kilometers, has had a mixed test record, including a failed test in February, according to a Feb. 10 Ha’aretz report, Krepps said.  Jane’s Defense Weekly reported in October that Iran lacks the capability to indigenously produce the Shahab-3 and instead relies on North Korean No Dong engines, according to Krepps. 

Iran’s struggles to successfully test and produce the Shahab-3 indicate that producing the more complex Shahab-4 is currently unlikely, he wrote.

The United States should work to prevent missile technology proliferation to Iran, Krepps wrote.  “Overstating the current threat to Europe and U.S. security posed by Iranian missiles, however, should not be a by-product of nonproliferation enforcement” (Andrew Krepps, Carnegie release , May 9).

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Iraq: U.N. Agreement Needed Before Attacking Iraq, Blair Says

The United Kingdom will support an attack on Iraq only with U.N. backing and after consultations with its European allies, British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the ruling Labor Party’s national executive committee.

“Our policy is to divest Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, not to divest Iraq of Saddam Hussein,” Blair told the committee, the London Independent reported today.

In light of U.S. threats that it will attack Iraq regardless of U.N. efforts to persuade Baghdad to accept weapons inspectors, Blair’s comments reassured the committee that the “bellicose rhetoric currently flying around is being deployed in order to get Saddam to the negotiating table,” said committee member Tony Robinson (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo.com, May 10).

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U.S. Response:  House Approves Military Spending Increase

The U.S. House of Representatives this morning approved the largest real increase in military spending since 1966 (see GSN, May 9), according to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Bob Stump (R-Ariz.).

Legislators voted 359-58 to pass the fiscal 2003 national defense authorization act, allowing $383 billion for military spending (Jennifer Loven, Associated Press, May 10).

Several Democratic amendments failed, including an amendment to prohibit using nuclear weapons to destroy deeply buried bunkers (Associated Press/New York Times, May 10).

Meanwhile, the Senate Armed Services Committee marked up the Senate version of the bill, authorizing $1 billion less than the administration requested for missile defense, according to the Associated Press (Loven, Associated Press).

The Senate committee completed its markup last night, a committee spokesman said (Kerry Boyd, GSN, May 10).

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United States I:  Bush Sends Additional IAEA Safeguards Protocol to Senate

By Steve Hirsch and Greg Webb
Global Security Newswire

U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday submitted an enhanced nuclear safeguards agreement to the Senate for its approval, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced last night.  The agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, called an Additional Protocol to the existing U.S. safeguards agreement, was signed in 1998.  Bush needs the formal advice and consent of the Senate before he can ratify the agreement.

U.S. officials said the Additional Protocol would have no great effect on U.S. industry, other than to require more than 100 nuclear-related facilities, mostly manufacturing plants, to provide the IAEA with loose descriptions of their activities.

The agency adopted a model Additional Protocol in 1997 after the post-Gulf War discovery of Iraq’s massive clandestine nuclear weapons program had spurred a multi-year process to strengthen international safeguards.  The U.S. agreement is virtually identical to the model agreement, officials said, but the United States is reserving the right to deny access to or data collection from nuclear weapons facilities.

Under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the five declared nuclear weapon states — the United Kingdom, France, China, Russia and the United States — are not required to submit to nuclear inspections, but all have offered the IAEA access to parts of their civilian nuclear activities.

The new reporting requirements will affect commercial manufacturers such as those producing graphite control rods, uranium enrichment equipment and zirconium tubes to clad uranium reactor fuel.

Under its existing safeguards agreement, the United States has made more than 200 civilian nuclear facilities available for IAEA inspection, but officials said the IAEA only inspects four or five.

China’s Additional Protocol

China became the first declared nuclear weapon state to bring its Additional Protocol into force when it ratified the agreement March 28, according to a foreign ministry statement.

Under the new protocol, China will provide enhanced information about its nuclear trade with non-nuclear weapon states, according to a nonproliferation expert who has discussed the agreement with IAEA officials.  China apparently will not, however, provide any additional access to or information about its domestic activities, the expert said.

“China is the first among the five nuclear states that has completed the necessary legal procedure, which fully demonstrates China’s firm stand on opposing nuclear proliferation, supporting the IAEA in enhancing the existing safeguards regime and fulfilling its obligation in nonproliferation,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.

China’s ratification will bring a measure into force that will strengthen agency’s “verification tools” in China, IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.

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U.S-Russia:  Uranium Shipments Have Resumed

Russia last month resumed shipping uranium taken from Russian nuclear weapons to the United States, according to Interfax (see GSN, March 28).

“During the last third of April, we made two uranium shipments to the United States,” a Russian Atomic Energy Ministry official said. 

The uranium shipments had been halted because of a pricing dispute between Russia and the U.S. Enrichment Corporation.  Under the “Megatons to Megawatts” agreement, USEC is the sole U.S. purchaser of uranium from Russian nuclear weapons (Interfax, May 8 in FBIS-SOV, May 8).

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United States II:  Energy Delays Plutonium Shipments to Savannah River

The U.S. Energy Department yesterday said it would delay plutonium shipments to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina until June 15 in order for a judge to hear arguments in a lawsuit filed by South Carolina against the department (see GSN, May 9).

“Given that the governor has elected to throw this matter into litigation, [Energy] believes that the best way to avoid an undue delay in shipments is an expedited briefing schedule,” Energy spokesman Joe Davis said (see GSN, May 2).

South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges, who has strongly opposed plans to ship plutonium to Savannah River, offered some praise for the Energy Department’s decision to delay the shipments.

“That’s good news for us,” Hodges said, adding, however, “all this does is move from May to June the day of reckoning” (Amy Geier, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, May 10).

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U.S. Testing:  United States, United Kingdom Plan Subcritical Test Series

The United States and the United Kingdom plan to conduct a series of subcritical nuclear tests, the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration announced last month (see GSN, Feb. 15).

The Stallion series of tests will examine the dynamic properties of plutonium and the behavior of an unspecified pit, the NNSA said in the April issue of its newsletter.  The tests will also compare the performance of cast versus wrought plutonium and of new versus old plutonium.  The data from the tests will help both countries maintain their stockpiles of nuclear weapons, the NNSA said (National Nuclear Security Administration release, April 2002).

Subcritical tests, starting with the Oboe series (see GSN, December 18, 2001), are conducted in steel vessels that eliminate the need to excavate a new alcove for each test, according to the NNSA.  After each test, the steel casks are checked for plutonium leakage, and if none is detected, the cask is covered in concrete and moved to the back of the alcove.

The casks have helped to reduce testing costs significantly, as well as to increase data returns and test turnaround time, the NNSA said.  Before the Oboe series, subcritical tests were conducted in dedicated alcoves that could take up to a year to excavate, and once used, were permanently contaminated and could not be reused, according to NNSA.  The use of the steel casks saves $20 million in mining expenses and doubles the life of an alcove to four years, up from two (National Nuclear Security Administration release, February 2002).

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Smallpox:  Doctors and Public Lack Knowledge of Smallpox Vaccine

Medical workers and the public have a poor understanding of smallpox and the dangers of the smallpox vaccine, national health workers and disease experts said yesterday in Atlanta (see GSN, May 7).

Focus groups that studied the potential effects of the disease and vaccine said doctors and the public would need more information if the United States decided to resume mass vaccinations, which ended 30 years ago, the New York Times reported.  The groups reported to a panel of scientists that consisted of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and the National Vaccine Advisory Committee.

Many doctors lack knowledge of the disease, the experts reported.  Many younger doctors do not know how to use two-pronged needles to administer smallpox vaccine, and some doctors believe the eradicated disease still occurs naturally (see GSN, April 3).

Many people without medical training said they believed smallpox is always fatal, but the death rate is usually about 30 percent, according to the Times.  Many study participants also said they assumed smallpox vaccine is safe.

Vaccine Dangers

The vaccine can harm and even kill recipients and their contacts.  Other complications may include impaired vision, anemia and encephalitis.

The vaccine is especially dangerous for people with AIDS and other diseases that weaken the immune system (see GSN, Nov. 21, 2001).  Millions of people with skin disorders, including acne, would also be at risk for serious to fatal complications, the experts told the panel.  An adult who had the skin disorder eczema years ago could suffer serious complications in reaction to the vaccine — particularly troublesome because many adults do not know whether they had eczema as a child (see GSN, Dec. 6, 2001).

Unlike for many other diseases, a smallpox vaccine recipient could infect other people through touch or bathing.

The national blood supply could also shrink if many people received the vaccine, because vaccine recipients cannot donate blood for one year after receiving the vaccination, the Times reported.

Government Response

The national disease control centers and the advisory committees plan to hold forums over the next few weeks to discuss the potential impact of mass smallpox vaccination.  The advisory committees must recommend a vaccination plan to the U.S. government by June 20.

The United States has so far decided not to vaccinate the entire population, although it has been expanding its smallpox vaccine stockpile since last fall’s anthrax attacks (see GSN, March 29).  If a smallpox outbreak occurs, the current U.S. plan is to vaccinate the contacts of a smallpox victim — a strategy known as ring vaccination.

No Evidence Smallpox Attack Likely

Meanwhile, there is no information to indicate a smallpox attack is likely, said D.A. Henderson, an adviser to the Health and Human Services secretary (Lawrence Altman, New York Times, May 10).

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Anthrax:  Genetic Analysis Inconclusive, Experts Say

A genetic analysis of anthrax published yesterday by Science magazine can help provide investigators with extra tools for distinguishing between substrains of anthrax bacteria, but it provides little direct information about the source of the anthrax used in last fall’s attacks, according to experts (see GSN, Feb. 13).

“I don’t see how this could help us much,” said Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Chemical and Biological Arms Control Program (see GSN, April 24).

Investigators have identified the anthrax recovered from last fall’s attacks as being of the Ames strain, which the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases distributed to about 15 other laboratories in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.  Slight mutations may have occurred when those laboratories grew the USAMRIID anthrax samples for their own use, introducing genetic differences that could help link a source laboratory to the strain used in the Florida attack, according to Science.

In the analysis, researchers at the Institute of Genomic Research first compared the full genome of the anthrax strain used in the Florida attacks to the genome of an anthrax strain taken from Porton Down, a British military research institute.  The Florida strain carries two additional rings of DNA, called plasmids, which the Porton Down strain lacks, so researchers compared the Florida plasmids with those from two other anthrax strains.  In all, researchers discovered 53 places where the Florida genome differed from that of the Porton strain and the two plasmids, according to Science.

Next, the researchers compared the Florida strain to Ames strains that the FBI recovered from four laboratories, one Ames strain taken from a dead goat in Texas and two non-Ames strains taken from cattle, Science reported.  They determined the genetic sequence for each of the seven strains at each of the 53 markers.  The researchers discovered they could discern the Florida strain from the strains recovered from animals, but they could not find any major differences between the four laboratory strains and the Florida strain, according to Science.

More differences might be apparent when the Ames strains are analyzed from all 15 laboratories where the FBI has collected samples, Science reported.  The lack of differences found so far, however, “offer only slim hope something useful will come out,” Rosenberg said (Martin Enserink, Science, May 10).

Anthrax Found at Federal Reserve

Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Reserve Board yesterday said traces of anthrax have been discovered in several groups of letters and that 20 of them have been sent off for further testing (see GSN, Dec. 7, 2001).  Because preliminary testing is often inaccurate, the initial tests on the letters could have resulted in false positives, FBI officials said.

Mail screeners wearing protective gear discovered the letters during routine random tests Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the Washington Post.  The letters had no additional characteristics deemed suspicious by the FBI, the Fed said in a statement.

“There was no personal mail, no handwritten addresses, no powder and nothing detected,” Fed spokesman David Skidmore said, adding it was unknown when test results would be available (Guy Gugliotta, Washington Post, May 10).

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U.S. Response:  Senate Confirms New National Institutes of Health Director

The U.S. Senate confirmed Elias Zerhouni to head the National Institutes of Health in a voice vote last week (see GSN, March 27).

Zerhouni is a radiologist and executive vice dean at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  The NIH director’s “most important role ... is to re-establish morale and momentum,” he said during a confirmation hearing held by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (Jocelyn Kaiser, Science, May 10).

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Cuba:  U.S. Claims Are “Loathsome,” Havana Says

Cuba yesterday called U.S. charges that it is trying to develop biological weapons “loathsome” (see GSN, May 8).  The response came after statements made by U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and Nonproliferation John Bolton, who said Cuba has a limited offensive biological weapons program and might be aiding rogue states in establishing their own programs.

“There will be an answer for Mr. John Bolton” on Cuban state television’s “round table” program tonight, said a note published yesterday in the Cuban Communist Party daily newspaper Granma.  An “appropriate and complete” response will be given to the “loathsome accusations against Cuba,” the note said (Associated Press/Yahoo.com, May 9).

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Bulgaria:  Missile Scrapping to Cost $500,000, Defense Ministry Says

The Bulgarian Defense Ministry has said a project to scrap more than 70 ballistic missiles is expected to cost more than $500,000, the Sofia Trud newspaper reported Wednesday (see GSN, April 1).

Bulgaria is expected to begin scrapping 16 SS-23 missiles, 47 Scud missiles and 10 R-65 missiles at the end of the month, Trud reported.  The U.S. State Department has offered an additional $10 million to an earlier U.S. offer to give Bulgaria $10 million in compensation (see GSN, Feb. 22), according to Trud (Ivanov/Angelova, Sofia Trud, May 8 in FBIS-EEU, May 8).

Bulgarian Defense Minister Nikolai Svinarov yesterday said the Bulgarian Defense Council would discuss appropriate compensation at its session on May 15 (News.bg, May 9).

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Radiological Weapons:  Russia and U.S. Agree to Secure Radioactive Material

Russia and the United States have agreed to work more closely together to tighten security of radioactive materials, top U.S. and Russian officials said yesterday in Washington (see GSN, May 6).

Terrorists could use such materials to construct dirty bombs that would spread radiation, U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said after three days of talks with Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev.

The two countries agreed to establish a task force to study related issues and recommend ways to increase security (see GSN, May 7).

“Perhaps the most important step we took this week was an agreement to work together to protect the security of radiological sources that might be used to develop so-called dirty bombs,” Abraham said.

“Both countries have become concerned with radiological materials that, while not capable of causing a nuclear explosion, would be very suitable for use in so-called dirty bombs,” he added.

Many devices — including beacons, medical equipment and radiography tools — use radioactive materials, Reuters reported (Reuters/Planet Ark, May 10).

Progress on Iran, But No Resolution

The two officials made progress regarding U.S. opposition to Russian assistance with a nuclear power plant in Iran, Rumyantsev said (see GSN, May 6).  The issue remains a “sensitive topic,” but “we are close to finding a solution,” he said.

The light water nuclear reactor Russia is building in Iran cannot be used to produce material for nuclear weapons and “is not a source of proliferation of nuclear material,” Rumyantsev said.

The United States remains concerned about Russian assistance to Iran, but “we had positive discussions,” Abraham said (H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, May 9).

Other Agreements

In addition, the United States will resume buying plutonium-238 from Russia for the U.S. space program, Abraham said.

The two countries agreed to accelerate work to protect nuclear materials in Russia, he added.  “We now expect to complete the work of protecting some 600 tons of fissile material by 2008 — a full two years earlier than we expected at this time last year.”

Russia and the United States also agreed “to conduct periodic review of our cooperation,” Abraham said (U.S. State Department release, May 9).

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