International attention is usually focused on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. But Pyongyang’s growing chemical and biological weapons capabilities are worrying Seoul.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry released a report on Saturday accusing the United States of violating dozens of provisions of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons treaties going back about a decade, apparently in a retort to American critics of a new arms treaty, who have been accusing Russia of violating past agreements.

Rapid advances in bioscience are raising alarms among terrorism experts that amateur scientists will soon be able to gin up deadly pathogens for nefarious uses.

The U.S. State Department last month warned of potential biological weapons programs in Iran, North Korea and Syria while asserting that major powers China and Russia have not provided full disclosures on their previous efforts on such armaments

Russia and other countries are continuing to expand their chemical weapon arsenal despite being signatories to the 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention. A new report highlights the weaknesses in the existing treaty by showing how it fails to cover research into non-lethal chemical weapons or newer chemical compounds (ex. binary weapons) that weren't conceived of at the time of the treaty.

North Korea has several thousand tonnes of chemical weapons it can mount on missiles that could be used on a rapid strike against the South, said a report released by the International Crisis Group (ICG).

The author discusses the problems with government attempts to control biological technologies and introduces a joint Berkeley-industry project to develop improved DNA screening software, virulence databases, and advice portals for use by scientists as an indication of how scientists are attempting to self-police their field.