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RANSAC Nuclear News, March 26, 2003 Compiled by Lauren Arestie A. Cooperative Threat Reduction
 A. Cooperative Threat Reduction 1. Russian Minister: Some Nuclear Sites Must Remain Closed To Outsiders MOSCOW - Russia's atomic energy minister rejected a U.S. call for broader access to sites containing nuclear material, saying Wednesday that some installations will remain closed to outsiders for national security reasons. A U.S. congressional report said nearly two-thirds of Russia's nuclear material may be inadequately protected despite Washington's investment of US$1.8 billion over a decade to help Russia improve safeguards for nuclear material and warheads and ease the shift to a market economy for its nuclear scientists. The report by the General Accounting Office said only 228 of the 600 metric tons of weapons-usable nuclear material in Russia are kept at facilities where safeguards have been enhanced under the U.S. assistance program. It said Russia is not providing needed access to many sites. Nuclear Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said limitations will continue. "As for access by representatives of other countries to our sites where nuclear materials are located, we will not show all sites. And where the arrangement of these installations in confidential, we will not display them for international observation," Rumyantsev said. "It is a question linked to our defensive capability," he said. Rumyantsev said the level of access Russia is providing would have been unheard-of during the Soviet era. He pointed to a visit he paid with U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow this month to Snezhinsk, a nuclear center in the Ural Mountains, to look at safeguards installed with U.S. help. "So in those places where we are cooperating, we show everything, but if it is a sensitive zone for our strategic stability and defense, we will not show it," Rumyantsev said at a news conference. "This is all in strict accordance with international laws." Rumyantsev also said tension between Russia and the United States over the war in Iraq is not damaging cooperation in nuclear security, citing a deal he and U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham signed March 12 to shut the last three Russian reactors that produce weapons-grade plutonium. "The level of Russian-U.S. relations today is such that we do not agree with the policy the United States is conducting in Iraq - and our president called it a big political mistake - but this does not affect the basic directions in which we are cooperating," he said. Rumyantsev also detailed Russia's plans for its nuclear cooperation with Iran, which have been an irritant in relations with the United States since Moscow reached a US$800 million deal in the 1990s to complete an unfinished reactor for a nuclear power plant - Iran's first - in the city of Bushehr. The United States fears the project could help Iran develop nuclear weapons. Rumyantsev said that at a recent intergovernmental meeting in Tehran, Russia agreed to finish building the reactor and said it was prepared to consider completing a second unfinished reactor at Bushehr. According to Rumyantsev, Russia also said it was ready to work with Iran on a long-term project for the effective and safe operation of the Bushehr reactor, and both countries expressed the desire for talks on possible cooperation in the use of nuclear energy in medicine, agriculture and other spheres. return to menu 2. Report: Russia's Nukes May Be Vulnerable WASHINGTON - Russia should provide broader access to its sites containing nuclear or biological material if a U.S. program to keep such material out of the hands of terrorists is to be successful, says a congressional report. The report by the General Accounting Office says that nearly two-thirds of Russia's nuclear material and many of the locations holding dangerous pathogens once used in the country's bio-weapons program may be inadequately protected. It noted the United States has spent $1.8 billion over the last decade to help Russia improve safeguards at sites where nuclear materials and warheads are stored, and to help nuclear scientists shift to a post-Cold War economy. But the report said in many cases progress has been stymied because Russia continues to bar U.S. officials from many of the sites, despite a more liberal access agreement reached in September 2001. "Russia is not providing needed access to many sites ... (and) there is little reason to believe this situation will change in the near future," said the report. As for protection of Russia's deadly pathogens, the GAO said after four years of effort, little progress has been made in addressing security at 49 Russian sites where the two countries have collaborative programs to improve safeguards. It said the Defense Department, which leads that program, "has limited information on the location and security" of many of these sites where Russia continues to store deadly anthrax and pathogens that cause smallpox or the plague. Earlier this month, a report by a group of Harvard University researchers said that only 37 percent of the potentially vulnerable nuclear material in the former Soviet Union is being adequately protected. The GAO produced a similar percentage. At a news conference releasing the Harvard findings, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, acknowledged the continuing problem of access to Russian facilities. "Russia has got to be a partner," said Lugar, who 12 years ago was co-author along with then-Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., of the law that authorized the beginning of the U.S. assistance program on nuclear materials. Lugar cited a lengthy list of cases where Russians have rebuffed the United States in seeking access to nuclear sites, but said it would be "absurd" to abandon the program because of this. "What alternative do we have?" asked Lugar. The GAO report said that of the 600 metric tons of weapons-usable nuclear material in Russia, only about 228 metric tons is being kept at facilities with enhanced safeguards under the U.S. assistance program. "Despite years of negotiations, Russia will not let (the Energy Department) visit or begin work at nearly three quarters of he buildings in the weapons complex," said the GAO. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has outlined an expedited U.S.-Russia program, with increased U.S. access to sites under the 2001 agreement, with a goal of having all of Russia's nuclear material secure by 2008. But the GAO said "with the department's lack of access to many of the most sensitive sites in Russia's nuclear weapons complex" it is unlikely that DOE will achieve the 2008 target. The GAO said DOE has finished work at only 14 of 133 buildings in Russia's weapons complex. A bright spot, the GAO acknowledged, was progress in protecting nuclear material belonging to the Russian Navy where 85 of 110 buildings have had security improvements. return to menu 3. Poor Access to Russian Sites Hinders CTR Programs, GAO Says WASHINGTON - U.S. efforts to help secure Russian biological, chemical and nuclear weapons have been severely hindered by a lack of access to Russian WMD sites, according to a U.S. General Accounting Office report released today. U.S. Senator Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) last year requested that the GAO investigate U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction programs. In a statement today, Akaka said he requested the study because "we have feared for many years that Russia offers one-stop shopping for terrorists seeking weapons of mass destruction. We are in a race for time to secure these weapons around the world before they fall into the wrong hands." In its year-long investigation, the GAO found that the Energy Department's lack of access to Russian nuclear sites "represents a significant impediment" to the department's goal of securing all Russian weapon-grade material by 2008. While Energy has had success in securing such material at Russian civilian and naval fuel storage sites over the past decade, it has completed work at only 14 of the 133 buildings in Russia's nuclear weapons complex, the report says. Because the department lacks access to most of these sites, it has shifted funding in past two fiscal years from installing security systems at buildings containing weapon-grade materials to support programs, such as developing nuclear security regulations, it adds. Energy and the U.S. Defense Department have also experienced difficulties in coordinating their efforts to improve security at Russian nuclear weapons storage sites, according to the GAO report. The two department's threat reduction activities were brought under a common set of guidelines in January. These guidelines, however, prohibited assistance to operational Russian military sites for fear of enhancing Russia's military capabilities, the report says. While the Pentagon has made only limited progress to improve security at all of Russia's nuclear weapons storage sites by 2010, Energy was close to completing its goal of improving security by 2006 at 36 naval sites, until the new guidelines were issued, the GAO report says. In response to the new guidelines and their ban on assistance to operational sites, Energy has been forced to scale back its plans, it says. To address Russian nuclear security concerns, the GAO report recommends that Energy reassess its plans to secure all weapon-grade materials by 2008. In addition, Energy and the Pentagon need to continue to work to ensure ongoing interagency coordination to secure nuclear weapons storage sites. The GAO report also criticizes the Pentagon for a lack of progress in improving security at the 49 biological sites included in joint U.S.-Russian programs. As of December, the Pentagon had only installed security upgrades at two sites and plans to do so at two other sites, the report says, blaming a lack of access to Russian biological sites for the slow progress. In addition, Russia has provided little information on the locations and present security of its biological facilities, it says. The report recommends that the Pentagon develop specific criteria to identify which Russian biological sites pose the great security risks and should receive the most U.S. assistance. The Pentagon's efforts to secure Russian chemical weapons stockpiles have focused primarily on helping Russia build a weapons disposal facility, instead of improving security at weapons storage sites or in the transit of weapons to such a facility, the GAO report says. "However, the destruction facility will not be completed until 2006, and it could be another 40 years before Russia's stockpile would be completely destroyed," the report says. The U.S. defense secretary should reassess the need for improved security at Russian chemical weapons storage sites, and work with Russian officials to develop a safe transit plan for when a disposal facility is built, the report says. It also recommends that Congress consider funding security improvements at the three Russian chemical weapons sites that have so far received no U.S. funding. In his statement, Akaka called on U.S. President George W. Bush to increase U.S. efforts to secure Russian WMD sites. "We must do more with Russia to secure Russia's poorly guarded arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and fissile materials," Akaka said. "President Bush needs to redouble his efforts with President [Vladimir] Putin to solve the problems with access that have hindered the security assistance program so far," he added. return to menu B. Russian Technology Proliferation 1. Editorial: Russian Weapons And Foreign Rogues At the highest level, the Bush administration has protested to President Vladimir Putin about Russian arms sales to Iraq. American reports indicate that Russian firms have sold Iraq night-vision goggles, anti-tank guided missiles and jamming devices to counter the US's global positioning system (GPS). Any such sales would constitute a violation of the United Nations sanctions regime on Iraq, and also raise several disturbing points, many of which, unfortunately are not new. First, reports of Russian proliferation to Iraq are hardly new, nor are they isolated ones. We know that Russia was selling prohibited technologies for both conventional and nuclear weapons to Iraq in the 1990s. Second, as former UN arms inspector Richard Butler has written, then-prime minister Yevgeny Primakov was instrumental in helping Iraq to stonewall the inspections regime. British and American intelligence agencies have even accused Primakov in public of being on Saddam Hussein's payroll, unprecedented public statements from normally highly reclusive organizations. Nor did this proliferation stop with Primakov. Russian newspapers have repeatedly reported that Russia's government and arms dealers have established linkages with arms dealers and plants in former Soviet republics like Belarus to sell arms to states like Iraq that could not have been publicly sold by Moscow. Under Putin, Moscow has pursued a systematic policy to tie defense industries in the former Soviet republics to those in Moscow and restore the structure of the old unified Soviet system. One benefit of this policy is Moscow's enhanced ability to hide behind third parties in these kinds of arms sales. Thus proliferation to Iraq is not an isolated case of arms sales gone wild, but rather part of a broader policy that also encompasses Central and Eastern Europe. For example, virtually every Central and East European government has reported that Russian attempts to subvert East European governments through economic penetration, corruption of politicians, intelligence penetration, etc have continued at least since 1997, if not earlier. Evidence from the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and the Baltic states is overwhelming and points to a strategic policy decision in Moscow. These linkages that occur through Russia's embassies abroad are also connected to shadowy ties to illegal arms dealers. We have seen that scandals involving arms deals in Ukraine, Serbia and Bulgaria, to cite only some cases, are connected with the provision of arms to rogue states. Thus Russia, for all its protestations of innocence, as in the case of its continuing nuclear proliferation to Iran and rumors of collaboration with North Korea, shows no interest in upholding the UN's sanctions regime. Clearly as well it shows little actual concern about the threats posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction worldwide. Here again it is not alone. China has sold fiber-optic materials to Iraq in violation of the sanctions and has been a major proliferator to Iran, and evidently North Korea as well. Similarly, French arms sales to Iraq or facilitation of third-party arms sales have been described in the New York Times and Washington Times by William Safire and Bill Gertz, respectively. These arms sales cast a lurid light on their rhetoric for opposing the war and for invoking the authority of the UN even as they violate its provisions. The motives for these sales clearly go beyond the acquisition of money. Russian analysts, for example, regularly announce that arms sales are so tightly controlled by the state that rogue salesmen are no longer a question. Likewise, there is a very strong connection between the arms sales establishment and the government, including the foreign intelligence service (SVR) in Russia, to the point where the arms sales organizations have always been seen as a major source for raising untraceable election funds for Russian politicians. This same connection between arms dealers abroad and Russian intelligence is amply attested to as well in foreign reports. It also is just as unlikely that the Chinese and French arms salesmen are freelancing. One can only conclude that despite all the protest about the need to uphold the UN and international law, or the anti-terrorist coalition, the temptation to strike surreptitiously at American interests abroad remains too strong for the Russian and other establishments to forego. Unfortunately for these arms dealers this is not an administration that is prepared to forgive and forget. Although some figures of the Russian establishment are either getting rich or staying in business, or gratifying their anti-American reflexes, the gains that they make are inevitably short-term ones. But the costs that they are incurring and which undoubtedly will be exacted by Washington are going to be lasting ones. return to menu C. Russia-U.S. 1. Russia's Ivanov Backs Arms Treaty Delay MOSCOW - Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Wednesday that he supported legislators' attempts to postpone ratification of a key U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control treaty. Ivanov stressed that he was not withdrawing support from the agreement, called the Treaty of Moscow, only that he felt it was not the right time for a vote with war going on in Iraq. "Maybe now is not the right moment psychologically to bring this document up for ratification," Ivanov said. "If we wait for some time, and concentrate all our efforts on ending the war and switching over to a political settlement (of the Iraq crisis), then at a more quiet moment we can quickly deal with this issue," Ivanov told legislators in the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council. He said that the war, which Russia vehemently opposes, could lead to irrelevant issues clouding the ratification debate. Ivanov said he does not oppose the agreement. "This treaty answers Russia's interests. The Foreign Ministry believes that this document should be ratified and we will present it for a ratification," Ivanov said. The treaty, signed in May by Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Bush, calls on both nations to cut their strategic nuclear arsenals by about two-thirds, to 1,700 to 2,200 deployed warheads, by 2012. The U.S. Senate unanimously approved the treaty earlier this month. The move was widely seen as part of a diplomatic effort to win Russian support for a tougher line against Iraq. But Moscow has only hardened its position. The lower house of parliament, the State Duma, had been expected to take up debate on the treaty last week, but it indefinitely postponed a ratification vote because of the threat of an imminent U.S.-led attack on Iraq. Now that the war has started, Duma leaders say the treaty will be considered only after the United States and Britain turned to diplomatic means of solving the crisis. The treaty is considered more advantageous to Russia than the now-defunct START II agreement, which specifically banned Russia from deploying land-based missiles with multiple warheads. The new deal leaves it to each nation to decide which weapons it will scrap. That will allow Russia to keep its Soviet-built multi-warhead SS-18 and SS-19 missiles at the core of its nuclear arsenal. return to menu 2. Decision To Suspend Ratification Of Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty A Mistake? MOSCOW - On Tuesday, the Federation Council (Upper House of the Russian Parliament) ruled to appeal to the State Duma Council (Lower House) to revise its decision to suspend the ratification of the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, First Deputy Speaker of the Federation Council Valery Goreglyad told the press. Senators propose continuing the Treaty ratification because the document "fully meets Russia's interests," he noted. "Russia initiated the Treaty and its ratification cannot be suspended in view of escalated tensions over Iraq," the senator said. The ratification of the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty will give Russia "a chance to strengthen its national strategic stability and security for less money," Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs Mikhail Margelov told the press. return to menu 3. Russia Seeks Ratification of Nuke Treaty MOSCOW - The Russian parliament's upper chamber plans to call Tuesday for the quick ratification of a U.S.-Russian nuclear arms treaty despite objections from the lower house because of the war in Iraq. The foreign relations committee of the Federation Council, the upper house, decided Monday to make the move because of the treaty's value to Russia, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. The report quoted Federation Council speaker Sergei Mironov as saying the treaty ``affects Russia's interests, including the improvement of our defense capability'' and should be ratified as soon as possible. Last week, the Duma, the lower house, decided to put off consideration of ratifying the so-called Treaty of Moscow because of the imminent prospect of a U.S. assault on Iraq. Now, with the war under way, the Duma intends to consider the treaty ``only after the United States and Great Britain bring the Iraq issue back into diplomatic channels, start coordinating their steps with the U.N. Security Council and take the opinion of the global community into account,'' the head of the chamber's foreign affairs committee, Dmitry Rogozin, said Monday, according to the Interfax news agency. The Federation Council's move for a quick ratification vote would be irresponsible because ``there is no doubt it will not be ratified amid the current outpouring of outrage over the U.S.-led strike on Iraq,'' Rogozin was quoted as saying. Under Russian law, the Duma has to vote to ratify the treaty before the upper house can consider it, so the Federation Council's demand to speed up the process would not be binding. The postponement reflected the tensions between Washington and the Kremlin, even as the two country's leaders have pursued closer ties. Moscow bridles at what it regards as a U.S. penchant for unilateral action - such as its withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, as well as launching the attack on Iraq without Security Council sanction. The treaty, signed last year by Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Bush, was seen as more advantageous to Russia than the now-defunct START II agreement, which specifically banned Russia from deploying land-based missiles with multiple warheads. The new deal leaves it to each nation to decide which weapons it will scrap. That will allow Russia to keep its Soviet-built multi-warhead SS-18 and SS-19 missiles at the core of its nuclear arsenal. return to menu 4. Long-Standing WMD Destruction Efforts Face Fight Under Shadow of Iraq (excerpted) Under the shadow of America's new war to wrench hidden weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) out of Iraqi hands, some law-makers and observers in Washington are reiterating - for those who will listen - that the world's most destructive arsenals can be destroyed without war. Furthermore, they say these arsenals - only a rough third of which are under any sort of dependable protection - are located at spots found on any reliable map of Russia. What's more is that the United States, in cooperation with Russia, has been working to destroy and dismantle nuclear, chemical and biological weapons inherited from the Cold War for more than a decade - though much more remains to be done. But legislators who back expanding the powers of the so-called Nunn-Lugar act fear that the fresh American military assault on Iraq to destroy that country's comparatively small weapons stocks will siphon funding, energy and attention from dealing with what is by far the world's largest and most poorly secured stockpile of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons - in Russia. They also fear, as does Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar - who with former Senator Sam Nunn created the Pentagon-run Nunn-Lugar, or Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program - that peaceful American-led efforts to dismantle and secure the Soviet era nuclear machine are being "debilitated by intramural bureaucratic hassles," Lugar said at a hearing on American non-proliferation programs held by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday. "We are poised to use massive military force in Iraq in response to the threat of weapons of mass destruction," Lugar said. At the same time, Lugar said, American led efforts to secure and destroy weapons of mass destruction and materials that can be made into weapons in Russia were held up for most of last year by American bureaucratic delays. The Foreign Relations Committee hearings come at a time of intensified international dialogue about the efforts - and failures - of Western-led programs that aim provide security for several hundred metric tons of weapons grade plutonium and uranium, chemical and biological weapons stock-piles, and dismantle strategic nuclear weapons located in Russia. A Harvard University study released last week found that US efforts to help Russia and other nations secure and destroy poorly protected caches of nuclear weapons and radioactive material are moving too slowly to address the threat that some of the stockpiles could be tapped by terrorists or hostile states. Dovetailing with the report's release, International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, Chief Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei told a Vienna conference that, despite an increased awareness of the need for better nuclear security following September 11th 2001, radioactive material suitable for radioactive dispersion devices - so-called "dirty bombs" - continues to be lost or stolen. ElBaradei said the problem of radioactive material suitable for such devices disappearing from regulator's records was especially acute in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union, where the IAEA has cooperated with Russia and the United States on operations to recover deadly radioactive material. But, according to the Harvard report - which was financed by the Nuclear Threat Initiative - the Bush administration has not fulfilled its promise that keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists would be its "highest priority." "There remains an enormous gap between the seriousness and urgency of the threat, and the scope and pace of the U.S. and the international response," the study concludes. Among the report's findings - which are figures that have long been publicized by environmental groups and disarmament officials - are that only 37 percent of the "potentially vulnerable" nuclear material in Russia has been subject to "rapid" security upgrades financed by the United States as a stopgap step to keep it from being stolen or illegally diverted. It also notes that many civilian nuclear reactors holding weapons-usable nuclear fuel in the former Soviet Union and developing countries are "dangerously insecure." During Wednesday's Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Lugar debated Assistant Secretary of State for Non-proliferation John Wolf on the usefulness of CTR program certification review processes - which held up funding for CTR activities in Russia for much of last year after Bush became the first president to deny certification on the grounds that Russia was not being candid about its supplies of Soviet-era chemical and biological weapons. At the same time, the Bush White House lobbied Congress for a law granting a procedure by which the president could waive certification requirements. After months of debate, a law granting the president three a three-year waiver on certification requirements was signed in January. According to transcripts furnished by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Wolf testified at the hearing that even though the certification review "caused a logjam," the process "has utility because it focuses our attention; it's part of our diplomatic leverage." Such leverage, he noted, could be applied in the sphere of Russia's sour human rights records. Lugar disagreed. "Let's take the worst case scenario," Lugar said according to the transcript. "There are human rights violations in Russia. We've all seen them. And there are problems with access to some of these weapons site. I have first hand experience with that," he said. "But does that mean we should stop destroying weapons? Who are we showing what? We have to be serious about the destruction of weapons of mass destruction. Global security depends on it. We want action. The American people, the world, wants the weapons destroyed, and not bureaucratic debate that gums up the works." One such example of "gummed up works" came last year when Belgrade turned to CTR to secure and remove highly radioactive materials. Lugar said the government had to enlist the assistance of NTI - which is co-chaired by former Senator Nunn - to meet the $5m cost of the project because, as Lugar said Wednesday, "the bureaucrats determined that we don't do environmental cleanup." "What difference does that make when we're talking about weapons of mass destruction," he added. [...] return to menu 5. Russian Atomic Energy Minister: Nuclear Cooperation Will Go On MOSCOW - Tensions between the Kremlin and Washington over the war in Iraq will not damage U.S.-Russian nuclear cooperation, Russia's atomic energy minister said Friday. Alexander Rumyantsev said the March 12 deal he signed with U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to shut down the last three Russian reactors that produce weapons-grade plutonium would go forward despite Russia's opposition to the U.S.-led attack on Iraq. "No one is revising it," Rumyantsev told reporters in Moscow. "The question of halting something hasn't come up." Under the accord, the United States will spend an estimated $500 million on two new fossil-fuel power plants to replace the reactors, which provide heat and electricity to two remote Siberian cities. Russia has sharply condemned the U.S.-led attack on Iraq and has said it will boost security at Russian nuclear plants because of an increased threat of terrorism. Rumyantsev said recent security inspections at nuclear facilities had found "deficiencies" but said on the whole Russia's nuclear complex is "guarded against penetration" and "not susceptible to terrorist acts." return to menu D. Russia-Iran 1. Russia and Iran May Build Second Reactor at Bushehr Nuclear Power Station MOSCOW - At a meeting in Teheran, Russian and Iranian delegations have agreed to carry out a technical and economic assessment of the construction of the second reactor of the Bushehr nuclear power station in Iran. The construction of the first reactor is in its final stage, the press service of the Russian Atomic Ministry reports. The discussion of this question was held within the framework of the fourth meeting of the Russian-Iranian commission for trade and economic cooperation. The Russian delegation was headed by Property Relations Minister Farid Gazizulin. Iranian Petroleum Minister Bijan Namdar-Zanganeh headed the Iranian delegation. Russian Deputy Atomic Minister Andrey Malyshev, who also took part in the work of the commission, and Iranian experts discussed issues regarding peaceful use of atomic energy. return to menu 2. Russia Still Building Nuclear Power Plant In Iran MOSCOW - Russia's atomic energy minister said on Friday that Russian specialists continued construction of a nuclear power plant in the Iranian city of Bushehr, situated 300 kilometers from Iraq's Basra, which on Saturday came under a massive air assault, the Itar-Tass news agency reported Saturday. The minister, Alexander Rumyantsev, told Tass that a military operation in Iraq had not yet affected construction work and no evacuation of some 1,000 Russian specialists was planned. He said, however, that they would have to be evacuated from the site that in case of a danger. No additional security measures have been taken at the power plant under construction. Rumyantsev also confessed that he did not know whether the future power plant was insured, as "it is Iran's matter," according to Tass. Moscow and Tehran signed a contract for the construction of a nuclear power plant in Bushehr in 1995. Several years later, the sides introduced amendments into the document, making it a turnkey contract. Construction work is entering its final stage. Russia is expected to receive about $1 billion for the work, the news agency reported. return to menu E. Nuclear Waste Disposal 1. Kazakhstan: World's Nuclear Dumping Ground? The government of Kazakhstan is moving forward with its proposal to import radioactive waste from countries that don't want to deal with it. Some parliamentarians and local political groups, however, are enraged that Kazakhstan could worsen its own massive radioactive-waste disposal problems by bringing more toxicity into the country from the outside. Kazakhstan was long the dumping ground for radioactive waste in the Soviet Union, with its rich history of innumerable nuclear tests, not to mention the widespread mining and storing of uranium, plutonium and other highly dangerous elements. Now, more than a decade after the end of the USSR, Kazakhstan is going one step farther into the nuclear abyss, as it moves to import nuclear waste from other countries. Kazakhstan, to its credit, has moved swiftly to support non-proliferation and destroyed a variety of weapons and systems on its territory. But the dirty aftermath of years of neglect now puts Kazakhstan in a position where it has a horrendous radioactive-waste disposal problem. To make things worse, the Kazakh government has come up with a truly misguided solution to deal with the problem. Officials from Kazatomprom, the state nuclear-energy company, say they want to import other countries' waste for a heavy fee. But any radioactive material would have to be transported by rail, perhaps from Europe and on into Russia and Kazakhstan. The risks are immense, from accidental spills to terrorists taking control of radioactive-waste-laden trains. Interfax-Kazakhstan news service on February 3 said Kazakh scientists and experts expected that the country would need close to US$1.2 billion to dispose of existing radioactive waste. The article goes on to say that if Kazakhstan imports 800,000 cubic meters of medium-level radioactive waste from other countries, it would help to finance disposal of its considerable toxic-waste stockpiles. Official data from Kazatomprom claim that Kazakhstan has about 237.2 million tonnes of radioactive waste, with a total radioactivity level of 15.5 million curie. In 2001, only $1 million was devoted to cleaning up Kazakhstan's massive radioactive-waste problem, a drop in the bucket compared with the more than $1.2 billion it says it needs to deal with the crisis. "They have a huge problem, and while there is some multilateral assistance and help from government organizations, the money is not enough to deal with the magnitude of the problem," said Ken Ley Butler, research associate for the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, who is following Kazakhstan's controversial radioactive-waste policies. Under the rule of Nursultan Nazerbayev, Kazakhstan is far from a democracy, but the voices of dissent are surfacing on the issue of toxic nuclear waste. Both environmental advocates and anti-nuclear activists are rising in resistance to the country's controversial nuclear-power and radioactive-waste policies. On March 3, the Kazakhstan-Today news agency reported that Otan republican political party and the Nevada-Semipalatinsk international anti-nuclear movement made a statement regarding the import and burying of foreign radioactive waste in Kazakhstan. The statement said scientists and engineers of the International Atomic Energy Agency said that "radioactive waste should be deposited in the country where it has been produced". The anti-nuclear group is strongly against Kazatomprom's plan to begin importing radioactive waste into Kazakhstan soon. It says Kazatomprom's designs raise serious doubts, as "the absence of necessary equipment, technologies and corresponding specialists raises the issue of the safe functioning of radioactive burial sites planned by Kazatomprom". The Kazakh anti-nuclear movement is not only concerned about the obvious public health and environmental impact on the region, but also the safe transport and disposal of the imported radioactive waste. The group, in its statement, also noted that "the increasing threat of nuclear terrorists using radioactive waste should also be taken into account". But despite the numerous concerns raised by both domestic and international observers, Kazakhstan appears to be moving forward with its radioactive-waste-import plans. But both houses of parliament would have to approve the new radioactive-waste-import policy, and it is not a foregone conclusion that political opposition to the measure won't be successful. Butler said the vote on the policy has been delayed several times, and it is unclear when it will come up for a parliamentary vote. "The proponents are going to realize at some point that this is an unprecedented venture, and that it's not a sound business idea for them," Butler said. "Transporting and storing other countries' waste is going to open up a can of worms." In a recent article in The Guardian, Sergei Kuratov, chairman of the environmental group Green Salvation, made a persuasive argument. He said a government so rich in oil could not say that it lacked the money to deal with its own radioactive-waste problem. The government of Kazakhstan with the help of international governments and multilateral organizations must come to grips with the enormity of Kazakhstan's domestic radioactive-waste disposal problems. This is the main issue, and the Kazakh government's dubious radioactive-waste-import policy is an ugly sideshow that should be tabled. It is to be hoped that parliamentarians and political opposition will talk some sense into the misguided Kazakh government. But international pressure could go a long way to stopping the insanity. return to menu F. HEU Conversion 1. Zelenogorsk Plant Accommodated US NDA In Its HEU-LEU Downblending System As Nuclear.Ru was informed by the Electrochemical Plant's (ECP) public information center, the US designed non-destructive assay (NDA) system had been installed in the piping of HEU-LEU downblending facility. According to Mikhail Krygin, the ECP Head of Chemical Division, the US side reasoned its requirement by the fact that the Russian facilities did not reprocess all received weapon-grade uranium into the power-grade one. "The US monitors were straightforward saying "how would you guarantee that there is no another pipe inside this one to channel a part of highly enriched uranium-235 to the stockpile?" In other words they suspected us obtaining power-grade uranium by enriching natural material and using suchwise "economized" weapons uranium to create clandestine strategic stockpiles", said M. Krygin adding that the US experts believed that the devices they had supplied would allow for monitoring of U-235 input/output balance. M. Krygin said, however, that accuracy of the Russian instruments for monitoring this process is higher than that of the US-made. "Our instruments are capable of determining uranium-235 concentration in the flow and flow rate with high accuracy and in real time while the US system is based on static result-taking. In other words, first you have to collect data then process it, and mind the error, it is very high", Mr. Krygin explained. He also paid attention to the fact the US side started developing the system in late 90s and tested it on the laboratory scale without uranium hexafluoride. That means that the actual field tests of the system were conducted first in Russia. That is why the Russian side had been insisting to term the US instruments as indicators rather than measuring devices but unsuccessfully. "Otherwise in future we would have been claimed on the basis of incorrect measurement data", noted M. Krygin. He thinks that sooner or later the Americans will recognize the imperfection and, thus, low efficiency of their NDA devices or come up with more advanced, diverse ones or reject the mere monitoring. Mikhail Krygin acknowledged that the installation of the US monitoring system did not affect the process. "The other story is that during installation some difficulties came up," the Head of Division explained. "In particular, we did not think the instruments to be so huge, besides they use californium-252 (a powerful ionizing radiation source) which is so powerful that the designers had to enlarge the radiation shielding." As a result the mass of instrument amounted up to 700 kg. Besides, they had to enforce pipe supports due to vibration coming from electric motors and mechanical drives. "All these issues were solved during preparations for installation, which took nearly a year. However, the whole installation process was done under the US expert observation and took one month," Mr. Krygin noted. According to him, the instruments are accessible by special permits only and they are in operation all the times irrespectively of whether downblending is underway or not. Once in two months the instrument readings are recorded and analyzed by the US monitors. The ECP employees have the right to switch off the instruments only when their failure may lead to a disruption of the process or poses danger to the personnel. Mr. Krygin also noted that besides transparency of all HEU-LEU program aspects the US side is concerned about physical protection of fissile materials. "The Americans are anxious - and we have to agree with them on some aspect of that - that the Russian physical protection systems are insufficiently reliable. Therefore, they come up with proposals where as they think we have weak spots and with finance to undo them". In particular, the US funds construction of new entrance gates at ECP where HEU is processed and the implementation of other security engineering and technical means including video surveillance, entrance/exit fissile material detection system. "The US provides for not only funds but materiel as well, computers, in particular", M. Krygin said adding that the targeted spending of funds is monitored by the US side. He also mentioned that the US Undersecretary of Energy with a delegation would visit ECP along with the next monitoring mission in late April this year. return to menu G. Nuclear Safety 1. Strong Winds Cause Short Circuit At Russian Nuclear Plant MOSCOW - Strong winds caused an electrical short circuit at a nuclear power plant in western Russia, causing at least one reactor to shut down and another unit to reduce power, the plant's administration said Friday. The incident occurred in Smolensk, about 220 miles (354 kilometers) west of Moscow. The short circuit posed no danger and radiation levels did not exceed normal levels, the administration said in a statement. One reactor automatically shut down, and another unit reduced power to 50 percent, the statement said. The incident came the same day that a regional nuclear safety commission wrapped up an inspection at the Smolensk power plant and declared it in full compliance with safety norms, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. return to menu H. Announcements 1. On the Upcoming Working Visit by the Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) Organization Wolfgang Hoffman, the Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) Organization, will be staying on a working visit to the Russian Federation on March 25-29. In the course of the visit it is planned to discuss with Hoffman a wide range of issues related to reinforcing the nonproliferation regime and to the prevailing situation around the Treaty. Russia, having ratified the CTBT in 2000, has been invariably backing its speediest possible coming into force. We attach paramount importance to this Treaty as one of the major instruments in reinforcing the nonproliferation regime, particularly in the conditions when terrorism and the spread of WMDs have become real factors in destabilizing the international situation. We continue actively working with states on which the entry of the CTBT into force depends in order that in the end they may make their choice in favor of its speediest possible ratification. Russia, as repeatedly declared by us, strictly adheres to the commitment assumed not to carry out test explosions of nuclear weapons or any other nuclear explosions. Wolfgang Hoffman will be offered an opportunity to visit the Central Test Site of the Russian Federation at Novaya Zemlya. This visit is one more confirmation of Russia's attachment to the purposes and principles of the CTBT. return to menu I. Links of Interest 1. Weapons of Mass Destruction: Additional Russian Cooperation Needed to Facilitate U.S. Efforts to Improve Security at Russian Sites return to menu DISCLAIMER: Nuclear News is presented for informational purposes only. Views presented in any given article are those of the individual author or source and not of RANSAC. 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