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By Category: International

The Tattered Germ Warfare Treaty by David Hoffman

(Foreign Policy) It’s no secret: the international treaty that outlaws germ warfare is not much of a pact. The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, which entered into force in 1975, had good intentions but no teeth. There was no effective enforcement mechanism to keep countries from cheating, and there still isn’t. From December 5-22 in  Read More »

UK immigration cancels DNA screening programme

(Nature) The UK Border Agency (UKBA) has ended a controversial DNA screening programme to determine the origins of asylum-seekers. The Times reports that the pilot project has been cancelled after spending approximately £190,000 (US$307,000) on screening. No genetic information will be released.

Enhancing Compliance With an Evolving Treaty: A Task for an Improved BWC Intersessional Process

(Arms Control Today) By Kirk C. Bansak. Since 2003, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) regime has featured annual meetings to address specific topics. These meetings, which comprise the treaty’s so-called intersessional process, take place in the years in which review conferences do not. Review conferences are infrequent, occuring about every five years; states-parties are hard-pressed  Read More »

East Africa and Middle East seek plan to keep animal diseases from disrupting livestock trade

(Burness Communications) — With increased trade in livestock products offering a possible antidote to high food prices, livestock experts from the Middle East and 12 African countries are meeting this week in Dubai to develop a strategy that eliminates the need to impose devastating bans on livestock imports from the Horn of Africa, as prevention  Read More »

EU harshly critical of Germany’s approach to E. coli crisis

Homeland Security Newswire — In Germany, responsibilities for responding to a crisis — any crisis — are spread across local, municipal, state, and federal agencies, with no central information center to inform the public, and with little coordination among the various responding bodies

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