Recent News

By Region: Asia/Pacific

South Korean farmers assess fallout of major outbreak of foot and mouth disease

An outbreak of foot and mouth disease has plunged the South Korean farming sector into crisis mode, threatening the livelihoods of a generation of farmers and hitting consumers.

February 28, 2011
| Filed under Asia/Pacific, Agents & Toxins, and Agriculture
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Kazakh Opposition Worried by Biodefense Lab

A U.S.-funded biodefense laboratory under construction in Kazakhstan created a stir today among opposition officials in the Central Asian nation who demanded to know why they had not been previously notified of the facility, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, March 31, 2010). The Central Reference Laboratory in Almaty is intended to support worldwide efforts to Read More »

January 18, 2011
| Filed under Asia/Pacific, Biosafety, and International
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U.S. to Buy Japanese-Made Smallpox Vaccine

The United States could spend as much as $34 million for doses of a smallpox vaccine produced in Japan, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported today (see GSN, Dec. 9, 2010). The Chemo-Sero Therapeutic Research Institute said it has a five-year agreement with the U.S. government. The institutes’s vaccine was first created some four decades ago, but Read More »

January 14, 2011
| Filed under Asia/Pacific, North America, Countermeasures, and International
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South Korea to Distribute Hundreds of Thousands of Gas Masks

The South Korean government plans to distribute hundreds of thousands of gas masks to protect its citizens from a North Korean chemical weapons strike, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, Oct. 13). The National Emergency Management Agency in 2011 expects to provide residents of five islands near the North-South border with an additional 1,300 gas Read More »

December 13, 2010
| Filed under Asia/Pacific and Countermeasures
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BWC Nations Should Weigh Impact of New Research, U.N. Chief Says

States parties to the Biological Weapons Convention should establish a system for assessing how scientific and technological advances could affect efforts to rid the world of biological weapons, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement to a meeting of the countries that started yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 3).