Tuesday, August 30, 2005
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Chicago Tribune correspondent
By Jeff Zeleny
KIEV, Ukraine -- The United States and Ukraine signed a joint agreement here Monday designed to curtail the threat of bioterrorism by placing modern safeguards on deadly pathogens and other material dating from a Soviet-era biological weapons program that now could be vulnerable to theft.
"The agreement has a benefit for the citizens of both countries," said Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who has been working several years to achieve the U.S.-Ukraine accord.
Moscow apologizes
As Lugar and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) met with Ukrainian leaders and participated in a signing ceremony for the biological weapons agreement, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a rare written apology to the senators for detaining them more than three hours Sunday as they tried to leave Russia for Ukraine.
There was no immediate explanation for the delay, but Moscow officials agreed to meet with their U.S. counterparts to discuss why American planes repeatedly have encountered difficulties leaving Russia.
The ministry said the U.S. plane technically had not been detained, but a spokesman added, "We regret the misunderstanding that arose and the inconvenience caused to the senators."
Lugar, who for more than 10 years has been working on dismantling nuclear weapons through the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, did not dwell on the plane incident after leaving Russia and arriving in Kiev. Instead he sought to draw attention to the freshly minted agreement that effectively expands the 1991 Nunn-Lugar Act to allow the U.S. to help protect Ukraine's biological weapons.
"Huge stockpiles of weapons left over from previous times in Ukraine are dangerous for the people of this country as well as for other countries," Lugar said, calling the agreement an achievement the U.S. has sought for nearly four years.
Five other former Soviet republics already have signed agreements to have the U.S. help upgrade their facilities that store biological weapons, but Ukraine previously had resisted signing the agreement. Even after a democratic revolution last fall swept in a new team of leaders, the reluctance continued in Ukraine, which government officials attributed to Kiev's desire not to appear too close to the U.S.
In a ceremony at the Central Sanitary and Epidemiological Station, the Ukraine equivalent of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agreement was signed by lower-level deputies from the Health Ministry in a small, out-of-the-way room. The agreement was barely discussed during earlier meetings Monday with President Viktor Yushchenko and other Ukrainian leaders.
But the need for the agreement was clear, Obama said after touring the dilapidated building, where viruses were stored in areas either secured by thin padlocks or not locked at all. He said the health building, located near central Kiev, is vulnerable to break-ins and thefts of deadly pathogens, including anthrax, diphtheria and cholera.
"This agreement will help Ukraine improve its ability to diagnose, detect and respond to public health risks," Obama said. "When it comes to issues of security against terrorist threats and security against infectious diseases, these problems know no borders."
moreThe Associated Press
Published January 10, 2006, 12:15 PM CST
JERUSALEM -- Democratic Sen. Barack Obama met Tuesday with Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and said the United States stood by Israel as its leader, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, lay unconscious in a hospital bed following a massive stroke.
Obama, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke to reporters after a meeting with Shalom, on the latest leg of a 10-day tour of the Middle East that included visits to Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan and the Palestinian territories.
"Obviously we are here at a difficult time," Obama, D-Ill., said. "Our hearts go out to the family of Prime Minister Sharon and we are praying for a recovery on his part and I think the entire world is watching because we recognize that his presence here in the entire process was absolutely important and constructive."
Obama said he was visiting the region to learn more than tell leaders his opinion.
"Israel has to figure out what the next steps are, if in fact Prime Minister Sharon does not recover in a way that allows him to move into the government," he said.
Obama said he was encouraged about the "growing consensus around a principle of moving peace forward if there is a responsible partner on the other side," and was looking forward to the results of the Palestinians' Jan. 25 elections and their aftermath.
"Violence is not the answer to the long-standing problems that exist in this area and my hope is that U.S. policy will continue to encourage the nonviolent mediation of these issues," he said.
moreThursday, January 12, 2006 | 10:25 PM
Palestinian elections this month
By Chuck Goudie
January 12, 2006 (WLS) -- Illinois Senator Barack Obama's journey to the Middle East took him to the West Bank Thursday for a meeting with the man elected to replace Yasser Arafat.
Senator Obama will head into the final day of his Middle East tour having met with top leaders of the Israeli government and now with the head of the Palestinian National Authority.
Palestinians clashing with Israelis and with each other. Israelis fighting with each other and the Palestinians. Boundless volleys of gunfire and anger. For a time Thursday in the West Bank there was only the clatter of cameras as the newly elected president of the Palestinian authority, Mahmoud Abbas, meets with Illinois Senator Barack Obama.
Obama's meeting with the successor to the late Yasser Arafat comes as Palestinians and Israelis approach yet another crossroads: The January 25 election of the Palestinian parliament.
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Pre-election bickering has resulted in a wave of political violence the past two months, mainly between rivals in the Fatah faction, which is expected to win a majority of 132 legislative seats. But candidates from the militant Hamas group are projected to win a third or more of the contests. The US government considers Hamas a major terrorist organization that received millions of dollars in funding from Chicago-area Arabs.
At a meeting with Palestinian students Thursday, Obama said the US will never recognize winning Hamas candidates unless the group renounces its fundamental mission to eliminate Israel, and Obama told ABC7 he delivered that message to the Palestinian president.
Friday, January 06, 2006 | 10:28 PM
Senator's trip comes on heels of violence
January 6, 2006 (BAGHDAD) (WLS) -- Following a deadly day in Iraq, Illinois Senator Barack Obama stopped in Kuwait to meet with troops before moving on to Baghdad Saturday. ABC7's Chuck Goudie is in Iraq following the senator's visit with Congress's Intelligence Committee.
The beginning of Senator Barack Obama's trip to Baghdad Saturday morning comes at the end of one of the most violence weeks in Iraq since the war started. The past two days alone, more than 150 people have been killed by sniper fire, explosives planted along roadsides and suicide car bombs.
Among the dead: 11 US soldiers, the most killed on a single day since December 1. Nearly 2,200 US service personnel have now died in Iraq at the hands of so-called insurgents.
"This insurgency did not end because there was such an inspiring vote on December 15th. This Iraqi army is who will ultimately defeat insurgency in Iraq, but it is going to take time," said Donald Alston, US brigadier general.
link09.06.06 Africa Trip Recap(Podcasts)
Senator Obama just returned from a 15-day trip to Africa where he visited South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Chad. He discusses his tour of Robben Island prison, meeting with U.S. troops, visiting refugee camps of those fleeing the genocide in Darfur and the need for addressing Africa's growing AIDS epidemic.
link Thursday, January 11, 2007
Lugar-Obama Nonproliferation Legislation Signed into Law by the President
WASHINGTON – President Bush today signed the Lugar-Obama proliferation and threat reduction initiative into law.
Authored by U.S. Sens. Dick Lugar (R-IN) and Barack Obama (D-IL), the Lugar-Obama initiative expands U.S. cooperation to destroy conventional weapons. It also expands the State Department's ability to detect and interdict weapons and materials of mass destruction.
"The United States should do more to eliminate conventional weapons stockpiles and assist other nations in detecting and interdicting weapons of mass destruction. We believe that these functions are underfunded, fragmented and in need of high-level support," said Lugar, Republican leader of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"The Lugar-Obama initiative will help other nations find and eliminate conventional weapons that have been used against our own soldiers in Iraq and sought by terrorists all over the world," said Obama. "The Nunn-Lugar program has effectively disposed of thousands of weapons of mass destruction, but we must do far more to keep deadly conventional weapons like anti-aircraft missiles out of the hands of terrorists."
"We want to ensure that our government has the capacity to deal quickly with vulnerable stockpiles of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, otherwise known as Man-Portable Air-Defense Systems (MANPADS). Such weapons could be used by terrorists to attack commercial airliners, military installations and government facilities here at home and abroad. Al Qaeda reportedly has attempted to acquire MANPADS on a number of occasions," said Lugar.
The Lugar-Obama initiative would energize the U.S. program against unsecured, lightweight anti-aircraft missiles and other conventional weapons. There may be as many as 750,000 man-portable air defense systems in arsenals worldwide, and the State Department estimates that more than 40 civilian aircraft have been hit by such weapons since the 1970s. In addition, loose stocks of small arms and other weapons help fuel civil wars in Africa and elsewhere and provide the means for attacks on peacekeepers and aid workers seeking to stabilize war-torn societies. In Iraq, unsecured stockpiles of artillery shells and ammunition have been reconfigured into improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that have become an effective weapon for insurgents.
"Lugar-Obama would also strengthen the ability of America's allies to detect and interdict illegal shipments of weapons and materials of mass destruction, a critical step in securing these weapons before they ever fall into the hands of terrorists that has not been a focus of current anti-terrorism efforts," Obama said.
Lugar and Obama traveled together to Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan in August 2005 to oversee a number of Nunn-Lugar projects. In Ukraine they saw a conventional weapons facility that is typical of the focus of the new legislation.
The Lugar-Obama initiative is modeled after the Nunn-Lugar program that focuses on weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union. Lugar and former Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) authored the program in 1991. It has provided U.S. funding and expertise to help the former Soviet Union safeguard and dismantle its enormous stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, related materials, and delivery systems. Among many accomplishments, the program has deactivated 7,000 nuclear warheads and reemployed 58,000 scientists in peaceful research. Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan are nuclear weapons free as a result of cooperative efforts under the Nunn-Lugar program. They otherwise would be the world's the third, fourth and eighth largest nuclear weapons powers, respectively.
edited typo in title
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