International compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) can be routinely monitored, a group of U.S. biopharmaceutical industry experts said yesterday in a report challenging some core tenets of the Bush administration opposition to a formal inspections mechanism.
Biological weapons that can wipe out entire populations pose one of the biggest threats to the world today, yet remain almost completely uncontrolled according to the British Medical Association.
They were no-shows in Iraq, but tons of chemical weapons are stoking fears and costing billions to clean up elsewhere in the world - from concrete "igloos" in Oregon, to the Panama rainforest, to the highlands of China, where Japanese war leftovers reportedly have killed hundreds.
Several nations are pressing for creation of a U.N. agency to monitor biological weapons and missiles, but in the face of U.S. opposition such a body might never be anything more than a notion.
The Sunshine Project has revealed that the U.S. Army has developed and patented a new grenade that it says can be used to wage biowarfare. They argue that this is in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention, which explicitly prohibits development of bioweapons delivery devices.
An excellent overview of the challenges U.N. investigators face in trying to verify if Iraq (or any nation) has a program to develop Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Facing no prospect that Biological Weapons Convention states will approve an inspections mechanism for verifying compliance any time soon, a group of organizations here today announced the launch of a nongovernmental network for gathering information and reporting on biotechnological activities worldwide.
Russian use of chemical weapons in a recent hostage crisis and the announcement that the U.S. is investigating new substances that can be used to disable terrorists has forced chemical and biological weapons back on to the world agenda.
Russia's use of an unspecified gas to end a Moscow hostage crisis last weekend is drawing new focus to claims that the United States is also developing chemical agents that would be illegal if used in warfare.
Russian refusal to release information on the gas, which was used to end the hostage crisis is raising concerns about whether the action violates the Chemical Weapons Convention.