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UN nuclear agency expands treaty
An 89-nation conference on Friday approved a beefed-up treaty on protecting enriched uranium and other dangerous nuclear substances — a move that the head of the U.N.'s atomic watchdog agency said would help tie the hands of terrorists. The Convention of the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material originally obligated the 112 countries that have accepted it to protect nuclear material during international transport. The amended version — which still has to be ratified by those countries — expands such protection to materials at nuclear facilities, in domestic storage and during domestic transport or use.
Conference approval is only the first step. The amended treaty enters into force only after ratification by at least two-thirds of the 112 nations that have signed up to it — a process expected to take years. Still, IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei called it an "important step towards greater nuclear security by combating, preventing and ultimately punishing those who would engage in nuclear theft, sabotage and even terrorism." ElBaradei, whose Vienna-based agency acts as the U.N. nuclear nonproliferation watchdog, said the agreement reached in the Austrian capital over five days demonstrates "a global commitment to remedy weaknesses in our nuclear security regime." Agreement was reached just a day after the London bombings — a fresh reminder of the world terrorist menace. The push to shield nuclear facilities first gained urgency after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, amid new security concerns and nightmare scenarios of fuel-laden jumbo jets smashing into atomic power plants. It also comes amid disturbing revelations of continuing attempts to steal nuclear material, particularly in poorer countries with less developed security measures. In the former Soviet republic of Georgia, there have been four known incidents of attempted uranium smuggling over the past three or four years, said Soso Kakushadze, head of the nuclear and radiation safety department at Georgia's Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. Speaking to The Associated Press in the Georgian capital Friday, Kakushadze denied reports the uranium was weapons-grade, specifying that the material in all four cases was not enriched highly enough to be used as a source of high radiation in a "dirty bomb" or in the core of nuclear weapons. While building a nuclear device is a complicated process, there are fears terrorists could easily construct a dirty bomb, which uses simple conventional explosives to spread radiation. IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said Georgia had reported the latest incident but declined to go into detail. A diplomat close to the agency, however said the Georgian report available to the agency was not clear on the level of enrichment. He asked for anonymity because he is not authorized to speak on confidential agency matters to the media. Kakushadze said there was reason to believe that the material ended up in Georgia from South Ossetia, a secessionist region that broke away in the 1990s. The existing treaty was drawn up in Vienna and New York in 1980, long before the threat of terrorist nuclear attacks had become a pressing fear. Reflecting the fears that fueled the need for the amendments, the text — made available in full to the AP — expresses deep concern at "the worldwide escalation of acts of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, and by the threats posed by international terrorism and organized crime." Though experts have long worried nuclear plants and materials could be targeted by terrorists, creating new rules to protect them from such attacks has taken time because the efforts cost money and require expertise some countries don't have.
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