Tag Archives: Watchdog

UK, allies: empower chemical arms watchdog to assign blame for attacks

British Minister of State for Defence Frederick Richard addresses a special session of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in the Hague, Netherlands June 26, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman

By Anthony Deutsch and Toby Sterling

THE HAGUE (Reuters) – Britain’s Foreign Minister Boris Johnson called on Tuesday for all nations to vote to bolster the powers of the chemical weapons watchdog, saying it should be able to assign blame for attacks with banned poison munitions.

The United States and European Union said they would support a draft proposal made by the British delegation at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), while Russia and several of its allies opposed it.

“At present the OPCW’s experts can say where and when an attack happened, but not who was responsible,” Johnson told representatives of more than a hundred countries at a meeting in The Hague. “If we are serious about upholding the ban on chemical weapons that gap must be filled.”

A vote will be held on Wednesday. Decisions must win two-thirds of votes cast to be passed.

The British are seeking to re-galvanize support for an international ban on chemical weapons, which have been used repeatedly in the Syrian civil war. Banned chemicals have also been used by militants on the battlefield in Iraq in recent years, and are suspected in the poisoning of a half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last year in Malaysia and of a former KGB spy and his daughter in England this year.

Russia, Iran and Syria objected to the move and accused the British of breaking OPCW rules. The conference chairman said the British call for a vote was in line with procedures.

Western countries blame Syria’s government for using banned nerve gas in several attacks that killed large numbers of civilians. Russia and Iran are Syria’s main battlefield allies.

Russian representative Georgy Kalamanov called the British proposal “a clear attempt here to manipulate the mandate of the OPCW and to undermine the legal basis on which it stands, with which we fully disagree.”

“We should reflect very seriously on this proposal, and not allow it to undermine the fate of the OPCW,” he said.

The 20-year-old OPCW, which oversees a 1997 treaty banning the use of toxins as weapons, is a technical, scientific body which determines whether chemical weapons were used. It does not have the authority to identify perpetrators.

The British-led proposal was to be debated by roughly 140 countries at a special session of the OPCW that started on Tuesday. The draft proposal, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters, could thrust the OPCW to the front of a diplomatic confrontation between the West and Moscow which has seen relations deteriorate to their lowest point since the Cold War.

Russia and Indonesia submitted rival proposals, but Western diplomats said they were not believed to have strong political backing. Johnson called for other countries to reject them.

DOZENS KILLED

The meeting comes as OPCW inspectors prepare a report on an alleged poison attack in the Douma enclave near Damascus, Syria, in April that killed dozens and triggered retaliatory air strikes by the United States, France and Britain.

From 2015-2017 a joint United Nations-OPCW team known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) had been empowered to identify individuals or institutions behind chemical weapons attacks in Syria. The JIM confirmed that Syrian government troops used the nerve agent sarin and chorine barrel bombs on several occasions, while Islamic State militants were found to have used sulfur mustard.

But at a deadlocked U.N. Security Council, the JIM was disbanded last year, after Moscow used its veto to block several resolutions seeking to renew its mandate beyond November 2017.

“The widespread use of chemical weapons by Syria in particular threatens to undermine the treaty and the OPCW,” said Gregory Koblentz, a non-proliferation expert at George Mason University, in the United States. “Empowering the OPCW to identify perpetrators of chemical attacks is necessary to restoring the taboo against chemical weapons and the integrity of the chemical weapons disarmament regime.”

(Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris; Editing by Richard Balmforth, William Maclean)

Inspectors analyze toxin used on Russian spy, EU backs Britain

A police notice is attached to screening surrounding a restaurant which was visited by former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia before they were found on a park bench after being poisoned in Salisbury, Britain, March 19, 2018. REUTERS/Peter Nichol

By Alex Fraser and Peter Nicholls

SALISBURY, England (Reuters) – Inspectors from the world’s chemical weapons watchdog on Monday began examining the poison used to strike down a former Russian double agent in England, in an attack that London blames on Moscow.

Britain says Sergei Skripal and his daughter, who are critically ill in hospital, were targeted with the Soviet-era military-grade nerve agent Novichok. It accuses Moscow of stockpiling the toxin and investigating how to use it in assassinations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who easily won another six-year term on Sunday, said the claims were nonsense and that Russia had destroyed all its chemical weapons. While the Kremlin told Britain to back up its assertions or apologize, Britain’s fellow EU members offered it “unqualified solidarity”.

Skripal, a former colonel in Russian military intelligence who betrayed dozens of Russian agents to Britain, was found collapsed along with his daughter on a bench in the small southern city of Salisbury two weeks ago.

The identification of Novichok as the weapon has become the central pillar of Britain’s case for Russia’s culpability. Each has expelled 23 of the other’s diplomats as their relations have sunk to a post-Cold War low.

On Monday, inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) began running independent tests on samples taken from Salisbury to verify the British analysis, said an OPCW source speaking on condition of anonymity.

“The team from The Hague will meet with officials from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and the police to discuss the process for collecting samples, including environmental ones,” Britain’s Foreign Office said.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson arrives at an European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, Belgium, March 19, 2018. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson arrives at an European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, Belgium, March 19, 2018. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

“ABSURD DENIALS”

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Monday, before meeting his European Union counterparts in Brussels, that Russian denials of responsibility were “increasingly absurd”.

“This is a classic Russian strategy of trying to conceal the needle of truth in a haystack of lies and obfuscation. They’re not fooling anybody any more,” Johnson told reporters.

“There is scarcely a country around the table here in Brussels that has not been affected in recent years by some kind of malign or disruptive Russian behavior.”

EU diplomats cautioned there was no immediate prospect of fresh economic sanctions on Russia, but the assembled EU foreign ministers did offer strong verbal support.

“The European Union takes extremely seriously the UK government’s assessment that it is highly likely that the Russian Federation is responsible,” said their statement.

They said using a nerve agent for the first time on European soil for 70 years would be a clear violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which the OPCW safeguards, and that it represented a “security threat to us all”.

(Reporting by Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam and Robin Emmott and Alistair MacDonald in Brussels; Writing by Michael Holden; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Kevin Liffey)

Undercover investigator able to smuggle blades, drugs into NYC jails: watchdog

An undercover investigator with New York City's Department of Investigation (DOI) posing as a corrections officer passes through front gate security as part of an operation against smuggling at city jails, in an undated still image from video released in New York City, New York, U.S. February 8, 2018. Parts of the image are blurred at source. New York City Department of Investigation/

By Joseph Ax

NEW YORK (Reuters) – An undercover investigator dressed as a jail officer was able to smuggle scalpel blades and drugs into the main city jails in Manhattan and Brooklyn, a city watchdog said on Thursday, the latest sign of ongoing troubles in the city’s jail system.

The report from the city’s Department of Investigation (DOI), which examines misconduct by city employees, was issued on the same day that federal authorities in Brooklyn unsealed an indictment charging two corrections officers and five inmates with smuggling drugs inside the Manhattan jail.

Evidence gathered as part of an undercover operation by New York City's Department of Investigation (DOI) into smuggling at city jails is seen in an undated photo released in New York City, New York, U.S. February 8, 2018. Part of the image is blurred at source. New York City Department of Investigation

Evidence gathered as part of an undercover operation by New York City’s Department of Investigation (DOI) into smuggling at city jails is seen in an undated photo released in New York City, New York, U.S. February 8, 2018. Part of the image is blurred at source. New York City Department of Investigation/Handout via REUTERS

Together, the two investigations highlighted the smuggling that continues to plague the city’s jails, most notably the notorious Rikers Island jail complex, according to DOI officials. The report comes after a similar 2014 sting operation in which an undercover investigator brought weapons and drugs through six Rikers entrances.

“Three years after a DOI undercover investigation demonstrated serious flaws in DOC security screening, the problems remain,” DOI Commissioner Mark Peters said in a statement, referring to the city Department of Correction.

DOC commissioner Cynthia Brann said the department had made progress in enhancing jail security.

“Notably, DOI didn’t find fault with our policy but urged us to better apply our procedures which we are committed to doing, and we have already begun implementing significant reforms,” she said in a statement.

The department cited statistics showing it has greatly increased its contraband finds among jail visitors since 2014, including a spike in weapons confiscations to 533 in 2017 from 88 in 2014.

Brann also said the two arrested officers would be suspended and, if convicted, fired.

Since 2014, more than two dozen corrections employees have been charged with smuggling contraband into city jails, according to the DOI. U.S. prosecutors said the two officers charged on Thursday accepted thousands of dollars from inmates in exchange for bringing marijuana into the Manhattan Detention Complex, known colloquially as “The Tombs.”

Rikers Island, which has been plagued by pervasive violence and smuggling for years, has received most of the attention, prompting Mayor Bill de Blasio to call for sweeping reforms at one of the United States’ largest jail complexes.

But Peters said Thursday’s report shows the problems are also present at other city facilities.

DOI officials recommended that the DOC screen corrections officers at staff entrances with drug-sniffing dogs, eliminate unnecessary pockets on their uniforms and place their personal lockers outside the front-gate entrances, among other measures. The DOC has agreed to adopt those improvements.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Susan Thomas)

U.N. nuclear watchdog to open uranium bank that may have no clients

A view shows railway packages for containers with uranium hexafluoride salt, raw material for nuclear reactors, similar to the one to be used for the IAEA Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) Bank, at the Ulba Metallurgical Plant in the northeastern industrial city of Oskemen, Kazakhstan May 26, 2017. Picture taken May 26, 2017. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov

By Mariya Gordeyeva

OSKEMEN, Kazakhstan (Reuters) – The U.N. global nuclear watchdog is about to open a uranium bank in the Central Asian state of Kazakhstan, but it may never have any customers.

The raw material used to make nuclear fuel and atomic bombs will be stored in a Soviet-era industrial plant where security was once considered so lax that all the highly enriched uranium kept there was removed in a covert U.S. operation in 1994.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s goal now is the same as Washington’s 23 years ago as it prepares for next month’s launch of its Low Enriched Uranium Bank in the city of Oskemen — to prevent nuclear proliferation.

But this time there will be no weapons-grade uranium involved and in the best-case scenario the $150-million bank will never need to be used.

IAEA member states will be able to “draw” low-enriched uranium at market prices if supplies of fuel to a nuclear power plant are disrupted “due to exceptional circumstances”, but the bank will be a lender of last resort.

The aim is to discourage nations from spending time and money on developing nuclear-enrichment technologies that might be used to purify uranium to weapons-grade levels, and to deter countries from trying to obtain uranium illegally.

The IAEA wants to have a means to avert any new dispute similar to the standoff over Iran’s atomic program before world powers reached a deal with Tehran to limit its nuclear activities.

“Does it guarantee that new countries will not create enrichment facilities? Of course not,” Anton Khlopkov, founding director of the Moscow-based Center for Energy and Security Studies, said of the new bank.

“But it creates additional incentives for new nations not to set up enrichment facilities.”

TIGHT SECURITY

Funding to build the low-enriched uranium bank in eastern Kazakhstan, about 1,000 km (620 miles) from the capital Astana, came from several countries including the United States, and U.S. billionaire Warren Buffett contributed $50 million.

Based in a small industrial building on the territory of the Ulba Metallurgical Plant (UMP), set up in the 1940s to produce components for the Soviet arms nuclear arms program, the bank will store up to 90 tonnes of low-enriched uranium — enough for a light-water reactor to power a large city for three years.

Security will be tight. The bank, which has its own railway terminal, is surrounded by a metal netting fence that is about 3.5 meters high and packed with security cameras.

The UMP’s outer rim is protected by two three-meter high fences, one of concrete-and-steel and the other of metal netting, and both have barbed wire on the top. National Guard servicemen patrol the territory with dogs.

Back in 1994, three years after the Soviet Union broke up, the United States had feared criminals would be able to steal the 90-91 percent enriched uranium stored in a warehouse at the UMP — either to sell it to a state trying to become a nuclear power or to use themselves to build a nuclear device.

In October and November of that year, with the agreement of the Kazakh government, a team of U.S. specialists secured 600 kg of the radioactive material — enough to make 24 nuclear bombs — and flew it safely to the United States.

The operation known as Project Sapphire helped Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic that became independent in 1991, build trust with the international community and paved the way to the IAEA’s decision to base its uranium bank there.

Kazakhstan was also a logical choice as host because it is the world’s biggest producer of uranium.

Uranium hexafluoride — a highly toxic, white-gray, waxy solid used in the enrichment process — will be stored at the bank in 60 cylinder-shaped containers. It cannot immediately be turned into fuel, a process which would take several months.

“Sixty cylinders will contain about 90 tonnes of uranium hexafluoride,” Alexander Khodanov, the UMP sales director, told Reuters at the plant. “This is enough to produce a full fuel load for a standard nuclear reactor… I think half a year would be sufficient time to supply the material and produce the fuel.”

WHITE ELEPHANT?

Countries such as Iran have said they need enrichment facilities to ensure a steady supply of fuel for nuclear power plants, but none has said it is about to buy any uranium from the bank in Oskemen.

Russia has operated a similar bank since 2010 in the grounds of the Angarsk Electrolysis Chemical Complex in southern Siberia which was set up in 1954 to enrich uranium for the Soviet Union.

But unlike the Angarsk facility, which is owned and operated by Russia and stores 120 tonnes of low-enriched uranium, the Oskemen bank will be owned and operated by the IAEA.

“I think the fact that the Russian bank has not been used in almost a decade shows that the market is working,” Khlopkov said. “I hope the Kazakh one will never be needed either.”

Critics question whether there is any need for another uranium bank, especially as the one in Angarsk has never been tapped and uranium is not in short supply globally. Some Kazakhs say the Oskemen facility could become a white elephant, as the Kazakh government must pay for its maintenance and security.

But UMP’s Khodanov said the new bank’s creation was an opportunity for Kazakhstan to sell uranium to the IAEA as the facility it builds up its reserves. Hosting it also carries prestige and signals international recognition of Kazakhstan’s commitment to nuclear non-proliferation.

Advocates of the bank say demand for low-enriched uranium will grow as more countries turn to nuclear power, and that an independently run facility will help reassure countries that would be reluctant to turn to Russia if they needed uranium.

(Writing by Olzhas Auyezov, additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk in KIEV and Christian Lowe in MOSCOW, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

FDA too slow to order food recalls, U.S. watchdog finds

FDA HQ in Maryland

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The Food and Drug Administration is too slow to order companies to recall tainted foods, leaving people at risk of illness and death, a government watchdog said in a review of the agency’s food safety program.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General reviewed 30 recalls that occurred between 2012 and 2015, including two in which companies did not recall all affected items until 165 days and 81 days after the FDA became aware of tainted foods. The watchdog issued its report on Wednesday.

“FDA does not have adequate policies and procedures to ensure that firms take prompt and effective action in initiating voluntary food recalls,” the report said. “As a result, consumers remained at risk of illness or death for several weeks after FDA was aware of a potentially hazardous food in the supply chain.”

The watchdog urged the FDA to address the problem immediately.

In a blog post, FDA food safety officials Stephen Ostroff and Howard Sklamberg called the report’s findings “unacceptable” and said the agency is “totally committed” to food safety.

Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut in a statement said it was “mind-boggling” that the FDA does not have policies or procedures to ensure swift voluntary food recalls.

DeLauro, who oversees drug and food safety in her position on the House of Representatives subcommittee responsible for the FDA, pointed to a salmonella outbreak last year in cucumbers, which sickened nearly 900 people, hospitalized 191 and killed six. The outbreak began in July, but it took until September before producers started recalling product.

“Delays like this one – and others found in the report – are completely unacceptable and leave American consumers at risk for illness and death,” DeLauro said.

Ostroff and Sklamberg said the FDA has a plan underway to strengthen compliance and enforcement policies, including both voluntary and mandatory recalls.

But they said recalls must be based on scientific evidence borne out of an outbreak investigation. And while timeframes for recalls need to be set, “they must be done on an individual basis rather than by setting arbitrary deadlines.”

To speed the FDA’s response, Ostroff and Sklamberg said the agency has established a team of experts from different scientific disciplines to oversee outbreak investigations. They also cited FDA’s adoption in 2014 of the use of whole genome sequencing, a more precise technology for determining the genetic fingerprint of foodborne pathogens.

In addition, provisions in the 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act that require companies to minimize food safety risks, and require companies to have a recall plan, will begin to take effect this fall.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Leslie Adler)

U.N. Nuclear Watchdog Taking Samples at Iran Military Site

The U.N. nuclear watchdog, which is investigating whether Iran carried out work related to developing a nuclear bomb, said on Sunday its chief had visited a sensitive military site during a trip to the country.

Environmental samples have been taken at a sensitive military site in Iran, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Monday, citing “significant progress” in its investigation of Tehran’s past activities. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Yukiya Amano said he and the head of the agency’s Department of Safeguards, which carries out inspections, visited a building at the Parchin site on Sunday that the agency had previously only observed by satellite.

The IAEA is due to provide an assessment of “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program by the end of the year. That report is a vital confidence-building aspect of Iran’s landmark deal with six major powers reached in July, under which restrictions will be placed on Tehran’s atomic energy activities in exchange for a lifting of sanctions.The IAEA has drawn criticism over a confidential arrangement with Iran governing how inspections are done at Parchin. Critics of the international powers’ deal with Iran have argued that the accord on inspections limits the IAEA’s ability to investigate and gives Iran too much influence in the collection of samples.

Pope Francis Fires Entire Vatican Financial Watchdog Agency

Vatican observers were stunned Friday when Pope Francis fired all five Italian members of the Vatican’s financial watchdog agency and replaced them with four international board members.

The Holy See’s Financial Information Authority has been facing conflict between the former board members and the agency’s head that wants to bring in international experts in rooting out money laundering.  The agency has been cracking down on any potential money laundering or financial improprieties since Pope Francis assumed the Papacy.

“[FIA head Rene] Bruelhart wanted a board he could work with and it seems the pope has come down on his side and sent the old boy network packing,” an unnamed Vatican official told Reuters news agency.

The new board includes a woman for the first time.

The new members are Marc Odendall from Switzerland, Juan C. Zarate from the U.S., Joseph Yuvaraj Pillay from Singapore, and Maria Bianca Farina from Italy.