CBR Weapons and WMD Terrorism News- August 14, 2006

The Man Who Exposed the Soviets' Viral Terror

“A major chapter in biological warfare quietly closed in June with the death of Lev S. Sandakhchiev, an extraordinary 70-year-old Russian scientist who until last year had led the former Soviet Union's most terrifying center of viral research. Located in remote Siberia, the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology, informally known as Vector — worthy of James Bond — had throughout the Cold War been turning the world's most hideous diseases into weapons. A secret research facility, Vector had long been the target of American intelligence efforts and, as it turned out, justified anxiety. For decades, the U.S. could only speculate about the lab's frightful accomplishments. Then Sandakhchiev made a courageous decision. A compact, wiry, chain-smoking scientist, he grasped after the Soviet Union's collapse that the survival of his lab and its scientists depended on abandoning his life's long work in bioweapons and opening up to the West.” (Los Angeles Times, 13Aug06, Judith Miller) http://www.latimes.com/news
/opinion/la-oe-jmiller13aug13,0,1225730.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail

Experiments in bioterror: Stealth lab will hatch defense for biological attack

“On the grounds of a military base an hour’s drive from the capital, the Bush administration is building a massive biodefense laboratory unlike any seen since biological weapons were banned 34 years ago. The heart of the lab is a cluster of sealed chambers built to contain the world’s deadliest bacteria and viruses. There, scientists will spend their days simulating the unthinkable: bioterrorism attacks in the form of lethal anthrax spores rendered as wispy powders that can drift for miles on a summer breeze, or common viruses turned into deadly superbugs that ordinary drugs and vaccines cannot stop. The work at this new lab, at Fort Detrick, Maryland, could someday save thousands of lives – or, some fear, create new risks and place the United States in violation of international treaties. In either case, much of what transpires at the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center may never be publicly known, because the Bush administration intends to operate the lab largely in secret.” (Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, 14Aug06, Joby Warrick, Washington Post) http://www.fortwayne.com
/mld/journalgazette/living/15270314.htm

VaxGen Publishes Results of Phase I Clinical Trial of Anthrax Vaccine Candidate

“VaxGen, Inc. announced today that peer-reviewed data from the company's Phase I clinical trial of its candidate anthrax vaccine rPA102 were published in the journal Vaccine. The paper, titled ‘Immunogenicity and Tolerance of Ascending Doses of a Recombinant Protective Antigen (rPA102) Anthrax Vaccine: A Randomized, Double-blinded, Controlled, Multicenter Trial,’ presents data which demonstrated a clear relationship between the rPA102 dose administered and the subsequent immune response. All injections were administered four weeks apart and at each dose level examined, three injections of the vaccine candidate yielded higher antibody titers than with two injections. No clinically serious or dose-related toxicity was observed in this study.” (Pharmalive.com, 14Aug06)
http://www.medadnews.com
/News/Index.cfm?articleid=365234

Centre's norms to check use of chemical weapons by terrorists

“With a view to prevent use of chemical and biological weapons by terrorists, the [Indian] Government has devised three Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to deal with terrorist attacks involving use of Radiological, Nuclear Materials, Biological Agents and Chemical Weapons (RNBC). These SOPs provide for identification of potential targets, formation and training of specialist response teams, Home Ministry sources said on Sunday. They said that SOPs for responding to terrorist attacks using chemical weapons and involving use of radioactive materials have been circulated to concerned ministries and state governments for drawing up their individual SOPs and action plans and also initiate necessary preparedness measures. The sources, however, said that so far no inputs have come to the notice of the [Indian] Government regarding terrorists acquiring chemical and biological weapons and radioactivity gadgets for use against civilian population. They said four of the eight battalions of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have been earmarked specially for RNBC disaster or terrorist strikes. On steps taken by the Government to check acquisition of such weapons by terrorists, they said the establishments and institutions where Radiological and Nuclear Materials and Chemicals and Biological Agents are produced or procured for use have ‘adequate failsafe security stipulations’ to check such items from being procured by unauthorized persons.” (Hindustan Times, 13Aug06, Press Trust of India) http://www.hindustantimes.com
/news/181_1767822,001302420000.htm

Utah incinerator to help destroy chemical weapons

“It will take six years of continuous burning for the Army to finish destroying its largest stockpile of chemical weapons. An Army contractor plans to fire up the incinerator as early as Thursday to burn through 6,208 tons of gooey mustard agent - time has turned much of it to sludge - that fills 124,627 shells and bulk storage tanks. The final campaign for Deseret Chemical Depot, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, comes after it burned roughly half of the nation's deadly GB and VX nerve agent, which filled more than 1 million munitions and bulk tanks. That effort, hobbled by technical problems and shutdowns, took a decade to complete.” (AZ Central.com, 13Aug06, Paul Foy, AP)
http://www.azcentral.com/news
/articles/0813chemical-incineration0811.html

Army system to destroy recovered munitions in Delaware

“The U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency (CMA) is scheduled to destroy recovered chemical warfare munitions this month at Dover Air Force Base, Del. The agency’s Non-Stockpile Chemical Materiel Project (NSCMP) will destroy six 75 mm mustard-filled munitions using a technology called the Explosive Destruction System (EDS). The EDS neutralizes chemical-filled, explosively configured munitions, and contains all parts, liquids, and vapors resulting from the treatment process. This is done within a sealed, stainless-steel containment vessel keeping safety and the environment NSCMP’s top priority. This is the fourth time NSCMP has deployed its EDS to Delaware to destroy World War I era recovered munitions - the first in October 2004; again in August 2005; and this year in February. The Air Force has safely stored the current munitions since recovery at a seafood processing plant in Milford, Del. The EDS has deployed for missions throughout the United States since its creation in 1999, and has safely and effectively destroyed more than 500 items.” (U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency, 11Aug06) http://www.cma.army.mi
l/docviewerframe.aspx?docid=003675845

China weapons cleanup requires five more years

“Efforts to recover and dispose of hundreds of thousands of chemical weapons abandoned in China by the Imperial army at the end of World War II will take five years longer than planned, a Japanese official said Friday. An international convention passed in 1997 requires Japan to remove the weapons by next April, but Japan and China requested a five-year extension to 2012 because of the large number of weapons yet to be unearthed. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the Hague-based organization that oversees the treaty, approved the extension last month, said Keigo Akashi, a Cabinet Office official in charge of the weapons disposal project. Akashi said Japan wants to make preparations to build a chemical weapons disposal plant in Jilin Province in northeastern China by the end of next March, pending approval by the Chinese government. Japan has so far removed 38,000 chemical weapons.” (The Japan Times, 12Aug06, AP) http://search.japantimes.co.jp
/print/nn20060812a6.html

Depot detects trace amount of GB agent vapor

“A depot chemical operations monitoring crew detected a trace amount of GB sarin chemical agent vapor today inside a chemical storage structure storing munitions that have previously leaked. The trace of chemical agent was detected during routine monitoring. The structure housing the chemical agent has a ‘passive’ filter system, which prevents chemical agent vapor from escaping outside the structure. However, as a further protective measure, a powered filter system was installed. The GB sarin munitions that have previously leaked in other chemical storage ‘igloos’ at the depot are placed in larger ammunition containers and moved to a ‘leaker’ storage structure that is monitored daily. Although the readings are so low they are not harmful to the public or the environment, depot officials notify the public when such incidents occur. They also notify off-post emergency operations centers in Umatilla and Morrow counties, Ore., Benton County, Wash., those in Oregon and Washington states, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and the Oregon Dept. of Environmental Quality.” (U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency, 11Aug06)
http://www.cma.army.mi
l/docviewerframe.aspx?docid=003675842

Singapore, U.S. hold first workshop on radiological dispersal device threat reduction

“A Joint Singapore-U.S. Radiological Dispersal Device (RDD) Threat Reduction Workshop, the first of its kind held in the city state, opened Monday. Organized by the Defense Science and Technology Agency of Singapore and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency of the United~States, the workshop will cover topics ranging from control framework regimes to consequence management approaches. Participants are expected to discuss issues like safeguarding radiological materials, as well as the possibility and consequence of radiological releases in ports, and metropolitan environment and buildings. Speaking at the opening ceremony, Singapore's Senior Minister of State for Law and Home Affairs Ho Peng Kee said that there has been a growing concern that terrorists are inclined towards acquiring and using chemical, biological and radiological (CBR) weapons.” (People’s Daily Online, 14Aug06, Xinhua) http://english.people.com.cn
/200608/14/eng20060814_292957.html

Revealed: nuclear security rules broken 39 times in past year

“The British nuclear industry has reported 39 lapses in security against terrorism in the past year, including laptop thefts, internet misuse, a power cut and lightning strikes. The failings are revealed in a report from the Office for Civil Nuclear Security (OCNS), the government watch dog responsible for ensuring nuclear power stations and radioactive waste facilities are protected from terrorist attacks. The revelations have disturbed experts and environmentalists, who are calling for security to be tightened. The OCNS has itself warned of ‘complacency’ on leaks of sensitive nuclear information. According to the OCNS report, eight breaches in information security were reported in the year to March 31. They included ‘the theft of laptops from parked vehicles’ and ‘inappropriate transmission of restricted information over the internet’, the report said.” (Sunday Herald, 13Aug06, Rob Edwards) http://www.sundayherald.com/57240