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UNITED NATIONS, Nov 15, 2003 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- The al-Qaida terror network is determined to use chemical and biological weapons and is restrained only by the technical difficulties of doing so, a U.N. expert panel said in a confidential report. Sanctions on supporters of al-Qaida and Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers appear to be too limited to prevent them from obtaining weapons and explosives, said the report, obtained Friday by The Associated Press. "The risk of al-Qaida acquiring and using weapons of mass destruction also continues to grow," the experts said. "Undoubtedly al-Qaida is still considering the use of...

The Philippines military says it has discovered traces of possible biological weapons in a raid on a suspected hideout of Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiah in the southern Philippine city of Cotabato. A senior military official says possible residues of a "tetanus virus-carrying chemical was among those found" in Sunday's raid, along with a "bio-terror manual". Bomb-making materials, documents and notes on assembling rocket-propelled grenades were also found during the raid, but no suspects were arrested. Military spokesman Major General Rodolfo Garcia says the documents refer to Jemaah Islamiah, but has refused to elaborate further. Last week authorities arrested...

Smallpox immunization program stalls By David McGlinchey, National Journal GENEVA - With a national television address, high-level bipartisan backing, and his own presidential immunization, President Bush kicked off America's national smallpox vaccination campaign with great fanfare at the end of 2002. Health officials began vaccinating emergency health care workers soon after and expected to immunize about 500,000 in the first phase. The second phase of the plan was to immunize millions of firefighters, police, and other first responders over the summer. Almost a year into the program, however, volunteers have stayed away in droves, and fewer than 40,000 medical...

Government auction of biological and chemical weapons-making materials might have been pipeline for terror It wasn't very long ago that you could have bought enough equipment to set up a mini-biological weapons lab for you or your special friend without cavorting with the mafia, street criminals, wannabe terrorists, or any other nefarious characters. You didn't have to leave your home, mess with traffic, find a parking place and haul the stuff back home. "Believe It or Not" -- as Robert Leroy Ripley was wont to say -- for only a few grand you could have bought the weapons-making equipment at...

Researchers from the University at Buffalo are developing a handheld sensor that can detect the presence of toxins potentially used as agents in biological warfare. The proposed sensor, which will utilize optical-detection and chemical-sensing technologies, could be used in urban, military, industrial and even home environments, says researcher Albert H. Titus, assistant professor of electrical engineering in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. "Our sensor will have certain advantages over what is currently available," Titus says. "It will be lightweight, portable, relatively inexpensive to manufacture and it can be tailored to detect many types -- or different quantities...

A scientist funded by the US government has deliberately created an extremely deadly form of mousepox, a relative of the smallpox virus, through genetic engineering. The new virus kills all mice even if they have been given antiviral drugs as well as a vaccine that would normally protect them. The work has not stopped there. The cowpox virus, which infects a range of animals including humans, has been genetically altered in a similar way. The new virus, which is about to be tested on animals, should be lethal only to mice, Mark Buller of the University of St Louis told...

A Trying Time for Science Bioterrorism-related charges are sending a noted researcher into court for his handling of plague vials. In U.S. labs, the case elicits an outcry. By Charles Piller, Times Staff Writer LUBBOCK, Texas — Dr. Thomas Butler entered the courthouse in chains. Clad in a blue prison jumpsuit, the 62-year-old physician shuffled into the building led by armed federal agents, his hands and legs bound. The image of the white-haired doctor in court has shaken American science to its roots. [snip] The seriousness of the threat many scientists feel is implicit in the National Academies letter supporting...

Three employees of the Salama Post Office were sent to the hospital yesterday on suspicion of having been infected by anthrax. The three showed "suspicious symptoms" after opening a package containing an unknown substance, according to the newspaper al-Riyadh. The Department of Health sent a medical team to the post office after being notified of the incident, and decided to send the three employees for further testing at Abdul Aziz hospital.

<p>WASHINGTON - The FBI is creating a new weapons of mass destruction section to address growing concerns that terrorists will try to detonate a dirty bomb or launch a chemical or biological attack in the United States, The Post has learned.</p>

Deadly smallpox not eradicated, scientist warns By Steve Connor, Science Editor in Geneva 22 October 2003 The return of smallpox - one of the most lethal diseases in history - is a terrifying possibility, according to the scientist who ran the World Health Organisation's campaign to eradicate the virus in the 1970s. Donald Henderson, a senior science adviser to the US government, said past assurances from certain countries claiming to have destroyed their smallpox stocks could no longer be believed. At least 30 million people are thought to have died from the disease in the 20th century. WHO scientists declared...

How can we best protect ourselves against the bioterror attack certain to come one day? The ultimate answer is personal self-defense — arming the human immune system with the power to recognize, attack and defeat any germ or virus that a bioterrorist can create. Such an alliance between brain and immune cells would also defeat all other diseases now afflicting humanity. To advance medical research without killing people, scientists a few years ago implanted human immune cells in mice and grew an immune system they can experiment with. They'll lose a slew of the little mammals, but this limited, non-reproductive...

AGHDAD, Iraq, April 26 — Nissar Hindawi, a leading figure in Iraq's biological warfare program in the 1980's, says the stories and explanations he and other scientists told the United Nations about the extent of Iraq's efforts to produce poisons and germ weapons "were all lies."Dr. Hindawi, imprisoned during the final weeks of Saddam Hussein's rule, is now free to talk about his experiences in the program, in which he says he was forced to work from 1986 to 1989 and again sporadically until the mid-1990's. Iraq, as it belatedly acknowledged, he says, "produced huge quantities" of liquid anthrax and...

SYRIA EXPELS LEADING IRAQI WMD SCIENTIST WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The United States has captured one of the directors of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs who had been expelled by Syria. U.S. officials said coalition forces arrested the head of Iraq's biological weapons program. They identified the scientist as Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, known as Mrs. Anthrax, No. 53 on the U.S. list of 55 most wanted Iraqis. Ms. Ammash, whose husband, a senior aide to President Saddam Hussein, was captured last week, escaped to Syria in early April, officials said. They said her arrest came after strong U.S. pressure...

On biological weapons, a single vial of a strain of botulinum, a poison that can be used as a weapon, located at the home of a known biological weapons scientist

(CBS) Al Qaeda may be hard at work trying to produce weaponized anthrax and other biological weapons. In an exclusive report, CBS News Correspondent Mark Phillips recounts details U.S. interrogators have extracted from a top al Qaeda operative. The new worry comes from the man accused of masterminding last year's terrorist bombing in Bali that killed more than 200 people and last summer's Jakarta hotel blast that left another 12 people dead. Riduan Isamuddin, better known simply as "Hambali," has been in the hands of U.S. intelligence agents since his arrest in Thailand last August, and he's been singing. According...

<p>WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Defense Department sold equipment to the public that can be used for making biological warfare agents, according to a draft report by the General Accounting Office.</p> <p>The Defense Department agency responsible for the sale of excess property to the public, the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service, halted the sale of such items September 19 while the practice is reviewed.</p>

<p>Saddam Hussein's government paid North Korea $10 million for medium-range Nodong missile technology in the months before the Iraq war, but never received any goods because of U.S. pressure, the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq said yesterday.</p> <p>David Kay, who is leading the Iraq Survey Group, said there is "a lot of evidence" Iraq was rebuilding its banned missile program, which it actively hid from U.N. weapons inspectors.</p>

At a presentation today at the Embassy of the United Kingdom in Washington, D.C., United Devices, IBM and Accelrys, along with several technology and research partners, delivered the results of the Smallpox Research Grid project to representatives from the U.S. Department of Defense. The event marked the completion of an important first-stage in finding a treatment for smallpox. The use of smallpox as a weapon of bioterrorism remains a frightening possibility. Vaccination ended in 1972 and today the only groups vaccinated are military personnel and a small number of civilian healthcare workers. Some experts believe that the general population could...

The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston won a national competition to build a high-security laboratory to research deadly viruses as part of the Bush administration's campaign to broaden defenses against bioterrorism. The National Biocontainment Laboratory will house scientists researching vaccines and handling deadly agents such as anthrax, plague, and smallpox. It will receive a $120 million federal grant for construction. UTMB, along with the University of Boston, the other facility chosen for a new lab, will join three other operational laboratories in the country that carry the highest safety designation of Level 4, which is for handling agents...

FAIRFAX, Va. - Could a smallpox shot protect you from the AIDS virus? It's a tantalizing idea that scientists at George Mason University are studying. Early findings are very preliminary and based on lab tests of a small number of blood samples. Other AIDS researchers caution against putting too much faith in such early tests, and the George Mason study has not been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal that is standard for major medical breakthroughs. But Ken Alibek, director of the university's National Center for Biodefense, said the early results are encouraging. "This could result in some very important...