CTBTO Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo introducing the panel discussion on 'Citizen Networks: The Promise of Technological Innovation' at SnT2015 in Vienna, June 2015. Photo credit: CTBTO

By Ramesh Jaura
VIENNA, Jun 30 2015 (IPS)

An international conference has highlighted advances made in detecting nuclear explosions,tracking storms or clouds of volcanic ash, locating epicentres of earthquakes, monitoring the drift of huge icebergs, observing the movements of marine mammals, and detecting plane crashes.

The five-day ‘Science and Technology 2015 Conference’ (SnT2015), which ended Jun. 26, was the fifth in a series of multi-disciplinary conferences organised by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), which has been based in the Austrian capital since 1997.

The conference was attended by more than 1100 scientists and other experts, policy makers and representatives of national agencies, independent academic research institutions and civil society organisations from around the world.“With a strong verification regime and its cutting edge technology, there is no excuse for further delaying the [Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty] CTBT’s entry into force” – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

SnT2015 drew attention to an important finding of CTBTO sensors: the meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013 was the largest to hit Earth in at least a century.

Participants also heard that the Air Algérie flight between Burkina Faso and Algeria which crashed in Mali in July 2014 was detected by the CTBTO’s monitoring station in Cote d’Ivoire, 960 kilometres from the impact of the aircraft.

The importance of SnT2015 lies in the fact that CTBTO is tasked with campaigning for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which outlaws nuclear explosions by everyone, everywhere: on the Earth’s surface, in the atmosphere, underwater and underground. It also aims to develop reliable tools to make sure that no nuclear explosion goes undetected.

These include seismic, hydro-acoustic, infrasound (frequencies too low to be heard by the human ear), and radionuclide sensors. Scientists and other experts demonstrated and explained in presentations and posters how the four state-of-the-art technologies work in practice.

170 seismic stations monitor shockwaves in the Earth, the vast majority of which are caused by earthquakes. But man-made explosions such as mine explosions or the announced North Korean nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013 have also been detected.

CTBTO’s 11 hydro-acoustic stations “listen” for sound waves in the oceans. Sound waves from explosions can travel extremely far underwater. Sixty infrasound stations on the Earth’s surface can detect ultra-low frequency sound waves that are emitted by large explosions.

CTBTO’s 80 radionuclide stations measure the atmosphere for radioactive particles; 40 of them also pick up noble gas, the “smoking gun” from an underground nuclear test. Only these measurements can give a clear indication as to whether an explosion detected by the other methods was actually nuclear or not. Sixteen laboratories support radionuclide stations.

When complete, CTBTO’s International Monitoring System (IMS) will consist of 337 facilities spanning the globe to monitor the planet for signs of nuclear explosions. Nearly 90 percent of the facilities are already up and running.

An important theme of the conference was performance optimisation which, according to W. Randy Bell, Director of CTBTO’s International Data Centre (IDC), “will have growing relevance as we sustain and recapitalise the IMS and IDC in the year ahead.”

In the past 20 years, the international community has invested more than one billion dollars in the global monitoring system whose data can be used by CTBTO member states – and not only for test ban verification purposes. All stations are connected through satellite links to the IDC in Vienna.

“Our stations do not necessarily have to be in the same country as the event, but in fact can detect events from far outside from where they are located. For example, the last DPRK (North Korean) nuclear test was picked up as far as Peru,” CTBTO’s Public Information Officer Thomas Mützelburg told IPS.

“Our 183 member states have access to both the raw data and the analysis results. Through their national data centres, they study both and arrive at their own conclusion as to the possible nature of events detected,” he said. Scientists from Papua New Guinea and Argentina said they found the data “extremely useful”.

Stressing the importance of data sharing, CTBTO Executive Secretary, Lassina Zerbo, said in an interview with Nature: “If you make your data available, you connect with the outside scientific community and you keep abreast of developments in science and technology. Not only does it make the CTBTO more visible, it also pushes us to think outside the box. If you see that data can serve another purpose, that helps you to step back a little bit, look at the broader picture and see how you can improve your detection.”

Photo credit: CTBTO

In opening remarks to the conference, Zerbo said: “You will have heard me say again and again that I am passionate about this organisation. Today I am not only passionate but very happy to see all of you who share this passion: a passion for science in the service of peace. It gives me hope for the future of our children that the best and brightest scientists of our time congregate to perfect the detection of the bomb instead of working to perfect the bomb itself.”

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon set the tone in a message to the conference when he said: “With a strong verification regime and its cutting edge technology, there is no excuse for further delaying the CTBT’s entry into force.”

South African Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor, pointed out that her country “is a committed and consistent supporter” of CTBTO. She added: “South Africa has been at the forefront of nuclear non-proliferation in Africa for over twenty years. We gave up our nuclear arsenal and signed the Pelindaba Treaty in 1996, which establishes Africa as a nuclear weapons-free zone, a zone that only came into force in July 2009.

Beside the presentations by scientists, discussion panels addressed topics of current special interest in the CTBT monitoring community. One alluded to the role of science in on-site inspections (OSIs), which are provided for under the Treaty after it enters into force.

This discussion benefited from the experience of the 2014 Integrated Field Exercise (IFE14) in Jordan. “IFE14 was the largest and most comprehensive such exercise so far conducted in the build-up of CTBTO’s OSI capabilities,” said IDC director Bell.

Participants also had an opportunity to listen to a discussion on the opportunities that new and emerging technologies can play in overcoming the challenges of nuclear security. Members of the Technology for Global Security (Tech4GS) group joined former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry in a panel discussion on ‘Citizen Networks: the Promise of Technological Innovation’.

“We are verging on another nuclear arms race,” said Perry. “I do not think that it is irreversible. This is the time to stop and reflect, debate the issue and see if there’s some third choice, some alternative, between doing nothing and having a new arms race.”

A feature of the conference was the CTBT Academic Forum focused on ‘Strengthening the CTBT through Academic Engagement’, at which Bob Frye, prestigious Emmy award-winning producer and director of documentaries and network news programme, pleaded for the need to inspire “the next generation of critical thinkers” to help usher in a world free of nuclear tests and atomic weapons of mass destruction.

The forum also provided an overview of impressive CTBT online educational resources and experiences with teaching the CTBT from the perspective of teachers and professors in Austria, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Pakistan and Russia.

With a view to bridging science and policy, the forum discussed ‘technical education for policymakers and policy education for scientists’ with the participation of eminent experts, including Rebecca Johnson, executive director of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy; Nikolai Sokov of the James Martin Center for Non-proliferation Studies; Ference Dalnoki-Veress of the Middlebury Institute for International Studies; Edward Ifft of the Center for Security Studies, Georgetown; and Matt Yedlin of the Faculty of Science at the University of British Columbia.

There was general agreement on the need to integrate technical issues of CTBT into training for diplomats and other policymakers, and increasing awareness of CTBT and broader nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament policy issues within the scientific community.

Yet another panel – comprising Jean du Preez, chief of CTBTO’s external relations, protocol and international cooperation, Piece Corden of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Thomas Blake of the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, and Jenifer Mackby of the Federation of American Scientists – looked ahead with a view to forging new and better links with and beyond academia, effectively engaging with the civil society, the youth and the media.

“Progress comes in increments,” said one panellist, “but not by itself.”

[With inputs from Valentina Gasbarri]

Edited by Phil Harris    

The writer can be contacted at headquarters@ips.org

An injured Christian woman is taken to the ambulance after the bomb attack on a church in Peshawar that left 85 dead, and scores injured. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Oct 23 2013 (IPS)

Like most Christians in Pakistan, Johar Maseeh did a little cleaning job. He was a sweeper in a factory in Peshawar, capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in northern Pakistan.

He was among the many killed in a bomb attack on the All Saints Church in Peshawar last month. He was also among the hundreds of thousands of Christians in Pakistan considered filthy by large numbers of the majority Muslims for doing such a cleaning job.

“Nobody is ready to shake hands with Christians,” local tailor Rafiq Maseeh told IPS. “Literally, they are treated as an untouchable community.” He said he had many Muslim customers but the majority were unwilling to talk to him.

“The majority of the Christian population is concentrated in Peshawar because they are afraid to live in rural areas due to reprisals by the local population.”“Nobody is ready to shake hands with Christians. They are treated as an untouchable community.”

Vast numbers of Christians live in utter poverty in slums where they lack water, sanitation and health facilities. “We live in a two-room mud and brick house which has too little space to accommodate our 10-member family,” Javid Pyara a sweeper at the University of Peshawar, told IPS.

Such as they are, they are often considered agents of the West.

“Whenever incidents of blasphemy take place anywhere in the world, the Christians in Pakistan bear the brunt,” advocate Shamshad Khan told IPS. Last year, a church was burnt in nearby Mardan when riots erupted following the production of a blasphemous film by a U.S. filmmaker.

“People see Christians as non-Muslim and don’t like them,” he said.

The constitution of Pakistan bars Christians from the positions of president or prime minister. “They have been allotted one percent seats in the provincial and national assemblies but that doesn’t mean that they are part of the country’s politics,” Shamshad Khan said.

“Many of the people don’t want a handshake with the Christians,” he said. “None in Pakistan would like to share food with them.”

The only hope for many is to see their young lead a better life. “There is now a trend among young Christians to get education and get well-paid jobs. They are unwilling to take up cleaning jobs,” 60-year-old Bhuta Maseeh, a sweeper in a government office, told IPS.

“I have graduated from a local college and now I am a cashier in a bank,” his son Akram Maseeh told IPS. “About a dozen of my friends have also found good and lucrative jobs because they had got university education.”

Many young Christians do see a better future than their parents have known. “We have Muslim friends. We sit together, eat together and discuss politics and other matters together. We respect one another,” Mukhtiar Maseeh, a sweeper’s son and a student of Islamia College in Peshawar, told IPS.

“Most Christian girls join nursing because the local girls don’t,” said local resident Jalal Maseeh. “They also get jobs as teachers in private and also government-run schools.”

Now that move towards better living is shaken. The devastating suicide attack at the All Saints Church in militancy-stricken Peshawar has led to renewed fear among the poor Christian community. The bombing left 85 dead and 140 injured.

About 100,000 Christians living in Peshawar now struggle with terrorist threats after the fight to find acceptance and a decent living.

“We have no protection at all. The terrorists have diverted their guns towards us. We need tight security measures,” Jamil Maseeh, 29, who was injured in the Sep. 22 attack, told IPS.

Muhammad Karim, a Peshawar-based religious scholar, said the attack aimed to create a rift between Muslims and Christians. “We should be thankful to the Christians because they are cleaning our hospitals, offices and markets. We must not harm them as they serve our people. Our religion Islam also advocates living in peace with non-Muslims.”

“It is extremely shocking and shameful that we are unable to protect minorities,” Maulana Tahir Ashrafi, chairman of the Ulema Council, told IPS. “According to the holy prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, it is the duty of the state to protect the places of worship of non-Muslims.”

But friction with orthodox Muslims is a constant danger. “Relations between churches and mosques are not as cordial as they should be,” Maulana Zafar Gul, a Muslim scholar, told IPS. He said the majority of Muslim clerics oppose churches but keep silent due to government and international pressure.

“We already lead miserable lives in Pakistan,” chairman of the Pakistan Minority Movement Saleem Grabble told IPS. “Our people have been doing cleaning jobs on meagre wages. Now terror attacks are trying to eliminate us physically.”

The latest attack against Christians was aimed at drawing international attention at a time when the government is determined to hold a dialogue with the Taliban, said Sawar Shah, a Lahore-based political science teacher. “Terrorists have been targeting mosques, the Shia community, funeral ceremonies, schools, marketplaces and government buildings to express their anger over Pakistan’s role in war against terrorism.”

By Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON, Aug 28 2012 (IPS)

The “Special Cell” of the Delhi police has identified an Iranian, Houshang Afghan Irani, as the man it believes carried out the Feb. 13 car bombing at the Israeli embassy in New Delhi that injured the wife of an embassy official. The police believe three other Iranians were also involved in the plot.

But major questions about the integrity of evidence put forward to prove the existence of an Iranian bomb plot cast doubt on that claim, which is the centrepiece of the Israeli accusation that Iran has been waging a campaign of terrorism against Israelis in as many as 20 countries.

Only Indian journalist Syed Mohammed Ahmad Kazmi has been officially charged in the case, and even the treatment of Irani and the other Iranians as suspects depends very heavily on “disclosure statements” supposedly made by Kazmi but denounced by the journalist as police fabrications.

Although the Special Cell (SC) also claims to have forensic evidence of Irani’s link to the bombing, the evidence appears to be tainted by improper police procedures.

A central problem for the SC case is that it has no eyewitness testimony for its contention that Irani planted the bomb on the Israeli embassy car.

A hotel security camera showed that Irani left the hotel the morning of the explosion wearing a black jacket. Irani had also rented a black Honda Karizma. But eyewitness Gopal Krishanan, who was driving the car that was directly behind the embassy car and thus had a clear view of the motorcycle rider when he attached the bomb to the rear of the car, said he was certain the rider had a red motorcycle and was wearing a red helmet and red jacket.

The police were convinced by his testimony. Tal Yehoshua-Koren, who was injured in the attack but was able to get to the Israeli embassy without assistance, later told investigators she thought the attacker had been riding a black motorcycle and wearing a black jacket and helmet. A senior police officer involved in the case told the Indian Express, however, that Yehoshua-Koren could not be certain of the colour of the motorcycle.

The police continued to search for a red motorcycle after obtaining her statement, as was widely reported in the Indian press. Only after the SC decided that Irani was the bomber did the police switch to the position that the bomber had been riding a black motorcycle and wearing a black helmet and jacket.

Irani became a target of the investigation after the SC learned that a phone number associated with Masoud Sedaghat Zadeh, one of the three Iranians staying in a Bangkok house where an explosion occurred Feb. 14, had allegedly contacted the Indian mobile phone number being used by Irani.

The charge sheet does not include documentation for the claim that Irani’s phone had been called by that of the accused in the Bangkok explosion. And Irani’s receipts shown in the charge sheet for the moped purchased in April 2011 and for the motorcycle rented in early 2012 list Indian mobile phone numbers different from the one cited as having been contacted by Zadeh.

Irani made no effort to hide his identity in either of those transactions, so there would be no reason for him to write a false number on the receipt.

The police claim to have recovered from Irani’s hotel room seven items on which the government’s Central Forensic Science Laboratory found traces of TNT – the same explosive that the bomb affixed to the embassy car contained.

But the SC violated several police procedures in regard to that evidence, suggesting that it may have been planted by the Special Cell.

It was not until Feb. 29, sixteen days after Irani left the hotel, that the room was sealed by police. Even worse, another two weeks passed before it was actually inspected by the Special Cell on Mar. 13, according to the charge sheet. Ordinarily, the passage of that much time between the date the items were allegedly left behind and their discovery would call into question the authenticity of the evidence.

On Jul. 28, a few days before the charge sheet was made public, the manager of the hotel produced an occupancy chart showing that Irani’s room had not been used during the 16 days between his departure and the police order to seal the room.

The chart, which the hotel manager had plenty of time to prepare for the police, makes the highly unlikely claim that Irani’s room was not occupied by any guest during the 16-day period. The effort to show that the room had not been altered after Irani left it still fails to address the awkward question of how so much evidence could have been found in Irani’s room long after it would have been cleaned up by hotel staff.

The belated occupancy chart only makes the forensic evidence claimed by the police appear even more suspicious.

The Kazmi “disclosures” portray an alleged plot that lacked either clear delineation of responsibility for reconnaissance of the embassy or the communication one would expect between the plotters in Tehran and their one local collaborator in Delhi during the crucial months before the explosion.

At one point in a statement attributed to Kazmi but not signed by him, he is portrayed as having returned to Delhi from a trip to Tehran in January 2011 committed to intensive research on “security arrangements and the movement of vehicles and routes travelled to Israeli Embassy”.

In discussing Irani’s visit to Delhi in April 2011, however, it does not mention any debriefing of Irani by Kazmi on such reconnaissance. Instead, Irani is said to have carried out the entire reconnaissance operation, with Kazmi’s help, all over again.

When Kazmi’s disclosure comes to the visit of his Tehran contacts, Seyed Ali Mehdiansadr and Reza Abolghasemi, to Delhi in May and June 2011, it makes no reference to any discussion of the reconnaissance Irani had supposedly already done. The two visitors and Kazmi are said to have repeated the same reconnaissance on the embassy yet again, even noting the licence plate numbers of embassy cars.

An even more dramatic divergence from a coherent account of a terror plot is found in the long final Kazmi statement dated Mar. 23 but unsigned by Kazmi. In describing Kazmi’s trip to Tehran in June 2011 the statement says Kazmi’s alleged key contact in the plot, Mehdiansadr, “inquired about the progress of the task assigned me”.

But the disclosure statement then says the “task” in question was not gathering detailed information on potential Israeli Embassy targets, but sending “reports on the political developments in the Gulf region, like Syria, Bahrain, Iraq, etc”.

In July and August, the same disclosure recounts, Kazmi travelled to Dubai and Syria, and when he communicated with his Tehran contacts, it was not about intelligence for a bombing plan but about his Dubai trip.

Kazmi’s disclosure asserts, in fact, that he did not report to his Iranian contacts on any intelligence gathered on the Israeli Embassy between June 2011 and January 2012, despite allegedly having been given a mobile phone specifically for that purpose.

The questionable character of the police case that the four Iranians conspired on the Delhi bombing does not rule out the possibility that it was an Iranian government operation, but it does indicate that SC investigators could not find convincing evidence of such an Iranian role.

*This story is the second in a three-part series, “The Delhi Car Bombing: How the Police Built a False Case”, in which award-winning investigative journalist Gareth Porter dissects the Delhi police accusation against an Indian journalist and four Iranians of involvement in the Feb. 13 bombing of an Israeli embassy car.

Gareth Porter, an investigative historian and journalist specializing in U.S. national security policy, received the UK-based Gellhorn Prize for journalism for 2011 for articles on the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

Excerpt:

The scene of a bombing outside a hotel in Tripoli. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS.

By Mel Frykberg
TRIPOLI, Aug 14 2012 (IPS)

The security situation in Libya remains tense as violence by way of car bombings, political assassinations of high-ranking government and military officials, attacks on foreign diplomatic staff and NGOs, and young men sorting out minor disputes with AK-47s continues unabated.

IPS spoke with armed Gaddafi loyalists who vowed they will step up their fight. Government sources alternately claim the perpetrators are former President Muammar Gaddafi loyalists or Islamists bent on revenge.

This murky situation is further exacerbated by a clamp down on the dissemination of information in the local media, and Libyan security forces preventing foreign journalists from covering the scenes of attacks first-hand or taking pictures.

For the second Saturday in a row this reporter was woken by a car bomb exploding outside my hotel in downtown Tripoli, the second of its kind since Gaddafi’s death in October 2011.

A security vehicle belonging to members of the Libyan military staying at the Four Seasons hotel in Omar Al Mukhtar street was the target. The previous Saturday morning another car bomb went off outside the headquaters of Tripoli’s military police just down the road. One person was injured in the latter attack.

“We believe former supporters of Gaddafi are behind this attack and the attack last Saturday,” said a member of the security forces sitting in one of several security vehicles which rushed to the scene to cordon off the street.

“These Tahloob (Arabic for Gaddafi loyalists) are talking big, saying they will carry out a counter-revolution against the February 17 movement (when Libya’s revolution against Gaddafi began). They will only be able to carry out small acts of sabotage, nothing major,” one of the security men told IPS.

Shortly afterwards the information blackout began when  heavily armed soldiers prevented pictures being taken, and said journalists were forbidden from the area. A Libyan interior ministry official refused to comment further.

Last week a number of Tahloob were killed when Libyan security forces raided a farm where loyalists were hiding out after they were said to have coordinated the car bombing outside the headquarters of Tripoli’s military police.

One of the members who survived was alleged to have set up sleeper cells in Libya and to have been criss-crossing Libya’s border with Tunisia from where he and several comrades were allegedly smuggling weapons into Libya to “destabilise the country post-Gaddafi”.

Libyan intelligence also allege the group were in possession of another seven bombs, one of them intended for another Tripoli hotel. Documents linking them with one of Gaddafi’s sons, Saadi, who is under house arrest in Niger, were also said to have been found on the survivor.  Saadi warned earlier in the year that he was in contact with sleeper cells who were organising underground resistance.

IPS managed to get an exclusive interview with Gaddafi loyalists in the Abu Salim neighbourhood of Tripoli, one of the last bastions of Gaddafi supporters and scene of some of the fiercest fighting between loyalists and rebels during the revolution.

Shortly before Gaddafi was killed, Abu Salim was flooded with weapons in a last ditch attempt at resistance against the revolution.

“We are waiting for the right moment. We will not give up. If they (the new government) think we are a spent force they are mistaken,” Ahmed, who fought with Gaddafi’s forces and managed to escape from a rebel detention camp last year, told IPS.

Ahmed claims to have killed a number of rebels, and is now in hiding. He and the others interviewed would not consent to their last names being published nor their pictures being taken for obvious security reasons.

“Every man in this neighbourhood is armed but our guns are buried underground because the area is raided regularly by the security forces searching for weapons and wanted men,” Muntasser, another loyalist told IPS.

Meanwhile, during the last three weeks over two dozen high-ranking military or government officials have been assassinated in Benghazi. Many of the men were former Gaddafi loyalists who defected to the rebels after formerly serving in Gaddafi’s regime.

Some claim Islamist insurgents are behind the attacks, as Libyan weapons flood conflicts in neighbouring countries including the Sinai, Mali, Nigeria, and Syria where dozens of fighters have joined up with the Free Syrian Army.

In another incident, on Friday eight prisoners managed to escape Al Fornaj prison in Tripoli after a coordinated attack. Gunmen in pickup trucks outside the prison shot at security guards while prisoners inside set sections of the prison on fire and managed to overpower a number of guards within the prison. This was the third attack on the prison since the revolution, and it took the authorities many hours to re-establish control.

During the last few weeks, security buildings and hotels in Benghazi have been rocked by bomb attacks and attempted attacks. Foreign diplomatic staff and embassies have also been attacked or been the targets of attempted attacks. U.S. embassy staff in Tripoli escaped an attempted carjacking last week.

A grenade and rocket attack on the Misrata offices of the International Red Cross last week forced the evacuation of several ICRC buildings, and the organisation to temporarily suspend its work.

Kidnapping and abductions too continue, with the whereabouts of a delegation from the Iranian Red Crescent kidnapped in Benghazi several weeks ago still unknown. Minor street disputes regularly erupt into gun battles. On Thursday an AK47-wielding thug threatened to put a bullet in my head after I witnessed one out of control gunfight.