World Terrorism: News, History and Research Of A Changing World #6 Disinformation, Inc.

City Objects to BU Biolab Building

Proposed lab could 'make the world less safe,' prof says

Published On 1/10/2007 1:45:04 AM

By NICHOLAS K. TABOR

Crimson Staff Writer

The Cambridge City Council voted unanimously Monday to oppose the construction of a Boston University BioSafety Level (BSL) 4 biodefense laboratory, a category of facility intended to house the most dangerous and least understood biological pathogens.

During lengthy public comment at the meeting, four area professors, a Boston city councillor, former gubenatorial candidate Grace C. Ross ’83, and a group of singing grandmothers voiced their objections to the facility, saying that the lab would endanger both its South End location and neighboring communities.

Although the Council vote cannot stop the construction, members said they were concerned that the effects of a pathogen leak would go beyond Boston city limits.

'If there is an accident, there is no recourse for us,' said Councillor E. Denise Simmons. 'And if there is an accident in Boston, there goes Cambridge.'

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site, BSL-4 laboratories study 'dangerous/exotic agents which pose high risk of life-threatening disease, aerosol-transmitted lab infections; or related agents with unknown risk of transmission.' In addition to the BU lab, six known BSL-4 laboratories currently exist in the United States, with another in the Rocky Mountains slated to open this year.

Intact samples of both smallpox and several varieties of viral hemorrhagic fever—including the Ebola virus—require a BSL-4 laboratory for study.

The Boston University facility is paid for in part by a one-time $120 million federal grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a branch of the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services. The building will also house BSL-3 labs, which study pathogens with the potential for 'serious health effects.' Many of these labs currently exist, including the Microbiology and Animal Resources Core Laboratory at the Harvard Medical School.

During the council meeting, David Ozonoff, professor and chairman emeritus of environmental health at the Boston University School of Public Health, said he felt compelled to appear before the council 'out of a sense of conscience,' and that accidents at the BSL-4 facility could give way to 'extremely high-consequence events.'

'I’ve spent my entire 40-plus year career in public medicine, and I don’t believe this facility serves a genuine public health purpose,' he said. 'This lab may very well...make not just Cambridge less safe, but the world less safe.'

Elliot G. Mishler, professor of social psychology at the Harvard Medical School, echoed the concerns of other speakers, saying that 'accidents occur at all levels of bioresearch labs, and even though the risk is low, it is acknowledged that...this risk is not zero.'

In addition to concerns about the facility itself, Boston City Councillor Charles H. 'Chuck' Turner ’62 said at the meeting that he lacked confidence in BU’s safety procedures. Turner referred to a 2004 incident in which three BU researchers fell ill after unknowingly handling a contaminated strain of the bacteria tularemia.

However, according to the Boston Globe, BU officials did not report the illnesses to the Boston Public Health Commission until 28 days after DNA analyses revealed the strains under study had been contaminated. The Globe also revealed that BU failed to update its proposal for a BSL-4 lab, which claimed that BU labs had experienced no 'laboratory-acquired infections' in more than 10 years, after the infections had been discovered.

'Boston University has not shown itself to be responsible in handling chemicals in its experimental work,' Turner said.

Officials from BU, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s office could not be reached for comment.

—Staff writer Nicholas K. Tabor can be reached at ntabor@fas.harvard.edu.

Date Collected: 1/11/2007
Source: http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=516593

Complaints Pile Up As Project BioShield Heads Into New Year

BY PETER BENESH

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 1/12/2007

Jan. 5 was the day of reckoning for Pink Sheet-traded VaxGen. The Brisbane, Calif., biotech fired half its staff, replaced its chief executive and hired investment bank Lazard to help figure out its options.

VaxGen's crisis stems from cancellation of a $1 billion contract the firm won under Project BioShield.

The $5.6 billion federal program, created in 2004, spends public funds to create a market for counterterrorism measures produced by the private sector.

VaxGen was to supply 75 million doses of anthrax vaccine for the government's stockpile. But on Dec. 19, the Department of Health and Human Services pulled the plug.

While VaxGen argues that the government kept moving the goal post, company spokesman Lance Ignon concedes that the vaccine had a problem: It got weaker as it sat on the shelf.

Meanwhile, another Pink Sheet company, Cangene, is moving ahead on two BioShield contracts. Cangene's deals are worth $565 million — not bad for a Canadian biotech almost unknown in the U.S. The firm's BioShield contracts are anthrax and botulism treatments.

In 2002 — before BioShield — Cangene won a five-year contract to supply smallpox vaccine to the Centers for Disease Control. The company expects to start delivering to the U.S. stockpile in late 2007, says John McMillan, vice president for commercial development.

'(Cangene's future) depends on our ability to deliver on the contracts we have on schedule,' he said.

Drug Underdose?

In between VaxGen's catastrophe and Cangene's success is Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals (HEPH) of San Diego. It looks to land a contract at the end of January to supply its anti-radiation drug, Neumune, to the national stockpile.

Hollis-Eden's beef is that the government called for only 100,000 doses.

The company says anti-radiation defense can't work with fewer than 10 million doses because radiation spreads fast over wide areas. Hollis-Eden CEO Richard Hollis has argued that radiation is a bigger threat than anthrax or botulism.

Of course, Hollis-Eden stands to gain financially by a larger number of doses. Ten million would have meant more revenue to finance research and development of commercial products. But the firm failed to sway BioShield officials.

So what does it all add up to? Only nine Project BioShield contracts are in effect. More than five years after 9/11, the U.S. still lacks stockpiles of treatments to deal with the aftermath of chemical, biological, nuclear and radioactive attacks, says Robert Housman, Washington lobbyist for Hollis-Eden.

Many companies that might have contributed their technologies have walked away.

Vical (VICL) of San Diego scrapped its own anthrax counter measure after the $1 billion BioShield award to VaxGen.

A key problem with BioShield is that it pays on delivery only, meaning it doesn't dole out any money during the development phase.

That's not how the private sector finances new drug development. Investors make big bets on experimental drugs in the hope or expectation they'll get regulatory approval and the market will want or need them.

Unlike private sector investors, Project BioShield offers nothing more than a promissory note, Housman says.

'It works on basis of, 'If you build it, we will buy,' ' he said.

Death Valley Days

Another complaint about BioShield is that it shares none of the risk, says Frank Rapoport, a lawyer with McKenna Long & Aldridge, which represents many biotech firms. 'It's like Bill Gates saying to GlaxoSmithKline, (GSK) 'If you create a new malaria drug, I'll give you $3 billion.' '

Biotech firms call this void between contract and delivery the 'Valley of Death.'

Many companies can't or won't spend their own funds on BioShield projects. Cangene did take the risk, paying for research and facilities before it got its two contracts. The company has no complaints about BioShield.

'We found the process to be transparent and reasonable,' McMillan said.

Recognizing that BioShield has failed to create incentives for most biotechs to create counterterrorism products, President Bush last month signed legislation to address the problem.

The law creates a new government body, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or Barda. It'll have $1 billion to hand out as financing.

Barda is a necessary step, Housman says. 'The market hasn't responded, so the government must fix the problem it created.'

The question is whether the government understands how the biotech development market works. In the case of VaxGen, Housman agrees with Ignon that Washington unilaterally modified the company's contract, adding benchmarks and changing timelines before pulling the plug.

While VaxGen is hurting, there is a plus to BioShield's payment-on-delivery rules, Rapoport says. The money is still in the kitty and can go to other projects.

'It's not like a government contractor who screws up and the money's gone,' Rapoport said. 'HHS hasn't paid VaxGen a dime.'

He attributes Barda's creation to fear of pandemic flu — not biochemical or nuclear terrorism.

'We've spent three years twiddling our thumbs,' Rapoport said. 'Only after Mother Nature threatened us with flu did we get juiced about biodefense.'

Rapoport represents Sanofi Pasteur, a unit of Sanofi-Aventis (SNY) that has a possible avian flu vaccine in clinical trials.

Domino Effect

Another problem for biotechs participating in BioShield is that a contract is likely to be a one-time event. Once the last order is delivered and paid for, earnings 'can fall off the cliff,' McMillan said.

On the plus side: BioShield can be a springboard to business with other customers. A company that succeeds with a BioShield project is likely to get orders from foreign countries also worried about chemical, biological or nuclear attack.

Cangene had factored that into its plan to seek BioShield contracts. The company had precedent. After it sold its smallpox vaccine to the CDC, it later inked deals with the United Kingdom and Singapore. Cangene is negotiating with other countries as well, though McMillan would not name them.

Rapoport says many of his firm's clients are seeking business abroad — especially in Europe — for biodefense products.

'The industry is going global and all the purchases will be by governments,' he said.

Date Collected: 1/13/2007
Source: http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=22&issue=20070112

Study Finds Progress Made in Stemming 'Dirty Bomb' Threat

By Jon Fox

Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Despite limited funding from both Moscow and Washington, a cooperative program to secure radiation sources in Russia that could be used in radiological 'dirty bombs' has made a 'very good start,' according to a study by the National Research Council (see GSN, Jan. 3).

The three-year look at the joint threat reduction program determined that initial 'quick security fixes' have been important and should continue. In addition, the report urges the Energy Department to speed up the program that began in 2003.

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States and Russia have worked together to reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation through programs such as those covered by the Cooperative Threat Reduction effort.

Programs were initially aimed at securing strategic nuclear weapons in four countries born of the Soviet collapse. The efforts were later expanded to enhance material protection at laboratories and to ensure that Russian weapons specialists were kept employed and directed toward peaceful pursuits. In 2002, the U.S. energy secretary and his Russian counterpart announced a new push to secure radiation sources that, rather than fueling a nuclear explosion, could be combined with conventional explosives in a dirty bomb (see GSN, May 10, 2002).

Since the inception of the new program, officials have focused on analyzing information in Russian databases to assess the numbers, types and locations of radioactive sources in Russia; to improve security at storage and disposal sites; to collect and dispose of now-unwanted radiation sources; and to accelerate the removal of radiation-powered batteries deployed mainly in the far north of Russia (see GSN, Aug. 25, 2004).

The National Research Council report, which was released late last month after an original 18-month deadline was extended to 36, praises the cooperative activities to tighten the cordons on radioactive material that could find its way into a dirty bomb. The report suggests there could be more than one million sources of radiation in Russia that are of concern.

The program, which was eventually incorporated into the U.S. Energy Department’s Global Threat Reduction Initiative, has afforded the agency 'considerable experience in developing and carrying out significant on-the-ground activities in Russia,' the report concludes.

Between 200 and 300 of the more than 1,000 radiation-powered batteries produced for use in the Soviet Union have been taken out of service in recent years. Many of the power sources, most of which were used to generate electricity for remote scientific monitoring stations, are now in the process of being dismantled before undergoing disposal (see GSN, Oct. 23, 2002).

In addition, the Energy Department has helped upgrade security at 16 regional storage and disposal facilities designed to deal with disused and orphan radiation sources remaining in Russia. At one such site near Moscow, upgrades have included underground storage wells, devices to indicate tampering, access control equipment and intrusion detection systems.

'DOE has made a very good start in helping Russia deal with the challenge of security enhancement,' the report states. 'Committed Russian partners seem ready to continue to move forward if they are provided with financial resources.'

The report expresses concern about declining funding to the cooperative program, but says that any expansion of current activities should wait for the Energy Department to outline the best way to proceed if additional funding becomes available. The report avoids budget specifics.

'This plan should indicate how U.S. resources can leverage larger resources of the Russian government and thereby become an important basis for budget requests to support the program,' it says.

While expected to cause limited physical damage and a small number of deaths, experts have said the potential for a dirty bomb to cause significant economic damage and physiological damage is high. Such an attack could result in the evacuation of a large swath of an urban area followed by the difficulties of a large-scale decontamination.

'The very word ‘radioactive’ makes people scared,' said Matthew Bunn, a senior research associate at Harvard University’s Project on Managing the Atom.

The likelihood of a dirty bomb attack in the 'not too distant future' is also high, the report says, citing a poll of experts who think such a strike is more likely that not to occur within a decade (see GSN, Nov. 2, 2005).

'I think it’s important to be working with Russia to get this radiological material locked down,' Bunn said.

Still, he noted, Russia has taken steps to address the problem. Feeling it has the security of its nuclear weapons under control, Russian leaders appear more concerned with the threat of radiological rather than nuclear terrorism, Bunn said.

'Basically there were two problems in the former Soviet Union,' said Charles Ferguson, a nuclear expert with the Council on Foreign Relations. The government had relatively weak oversight and the number of radiological sources was very high.

The Russian Academy of Sciences pegged the number of radiation sources in Russia at about 500,000, but the National Research Council report suggests it could be as large as 1 million or more.

The report points out that only a small fraction of radiation sources used for scientific, industrial and medical purposes are considered to be high risk by their nature. Despite work on a comprehensive database, however, the catalogue has shortcomings and must be upgraded, the report says. Only one-third of Russia’s regions have been analyzed, and Moscow, which has the largest number of radiation sources, remains unexamined.

'The Russians I know are worried about the potential of radiological terror acts in Russia,' Ferguson said.

In Moscow, that apparent concern has resulted in a 'level of sophistication regarding emergency operations and response capabilities that should be of considerable interest to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security,' the report notes.

Even with the work accomplished to date, 'much more needs to be done by the Russian government and cooperatively to reduce the threat to both U.S. and Russian interests,' the report states.

The report calls for more involvement from the Russian Health and Social Services, Natural Resources and Energy, Agriculture, and Education and Science ministries. They did not offer specific examples of how those agencies might become involved.

'The focus of the program has been on a few quick fixes, rather than on comprehensive long-term approaches,' the study found, but in each area of the program 'Russian activities seem to be on the rise, probably attributable in some measure to the stimulus of the cooperative program.'

Date Collected: 1/8/2007
Source: http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2007_1_8.html#20CAAB59

U.S. Study Finds More Nuclear Trafficking Than IAEA

A U.S. review of nuclear trafficking incidents in 2005 has shown that there were twice as many reports of smuggling and mishandling as reported by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Reuters reported last week (see GSN

http://204.71.60.35/d%5Fnewswire/issues/2006/8/22/d5940e33%2Debfa%2D4db8%2D86bb%2D9a2070475925.html

Aug. 22, 2006).

The Homeland Security Department found 215 reports of illicit nuclear trafficking and related activity around the world in 2005, up from 100 incidents in 2000, said department spokesman Jarrod Agen. The number of reports was more than double the 103 incidents reported by IAEA officials in August. The increase since 2000 was mostly due to improved awareness and reporting, and does not necessarily mean that trafficking has increased, Agen said. 'What has doubled is the number of reported events,' he said. 'This is due mainly to an increase in awareness, more comprehensive reporting and an increase in the number of detection devices.' 'Only a handful of the known illicit nuclear/radiological trafficking incidents involved weapons-usable nuclear materials,' Agen added. 'Of the known smuggling incidents to date, the vast majority were profit-motivated scams involving bogus materials' (Reuters

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2006-12-26T222204Z_01_N26398819_RTRUKOC_0_US-NUCLEAR-USA-TRAFFICKING.xml

Dec. 26, 2006). As part of its efforts to combat nuclear smuggling, the United States announced plans last week to install radiation detectors at multiple border crossings in Slovakia. U.S. experts have been working with the Slovakian customs officials to survey potential sites, according to a release from the National Nuclear Security Administration. 'We are continuing to address terrorist threats around the globe,' said Assistant Deputy Administrator Dave Huizenga in the release. 'Through this program in Slovakia, and through other NNSA nonproliferation programs, we are helping to stop terrorists and criminals from smuggling nuclear and radiological material' (National Nuclear Security Administration release

Dec. 29, 2006).

Date Collected: 1/4/2007
Source:

http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/docs/newsreleases/2006/PR_2006-12-29_NA-06-53.htm

Nuclear trafficking reports double in 5 years: official

Tue Dec 26, 2006 5:22 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Reported incidents of trafficking and mishandling nuclear material worldwide doubled between 2000 and 2005, mainly because of heightened awareness and more extensive screening, the Department of Homeland Security said on Tuesday.

The department received 215 reports of nuclear trafficking and related criminal activity worldwide in 2005, versus 100 incidents in 2000, said Jarrod Agen, a Homeland Security spokesman. The incidents included illegal diversion, purchase, sale, transport or storage of nuclear material.

'Only a handful of the known illicit nuclear/radiological trafficking incidents involved weapons-usable nuclear materials,' Agen said. 'Of the known smuggling incidents to date, the vast majority were profit-motivated scams involving bogus materials.'

The number of trafficking incidents recorded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was more than double that reported in August by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The Geneva-based U.N. nuclear watchdog said it had received reports of 103 incidents of illicit trafficking and other unauthorized activities involving nuclear and radioactive materials in 2005.

It cited a 2005 New Jersey case in which a lab inadvertently disposed of 0.1 ounce (3.3 grams) of highly enriched uranium. A lab worker failed to locate one of several samples in a shipment and apparently threw it away with the packaging, which was buried at a landfill. The lab was later fined $3,250 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The Homeland Security figures include IAEA reporting as well as other information obtained by intelligence and law enforcement agencies, Agen said.

'What has doubled is the number of reported events,' he said. 'This is due mainly to an increase in awareness, more comprehensive reporting and an increase in the number of number of detection devices.'

Since the September 11 attacks, security awareness has become higher worldwide, and the United States has increased the number and sophistication of screening machines across the country.

'We screen about 80 percent of all cargo that comes into the U.S. through radiation portal monitors, and by the end of next year we will be at 100 percent,' Agen said. 'That gives you an indication of how seriously we take screening for radioactive material.'

Authorities will begin scanning U.S.-bound freight for nuclear and radiological materials in seven overseas ports early next year as part of the U.S. Secure Freight Initiative. Ports in Pakistan, Honduras, Britain, South Korea and Singapore are participating, Agen said.

Date Collected: 1/4/2007

Source: http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2006-12-26T222204Z_01_N26398819_RTRUKOC_0_US-NUCLEAR-USA-TRAFFICKING.xml

CSIS fears terrorist `dirty bomb'

January 02, 2007

Canadian Press

OTTAWA – Canada's spy agency says it is 'quite surprising' that terrorists have not detonated a crude radioactive bomb, given the availability of materials and ease with which they could be made into a weapon.

A newly released Canadian Security Intelligence Service study concludes a so-called dirty bomb is the most likely means of deliberately spreading deadly radiation.

But the CSIS study cautions that 'a determined and resourceful terrorist group' could execute more elaborate forms of nuclear or radiological attack.

It says extremists could conceivably acquire an existing nuclear explosive device, fashion an improvised weapon from black-market material or sabotage a nuclear facility with the aim of triggering a radioactive release.

A copy of the October study was obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

CSIS relies mainly on previously published research and analysis in assessing the threats, though brief passages were deemed too sensitive to disclose.

The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States raised fears that extremists could crash a jetliner into a nuclear reactor or get their hands on material to craft a rudimentary dirty bomb, or radiological dispersal device.

'The technical capability required to construct and use a simple RDD is practically trivial, compared to that of a nuclear explosive device or even most chemical or biological weapons,' the CSIS study says.

A homemade radiological weapon could consist of a conventional explosive laced with radioactive material commonly found at universities, medical and research laboratories or industrial sites.

Several isotopes used in applications including cancer treatment and industrial radiography have been identified as possible sources. However, CSIS notes, much would depend on the material's half-life, the amount of radioactivity present, the portability of the source and the ease with which it could be dispersed.

Experts say such an explosion, while claiming few initial casualties, could spread radiation over a wide area, contaminating several city blocks, sowing panic and wreaking economic havoc.

Canadian organizations have quietly spent hundreds of millions of dollars since 9-11 to secure nuclear reactors, mines, research facilities and laboratories that handle radiological material.

CSIS contends detonation of a crude bomb is 'undoubtedly the most likely' terrorist scenario involving radioactive sources.

'Indeed, it is quite surprising that the world has not yet witnessed such an attack,' the study says, adding 'it appears that we are positively overdue for one.'

The intelligence service points to the notion terrorist thinking has shifted from the desire to inflict mass casualties to 'one of inflicting severe economic damage.'

Despite the assessment, the study provides little sense of the actual likelihood of a radiological or nuclear strike, said Prof. Wade Deisman, a criminologist and director of the University of Ottawa's national security project.

A more detailed CSIS analysis would be needed to develop such a measuring stick, Deisman said.

'They need to have an idea of how to prioritize their responses to threats based on their probabilities. And I still am far from convinced that they have any sense of that.'

Security agencies need to assure the public they have a grasp of the risks, systems in place to protect key facilities and the resources to respond to emergencies, Deisman added.

Date Collected: 1/4/2007
Source: http://www.thestar.com/News/article/167232

U.S. port security unlikely to stop nukes: experts

Thu Dec 7, 2006 7:54 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bush administration efforts to screen U.S.-bound cargo for radioactive weapons are unlikely to stop a determined militant group from smuggling nuclear material onto American soil, experts said on Thursday.

Peter Zimmerman of Kings College, London, and Jeffrey Lewis of Harvard, who have researched the task of building an improvised nuclear device, said anyone hoping to hatch a nuclear attack on the United States would most likely build the weapon on American soil.

That would require them to smuggle highly enriched uranium from abroad. But packaging material as common as aluminum foil could shield the uranium from scanning devices meant to detect radioactivity.

'I am not presently optimistic that current efforts to inspect and scan will have any payoff against highly enriched uranium,' said Zimmerman, a nuclear physicist who is director of the Kings College London Center for Science & Security Studies.

They spoke to reporters on the same day the Bush administration unveiled a $60 million program to scan U.S.-bound cargo for nuclear and radiological material at ports in Pakistan, Oman, South Korea, Honduras, Britain and Singapore.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told reporters the program was part of an effort to cut off the possibility of a nuclear attack on U.S. soil.

'I don't know that there's that much Chertoff can do,' said Lewis, a policy expert from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Neither expert directly addressed the new U.S. port security initiative.

But both said the most effective means of protecting against nuclear terrorism would be to drive up the black market price for fissile material by upgrading security at nuclear facilities, particularly in the former Soviet Union.

Zimmerman and Lewis produced a study showing a nuclear weapon as strong as the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima could be constructed and deployed for $5.4 million. As many as 140,000 people died as a result of the August 6, 1945, U.S. attack on the Japanese city.

'If we think this can be done for less than $10 million, that's just too low, because there are terrorist groups with access to that much money,' Lewis said.

'What I'd like to see is efforts made in securing fissile material so our estimate would go up (and) there won't be terrorist groups that are capable of doing this.'

Date Collected: 1/5/2007
Source: http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-12-08T005349Z_01_N07304101_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-USA-PORTS-NUCLEAR.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsHome-C1-topNews-8

Could 2007 Be The Year of The 'Dirty Bomb'?

Thursday, 04 January 2007

According to a report by Canada's spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service otherwise known as CSIS, the world is 'overdue' for a terrorist faction 'dirty bomb' detonation. And if that isn't sobering enough, the agency warns that terrorist groups exhibiting acute determination and resourcefulness could even detonate a more sophisticated nuclear weapon. Regardless of the method, the desired result is to spread as much radiation as possible to a large number of people.

The report which was released in late 2006 also concludes that the materials necessary for a working dirty bomb have been easily accessible for quite some time and it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to assume that some of the more organized terrorist factions are busy acquiring those materials.

An attack with an improvised dirty bomb or a more sophisticated device has the potential of destroying numerous city blocks with few immediate deaths but as the radiation spreads further beyond ground zero, many more deaths would occur over short periods of time. The destructive power of a dirty bomb depends on the size of the bomb and the amounts of radioactive isotopes and TNT used. Dirty bombs have been called the ultimate terror weapon because of the fear a detonation would ensue in the general population and beyond.

CSIS is warning that the actual detonation of a dirty bomb by a terrorist faction is 'positively overdue' and added that there has been a gradual shift in terrorist thinking - the original goal of any terrorist was to inflict as much death as possible but their intent has evolved into attaining economic devastation. A strategically placed dirty bomb would kill a relatively small number of people but has the potential to cause ecomomic hysteria and collapse in the target region.

Date Collected: 1/5/2007
Source: http://www.halifaxlive.com/content/view/878/2/

‘Khan network broke no international law’

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: It is not an 'international crime' to engage in nuclear weapon proliferation and there is no binding international requirement to notify the International Atomic Energy Agency of all transfers of equipment vital to producing fissile materials and nuclear weapons, according to one of America’s leading nuclear experts.

George Perkovich, director of the non-proliferation programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes that Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan’s operations were detected well before news of them broke in 2002. 'And most of the network’s key technology suppliers and middlemen were Europeans whose activities were well known to their governments. More than technological determinism, the problem was political-legal laxity,' he points out in a short study titles ‘Democratic bomb: failed strategy.’

Perkovich writes, 'Since the mid-1960s, the United States has not sought to pressure or cajole Israel to give up its nuclear weapon capabilities. Israel’s discretion is not demonstrating that it has nuclear weapons has facilitated Washington’s tacit support; the fact that it is a democratic friend makes it worthy of a double standard. The Bush administration extends the logic of US treatment of Israel into a strategic principle. India is the first explicit application of the strategy.'

He points out that the Indo-US nuclear cooperation treaty 'abandoned a long-standing international approach to non-proliferation that prohibited nuclear cooperation with any states that do not apply international safeguards on all of their nuclear facilities. He quotes US under secretary of state Nicholas Burns, who said, 'If people are bothered by double standards in the world, they happen all the time. We treat law-abiding democratic countries that are friends of ours differently than law-breaking authoritarian governments.'

Perkovich believes that hanging non-proliferation policy on the type of government involved is insufficient to protect the United States and the world from nuclear dangers. He argues that regime change is not the way to achieve non-proliferation. If non-democratic governments are toppled, they would unleash grave new dangers while turning the United States into a rogue nation that the rest of the world would then try to contain. He also stresses that while the US accepts a nuclear Israel, Muslim countries do not. He argues that to persuade a country that is close to nuclear capability to abandon it cannot be done by the US single-handedly, and the best way to achieve that is through the UN Security Council. The Carnegie nuclear expert recommends that proliferation cannot be contained unless the United States reconsiders the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT); invests in the high-level leadership needed to bring all states with nuclear weapons and fissile material stockpiles into the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, announced by the US and Russia in July 2006; begins building a coalition within the IAEA governing board to require all states to report pending imports and exports of the most sensitive nuclear technology on a mandatory basis; and begins a campaign to make nuclear proliferation an international crime.

Perkovich, while conceding that the world would be a much better place if every country was a democracy, notes that out of the 100 countries that have attempted to move away from authoritarian rule in the past several decades, less than 25 percent have achieved stable, consolidated democracies. Regime change or democratisation is unlikely to be a successful strategy. Consequently, the democratic world should neither disavow the spread of democracy nor abandon support of democrats struggling for reform in authoritarian counties. 'The United States does not have the luxury to refuse to deal directly with the leaders who make the nuclear policy decisions it seeks to change, whether we think they are good or bad men. Nor is the United States powerful enough to prevent future nuclear proliferation without the framework of universal rules that key states are willing to enforce. Enforcement comes when rules are fair and when the rule breakers, rather than the rule makers, are seen as arrogant and reckless. A strategy of ignoring international rules to change regimes America doesn’t like, and changing rules to reward those America favours, cannot succeed,' he concludes.

Date Collected: 1/3/2007
Source: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\01\01\story_1-1-2007_pg7_22

Plutonium security risk warning

Jan. 4, 2007 at 11:41AM

Enough plutonium to make mroe than 4,100 nucear wepaons is moved in commerical shipments every year, an expert warned this week.

'Currently, approximately 100 commercial shipments of unirradiated plutonium take place per year, or one shipment every several days,' David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International security wrote in a report released Wednesday.

'These 100 shipments contain in total about 25 tonnes of unirradiated plutonium. With eight kilograms (17.6 pounds)of unirradiated plutonium enough to make a nuclear weapon, these shipments contain enough weapon-usable plutonium for about 3,100 nuclear weapons. This report estimates that through 2020, roughly 1,500 shipments will occur containing 500 tonnes of unirradiated plutonium, enough for about 62,000 nuclear weapons,' Albright wrote.

Albright wrote that 'shipments of commercial unirradiated plutonium typically travel from civil reprocessing plants to mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication facilities and then to power reactors that use the MOX fuel.

'The transportation of civil unirradiated plutonium for use in nuclear power reactors is a small but critical part of a large system in which nuclear materials must be shipped by land or sea among facilities involved in the nuclear fuel cycle,' he wrote.

'The transportation of unirradiated plutonium is widely recognized as one of the most vulnerable parts of the nuclear fuel cycle to attack by terrorist or sub-national groups,' Albright warned. 'Although the continuing danger posed by unsecured nuclear sites in various countries throughout the world is well recognized, there has been less recognition of how prevalent plutonium shipments are becoming in the world and the risk they pose to international security.

'Such shipments require extraordinary physical protection, as even the theft of a single shipment could provide enough plutonium for tens of nuclear weapons,' he warned.

Date Collected: 1/4/2007
Source: http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi/20070104-113549-4511r.htm

Nuclear agency head dismissed for lapses

By H.JOSEF HEBERT Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman on Thursday dismissed the chief of the country's nuclear weapons program because of security breakdowns at the Los Alamos, N.M., laboratory and other facilities.

Linton Brooks will submit his resignation this month as head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the department said.

Bodman said the nuclear agency under Brooks, a former ambassador and arms control negotiator, had not adequately corrected security problems. 'I have decided it is time for new leadership at the NNSA,' Bodman said.

Brooks was reprimanded in June for failing to report to Bodman a security breach of computers at an agency facility in Albuquerque, N.M., that resulted in the theft of files containing Social Security numbers and other personal data for 1,500 workers.

Last fall, security at Los Alamos came into question anew. During a drug raid, authorities found classified nuclear-related documents at the home of a former lab employee with top secret clearance.

That security breach was especially troubling, the department's internal watchdog said, because tens of millions of dollars had been spent to upgrade computer security at Los Alamos. The lab is part of the nuclear weapons complex that Brooks' agency oversees.

'These management and security issues can have serious implications for the security of the United States,' Bodman in a statement announcing Brooks' departure.

While the agency's management 'has done its best to address these concerns, I do not believe that progress in correcting these issues has been adequate,' Bodman said.

'Therefore, and after careful consideration, I have decided that it is time for new leadership at the NNSA,' said Bodman 'Ambassador Brooks will tender his resignation to the president and depart later this month.'

Date Collected: 1/4/2007
Source: Bodman said an acting head of the agency will be named soon.

Company caught in fallout of feds’ nuclear laws; New regulations too expensive for Plymouth business

By TAMARA RACE and SUE REINERT

The Patriot Ledger

PLYMOUTH - New federal rules designed to track low-level nuclear materials proved too burdensome for one small company.

After 35 years in business, owner Carl Borsari has decided to close Nuclear Instrument Co. rather than comply with expensive new regulations.

Borsari used cesium, a radioactive element, to calibrate specialized electronic instruments.

Borsari said the new regulations would have forced him to dispose of his existing supply of cesium and buy a new, smaller supply at a cost of more than $80,000.

At 71, he decided to close up shop. He spent this past week cleaning up his quarters in the Camelot Industrial Park.

Borsari asked federal officials to take the radioactive material away two years ago, after receiving notice of the new rules.

They didn’t get around to it until Dec. 18, when it was announced that cesium had been removed from an unidentified Plymouth company to keep it out of the hands of potential terrorists intent on making a dirty bomb.

They didn’t mention that the U.S. Department of Energy had originally planned to wait another year to pick it up.

The cesium was in a pellet 20 millimeters long - a little less than an inch - and contained in an 1,100-pound capsule.

Fifty nuclear calibration firms like Borsari’s were affected by rules issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission adopted in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

‘‘Among the orders was one that called for them to contact local law enforcement to determine the best way to restrict unauthorized access (to radioactive material),’’ said Suzanne Condon, assistant state commissioner of public health.

The companies had until last June to comply with security requirements and other rules, or lose their nuclear calibration licenses, Condon said.

The other 49 companies all met the new standards, she said.

State inspectors found out that Borsari was no longer doing calibration work when they visited his shop last month.

When they discovered that the federal government didn’t intend to pick up the company’s radioactive material until 2008, they asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to act faster, she said.

‘‘We said we would like to see this material removed before there was any concern about risk to public health,’’ Condon said.

Bryan Wilkes, spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, the energy department unit that carried out the recovery, said he wasn’t aware of the 2008 date.

‘‘We were asked by the NRC to remove it, and it was a high priority for them,’’ Wilkes said.

Condon and Wilkes praised Borsari, saying he had ‘‘a near-perfect record’’ of compliance. His radioactive material was in sealed, leak-proof capsules, she said.

Wilkes said Borsari ‘‘did the responsible thing (by not) just throwing (the material) away in some dump’’ after shutting down his calibration business.

Borsari takes offense at the suggestion he was unable to handle the nuclear material.

‘‘I’m perfectly capable to manage it. That wasn’t the issue,’’ he said. ‘‘It was the cost of continuing. It wasn’t worth it.’’

Condon said the company still holds a license to handle a small amount of radioactive material, and she expects it to be transferred soon.

Borsari said his firm has already been acquired by another company, but he declined to name it.

More than 27,000 companies in the state work with radioactive material, Condon said. Of those, 512 hold radioactive materials licenses, including hospitals, universities, industrial and agricultural users.

Cesium is used in cancer treatment and in gauges that measure rock formations in well-drilling, moisture in construction projects, the thickness of paper, metal and other materials, and flow in oil pipes. It takes about 30 years for cesium to lose half its radioactive energy.

Fallout from nuclear weapons and accidents has spread cesium around the world. The metal emits radioactivity that can penetrate the body and would endanger health if it were released in an explosion, experts say.

The National Nuclear Security Administration initially focused on retrieving abandoned radioactive material in the former Soviet Union and other countries. After Sept. 11, 2001, Wilkes said, ‘‘it became obvious to us that there was a lot of unused and unwanted radiologic material in the U.S.’’

The agency has recovered 13,000 domestic radioactive sources, Wilkes said. He did not know whether any others were in Massachusetts.

Sue Reinert can be reached at sreinert@ledger.com; Tamara Race can be reached at trace@ledger.com

Date Collected: 1/7/2007
Source: http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2007/01/06/news/news03.txt

No trace of Jharkhand's missing ash analyser

Jan 12, 2007 - 1:03:57 PM

A high-level inquiry was set up following the theft, which was the second time that a tool related with radiation was stolen from Jharkhand.

By IANS, [RxPG] Ranchi, Jan 12 - Three weeks after a uranium-based ash analyser was stolen from a Jharkhand colliery, the police are yet to make a breakthrough.

The theft took place in a Central Coalfield Ltd - colliery in the Rajrappa coalmine area in Hazaribag district Dec 22.

'Till now we have not traced the ash analyser. Investigations are on,' J.B. Mahapatra, Jharkhand's director general of police, told IANS.

If the substance falls into the wrong hands like Maoist guerrillas, it can be used to make 'dirty bombs' with the help of uranium.

A dirty bomb - or radiological dispersion bomb - is a conventional explosive packaged with radioactive material. It is cruder and cheaper than a nuclear bomb but can cause explosive destruction and radiation damage, experts say.

However, Mahapatra denied that the missing ash analyser could create any trouble except be an environmental hazard.

Ash analyser is used to analyse the quality of coal, especially the ash percentage in coal. The analysis technique uses low-energy gamma radiation directed through the material on a moving conveyor.

A high-level inquiry was set up following the theft, which was the second time that a tool related with radiation was stolen from Jharkhand.

Two years ago Cobalt-60 was stolen from Jamshedpur. Used in many common industrial applications, such as in levelling devices and thickness gauges, Cobalt-60 is also used for industrial radiography to detect metal flaws.

Date Collected: 1/13/2007
Source: http://www.rxpgnews.com/india/No-trace-of-Jharkhands-missing-ash-analyser_11600.shtml

The effect of gamma rays on a forest

BY BRYN NELSON

Newsday Staff Writer

January 7, 2007

From the air, Long Island's most unusual woodland tract resembles a bull's-eye.

At the center, a nearly circular stand of evergreens grows in a clearing full of grasses browned by the late autumn frost. Surrounding that is a grayish-brown ring of leafless scrub oaks. And then, points of green reappear on the 400-foot circle's periphery before the pattern melts away into the woods.

From the ground, Long Island's irradiated 'gamma forest' emerges on a December afternoon at the end of a seemingly normal pathway through the pine barrens at Brookhaven National Laboratory. A remarkable Cold War relic found nowhere else in the United States, the central island of pitch pines also marks the focal point of an ecology lesson that is continuing nearly 30 years after the irradiation ended.

For 21 hours a day between 1961 and 1978, the fenced-in, 123-acre forest was exposed to gamma radiation emanating from a sealed block of radioactive cesium. Lab scientists hoped the experiment on the forest ecosystem would allow them to predict the effects of a nuclear accident or bombing over a larger area. In 1986, the Chernobyl disaster at a Ukrainian nuclear reactor validated the predictions of widespread soil and plant contamination.

The Long Island experiment, however, left no radiation once the cesium was removed. All that remained, apart from an abandoned control station and two perimeter fences, was a circular swath of bare mineral soil. Over time, the site was reclaimed by nature as a succession of plant communities filled the void.

For Dowling College microbiologist Vishal Shah, the enclosure may provide a clearer picture of the microbial diversity that dictates the plants found throughout the pine barrens.

'You know the plants, but plants cannot exist without the microorganisms,' he says.

The soil at the site is typical of the pine barrens: It is highly acidic, rich in aluminum and iron, but poor in nutrients, fast-draining and liable to drop far below freezing in the winter. Consequently, microbes within its sandy confines must withstand rather extreme conditions, Shah says.

To discover what hardy microbes might be dwelling at the heart of the gamma forest, Shah retrieved samples from two shallow soil layers near the pit where the cesium block was once raised and lowered. Using relatively simple lab methods, he then isolated and regrew 190 bacterial, yeast and fungal cultures. But what, exactly, had he unearthed?

From a walk-in cooler at Dowling's Kramer Science Center, Shah retrieves two bags of agar-filled petri plates. Each plate's surface is decorated with an earth-tone palette of streaks, ridges or blobs - the distinctive appearances of different microbial organisms.

With money from the Upton-based Foundation for Ecological Research in the Northeast and assistance from Accugenix, a company in Newark, Del., that specializes in microbial identifications, Shah has examined the partial sequence of a genetic component found in each microbe. These DNA 'signatures' have revealed the identities of just 175 microbes in all. Surprisingly, however, the collection represents only 19 genera of bacteria, fungi and yeast, a strikingly low level of soil biodiversity.

'That was the biggest shock to me, as a microbiologist,' Shah says.

The gamma radiation likely sterilized the ground, he believes, requiring the hardest-hit central zone to start from scratch. A 6- to 7-foot zone around the pit still lacks plant growth, but the forest's central stand of healthy pitch pines, craving the nearly bare mineral soil, has rebounded nicely, joined by blueberries, huckleberries and a single cherry tree. Pitch pines throughout the barrens, in fact, are often among the first to recolonize after wildfires.

But why, Shah wonders, are so few types of microbes able to colonize the same soil nearly 30 years after the Cold War-era experiment ended? Did the radiation reduce the diversity or is it indicative of the entire barrens? And what might that low diversity reveal about the resiliency of dependent plant life?

A similar sampling from a nonirradiated site in the pine barrens may supply answers. In the meantime, genetic tests are continuing for the remaining 15 microbial isolates that have so far resisted positive identification.

Perhaps some will be previously unknown varieties, providing potential sources of new enzymes that perform well under acidic conditions or candidates for bioremediation in less-than-ideal environments. Eventually, all will be incorporated into a more complete accounting of life within an extraordinary tract of woods once left for dead.

Date Collected: 1/8/2007
Source: http://www.newsday.com/features/printedition/longislandlife/ny-lfnw5041329jan07,0,7362079,print.story?coll=ny-lilife-print

Poisoning Of Ex-Agent Sets Off Alarm Bells

Nuclear Regulators Fear Wider Attempt

By Peter Finn

Washington Post Foreign Service

Sunday, January 7, 2007; A01

MOSCOW -- Ninety-seven percent of the legal production of one of the world's rarest industrial products -- the intensely radioactive isotope polonium-210 -- takes place at a closely guarded nuclear reactor near the Volga River 450 miles southeast of Moscow.

In an average year, about three ounces of the substance is made at the Avangard facility, a former nuclear weapons plant, then sold under strict controls to Russian and foreign companies that prize it for its abilities to reduce static electricity.

This fall, a microscopic quantity of polonium-210, from somewhere, found its way into the body of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian internal security agent living in London. He died an agonizing death in a hospital 22 days later.

Now an international investigation is trying to track that dose back to its source. Detectives from Scotland Yard have said nothing about where the trail of evidence may be leading; Russian officials have been more willing to talk, saying that Avangard is tightly audited and that illicit production of polonium-210 is technically possible at many of the world's reactors.

Still, Russia's near total domination of the world's legal trade in the substance has focused new international attention on the country's production system and controls. In addition, Litvinenko's death has created new concern among regulators that the substance might be used as an instrument of murder by terrorists.

Russia is the main source of polonium in part because it offers high quality and the best price for commercial users, according to Nick Priest, professor of radiation toxicology at Middlesex University and a former head of biomedical research at the Atomic Energy Authority in Britain. No polonium is produced in Britain, and officials in Russia said none has been exported commercially to Britain for at least five years.

Polonium-210 is produced in reactors by irradiating bismuth-209, an isotope of the element bismuth. The resulting substance is so radioactive that it has a half-life of only 138 days, meaning that half the atoms in a given quantity will disintegrate in that period.

Specialists say that around the world, reactors capable of this operation belong either to state agencies or universities and so are highly regulated. 'Everything connected with polonium production and application is controlled by governments,' said Boris Zhuikov, head of the radioisotope laboratory in the Nuclear Studies Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in an interview. 'You cannot just put any target inside a reactor. It is regulated and checked by many, many people. It would be discovered.'

The Avangard plant operates under close Russian government scrutiny. Officials said four Russian organizations are licensed to handle the material made there: the chemistry faculty of Moscow State University; the Federal Nuclear Center in Samara, also on the Volga; Techsnabexport, the state-controlled uranium supplier; and one private company, Nuclon, which uses it for medical devices and transports isotopes to customers.

The controls have proved effective, Russian officials contend. 'I can say with complete certainty that no deviations from the rules of storage and transportation of nuclear materials, including polonium, have been discovered at any structures of our fuel and nuclear complex,' said Konstantin Pulikovsky, head of the Federal Service for the Oversight of the Environment, Technology and Nuclear Management, according to the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti.

Worldwide, polonium has been lost or stolen in at least 15 known incidents before 2006, most of them in the United States, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog based in Vienna.

Priest said he believed that in Russia, audit safeguards could be circumvented if there was demand for polonium from officials with strong influence. Audits could also be an unreliable gauge of pilfering because during production, much more polonium is made than is actually needed, with the surplus never entering the officially recognized supply.

'When they do these runs, they produce a large amount because it's got a 138-day half-life and they don't want to be making it all the time. It's not possible to maintain complete control by measurement at the source,' Priest said.

Other theories suggest that the polonium that killed Litvinenko might have been obtained from an officially tracked commercial supply after it reached its final customer.

Polonium is commonly used in static eliminators in printing plants, photography labs and textile mills. In these applications, it is bound in extremely small quantities with other metals.

Extracting the substance from the molds in which these mixtures are made would be difficult because 'polonium science is quite complicated,' Priest said.

But with qualified scientists and the right lab conditions, it is possible. 'I can see how they could be used to brew up a dose to kill one person,' said Peter D. Zimmerman, a nuclear physicist and professor of science and security at King's College London. 'It would require very delicate lab work.'

In its pure form, polonium-210 is a soft, silvery metal. One microgram, or millionth of a gram, can be fatal, and the body of the poisoned Russian contained multiple times the lethal dose. One gram, about 0.035 of an ounce, could theoretically kill tens of millions of people.

The substance is self-heating and highly radioactive, but as long as it is housed in a sealed capsule of glass or metal, it can be safely transported in, for example, one drop of solution. It eludes radiation detectors in place at airports, border crossings and ports because it emits alpha rays, not the gamma rays the devices look for.

Polonium-210 can be dried into a substance such as chalk and turned into powder. Or it can be mixed with an aerosol solution, allowing it to be sprayed. But many scientists believe the probable method of transporting and dispensing it in the London killing was putting the isotope in a solution that could be tipped at arm's length into a drink or onto food.

'The ideal volume would be a couple of teaspoons of solution; it can sometimes be difficult to transfer a drop or something smaller,' Priest said. 'Once it's in the body, it irradiates the whole body.'

Yet scientists in London did not discover the presence of polonium-210 until Litvinenko's urine was tested with an alpha ray detector at the Atomic Weapons Establishment, the British agency that maintains nuclear warheads. 'It's so obscure that it will be among the last things people will look for,' Priest said. 'And except by extreme luck, there's no chance to work out in a short time what's happened, so it gives the people who did it a long time to get away.'

The substance's great giveaway is that once discovered, its telltale traces are easily tracked. Out of its box, polonium smears everything. After Litvinenko's death, it was discovered in planes, cars, hotels and offices -- all places that the victim and people he met had visited around the time of the poisoning.

If it enters the body in tiny amounts, death is certain. The devastating effects were studied in the 1960s at a Moscow institute where the isotope was administered to dogs, rabbits and rats, according to Zhuikov. He said Soviet scientists wanted to understand polonium's potential in case humans were exposed to it, because the isotope was used in various applications in the country's nuclear and space programs.

The painful progression from severe vomiting and diarrhea to hair loss, internal bleeding and organ failure was clear in a photograph of a stricken Litvinenko lying in a London hospital. 'If someone hates, really hates, then it's a good material [to use to] to kill,' Zhuikov said. 'This is real suffering.'

The former agent's death has caused anti-terrorism officials to worry that an explosive or airborne dispersal of polonium, particularly in a crowded, enclosed space, could cause numerous fatalities and sow widespread panic, scientists said. Compromise a food or water supply, they said, and the consequences could be even more dire.

'You need a lot of the material,' Zimmerman said. 'But not more than it is reasonable to think could be diverted from the commercial stream.'

The International Atomic Energy Agency is considering tighter controls on polonium.

An IAEA diplomat, who was not authorized to speak for quotation, said that in the wake of the Litvinenko case, concerns have risen at the agency about a mass poisoning through the introduction of polonium into the food chain or drinking water.

Ultimately, scientists such as Zimmerman would like to phase out polonium's commercial use and see the development of anti-static technology using other material.

Date Collected: 1/8/2007
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/06/AR2007010601491_pf.html

Radiation degrades nuclear waste-containing materials much faster than expected

Sunday, January 14, 2007

In some European countries where law-makers have legislated in favor of phasing out nuclear power over the coming decades, the debate on the energy source has been reopened. Arguments around climate change and energy security are driving the discussions.

This is the case in Sweden and Belgium, two countries heavily dependent on nuclear energy, and to a lesser extent in Germany. Those in favor of keeping the reactors running argue they produce a clean and cheap form of energy that can help fight climate change. They also try to cast doubt over the potential of energy efficiency and renewables like solar, wind and biomass to replace the decommissioned nuclear power plants sufficiently fast. All careful phase-out plans however prove the contrary. Finally, their case was strengthened by the recent gas dispute between Belarus and Russia, which was seen by many as an omen symbolising Europe's increasingly fragile energy security. Nuclear power is much more reliable than dependency on foreign energy resources, so the argument goes.

On the European level, the EU's recently launched energy/climate plan has carefully avoided taking any clear position in the debate. The Commission keeps its hands off the issue and relegates decisions on nuclear back to the national level. France, the world's biggest exporter of both electricity as well as nuclear technology, has obviously had a strong hand in crafting this strategy.

Those against continuously point to the issue that has been haunting nuclear energy for decades, and that is of course the unavoidable, gloomy question of how to dispose of radioactive waste. The nuclear lobby has been avoiding the subject for as long as there have been reactors. In the 1960s it said it would solve the problem forever within two decades. Two decades later, it said the same. Today, we are still using the temporary 'solution' of storing the waste in glass, and locking it up in bunkers in some mountain or in the ocean, without really understanding how safe these techniques are over the ultra-long term.

As time passes by, scientists develop new models and methods that can help us forward in addressing the problem. But they also highlight our fundamental ignorance on the matter. Recent research shows where we stand: minerals that were intended to entrap nuclear waste for hundreds of thousands of years may be susceptible to structural breakdown within 1,400 years, much faster than expected, a team from the University of Cambridge and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory reported in the journal Nature.

The new study used nuclear magnetic resonance, or NMR, to show that the effects of radiation from plutonium incorporated into the mineral zircon rapidly degrades the mineral's crystal structure.

This could lead to swelling, loss of physical strength and possible cracking of the mineral in as soon as 210 years, well before the radioactivity had decayed to safe levels, says lead author and Cambridge earth scientist Ian Farnan:

biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: renewables :: climate change :: energy security :: nuclear energy :: nuclear waste :: radioactive waste ::

According to current thinking, highly radioactive substances could be rendered less mobile by combining them, before disposal, with glass or with a synthetic mineral at a very high temperature to form a crystal.

However, the crystal structure can only hold the radioactive elements for so long. Inside the crystal radioactive decay occurs, and tiny atomic fragments called alpha particles shoot away from the decaying nucleus, which recoils like a rifle, with both types repeatedly blasting the structure until it breaks down.

This may increase the likelihood for radioactive materials to leak, although co-author William J. Weber, a fellow at the Department of Energy national laboratory in Richland, Wash., who made the samples used in the study, cautioned that this work did not address leakage, and researchers detected no cracking. Weber noted that the 'amorphous' or structurally degraded, natural radiation-containing zircon can remain intact for millions of years and is one of the most durable materials on earth.

Some earth and materials scientists believe it is possible to create a structure that rebuilds itself after these 'alpha events' so that it can contain the radioactive elements for much longer. The tests developed by the Cambridge and PNNL team would enable scientists to screen different mineral and synthetic forms for durability.

As well as making the storage of the waste safer, new storage methods guided by the NMR technique could offer significant savings for nations facing disposal of large amounts of radioactive material. Countries including the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Japan are all considering burying their nuclear waste stockpiles hundreds of meters beneath the earth's surface. Doing so necessitates selection of a site with sufficiently stringent geological features to withstand any potential leakage at a cost of billions of dollars. For example, there is an ongoing debate over the safety of the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada. A figure published in Science in 2005 put that project's cost at $57 billion.

'By working harder on the waste form before you started trying to engineer the repository or choose the site, you could make billions of dollars worth of savings and improve the overall safety,' Farnan said.

'At the moment, we have very few methods of understanding how materials behave over the extremely long timescales we are talking about. Our new research is a step towards that.

'We would suggest that substantive efforts should be made to produce a waste form which is tougher and has a durability we are confident of, in a quantitative sense, before it is stored underground, and before anyone tried to engineer around it. This would have substantial benefits, particularly from a financial point of view.'

PNNL senior scientist and nuclear magnetic resonance expert Herman Cho, who co-wrote the report, said: 'When the samples were made in the 1980s, NMR was not in the thinking. NMR has enabled us to quantify and look at changes in the crystal structure as the radiation damage progresses.

'This method adds a valuable new perspective to research on radioactive waste forms. It has also raised the question: 'How adequate is our understanding of the long-term behavior of these materials?' Studies of other waste forms, such as glass, could benefit from this technique.'

More information:

Ian Farnan, Herman Cho and William J. Weber, Quantification of actinide alpha-radiation damage in minerals and ceramics [abstract], Nature 445, 190-193 (11 January 2007).

Nature News: Canned nuclear waste cooks its container. Estimates of radiation damage to materials have been too low. January 10, 2007.

Eurekalert: Radiation degrades nuclear waste-containing materials faster than expected. January 10, 2007.

Posted by Biopact team at 2:18 AM

Date Collected: 1/15/2007
Source: http://biopact.com/2007/01/radiation-degrades-nuclear-waste.html

Pakistan 'nuclear' kidnap foiled

Police in north-west Pakistan say they have foiled a bid to abduct six officials working for the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC).

Police say the gang seized the staff south of Peshawar late on Sunday, but were stopped at a security checkpoint.

Three would-be kidnappers were shot dead in the gunfight, while two others were arrested. Police say they have yet to establish a motive.

PAEC set up an office in the area after high-grade uranium was discovered.

Series of raids

According to local sources, at least 20 armed men raided the PAEC office in the village of Banda Daud Shah in Karak district on Sunday night.

The kidnappers took the officials there hostage and set off with them towards the Orakzai agency in the nearby tribal areas.

However, they were stopped at the checkpoint after exchanging gunfire with security forces. All the hostages were freed.

According to the police, the kidnappers were from one of the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.

They said those involved had been identified, but refused to give further details.

It is the latest in a series of incidents targeting governmental and non-governmental organisations in the area.

In recent months, dozens of vehicles and more than 50 people have been hijacked or kidnapped by criminal gangs, BBC correspondents say.

Police blame most of the incidents on criminals, although they say tribesmen have also disguised themselves as Taleban fighters to carry out the raids.

In addition, some of the stolen vehicles have been used in bombings, the authorities say.

Most of the raiding tribesmen are said to come from the Taleban stronghold of North Waziristan.

Date Collected: 1/15/2007
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/6264173.stm

Unknown whereabouts of 2.5 tons of plastic explosive

Skopje /10/01/ 18:18

Macedonian Police is investigating the case of the plastic explosive that reportedly went missing from the 'Suvenir' factory located in Samokov.

Ivo Kotevski, the Deputy Interior Minister in charge of Public Relations, confirmed this to Makfax Agency, as answering a question relating the article published in today's edition of Vreme daily about 2.5 tons of plastic explosive that went missing from 'Suvenir'.

According to the paper, the missing explosive with power equivalent to 2.5 kilo-tons of TNT disappeared shortly after take-over of the factory that took place in February 2006.

The manager of the Suvenir's bankruptcy procedure told Vreme the new owner (who was Greece's citizen) paid 500.000 euros to acquire the factory, adding that the inventory of the warehouse stock was not subject of the sales contract.

The explosive in question was due to be handled by the Interior Ministry, whilst the Defense Ministry was to take over the remaining finished products.

According to the bankruptcy procedure manager, the new owner made an additional payment for the explosive, however, a special unit of the Interior Ministry halted the loading of the explosive into trucks. From this point on, the whereabouts of the plastic explosive is unknown and no one seems to have information whether it was brought out of the country.

'Suvenir' factory was sold in November 2005, but the take-over was not made public until several months later. The only bidder at the announced tender, the Greek company 'Olimpiaki Industry SA' owned by Vasilious Papadopoulos, acquired the factory.

Although Papadopoulos undertook obligations to invest 5 million euros, to re-employ 270 out of the total of 300 workers and to provide Macedonian authorities with ammunition through procurement agreements, the factory was never put into operation.

During the 2006 election campaign, the Prime Minister at the time, Vlado Buckovski, paid a visit to 'Suvenir', where he was scheduled to give a joint address to the employees with the new owner, but the Greek did not appear.

Buckovski briefly told 'Vreme' that he was 'not familiar with the details of the take-over operation'.

'We decided to meet the employees' demand and sell the factory that was out of operation for years. We called three tenders, before the Greek company finally made the bid', the former Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski said.

Date Collected: 1/10/2007
Source: http://www.makfax.com.mk/look/novina/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=2&NrArticle=50414&NrIssue=241&NrSection=10

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