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Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)


March 2003 Russia Special Weapons News



  • CHECHNYA / REFERENDUM VOA 27 Mar 2003 -- Russian President Vladimir Putin says Chechnya will receive what he calls the "broadest autonomy" -- following a referendum Sunday in which Moscow says Chechens nearly unanimously reaffirmed their desire to be part of Russia. But the real question is will this be enough to end years of bloody fighting that has claimed around 200-thousand lives?
  • BEREZOVSKY ARREST VOA 25 Mar 2003 -- British police say they have arrested Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky for alleged fraud.
  • CHECHNYA / VOTE VOA 24 Mar 2003 -- Russian President Vladimir Putin says the people of Chechnya, by voting in favor of a constitutional referendum on Sunday, have voted in favor of peace. Mr. Putin spoke after partial results released Monday indicated that more than 95 percent of voters approved the new constitution.
  • CHECHNYA VOTE VOA 23 Mar 2003 -- Russian officials say more than 50-percent of eligible voters went to the polls for a referendum in Chechnya, making the vote valid under Russian law. The results are expected Monday.
  • CHECHNYA VOTE VOA 23 Mar 2003 -- Chechens are voting in a Kremlin-backed constitutional referendum that promises wide autonomy for the breakaway republic within the Russian Federation. Chechen separatist rebels have already said they will only accept full independence, and earlier threatened to disrupt the poll.
  • RUSSIA / U-S RELATIONS VOA 19 Mar 2003 -- President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin have vowed to keep talking, as the United States readies to launch a war against Iraq, a move long opposed by Moscow. Both leaders have expressed the hope that their disagreement over Iraq will not side-track what had been a flourishing bilateral relationship.
  • PUTIN-CHECHNYA VOA 17 Mar 2003 -- Russian President Vladimir Putin is urging Chechens to vote in this weekend's constitutional referendum, saying it could help end years of bloodshed in the break-away republic.
  • "Success Hinges on Verifying," by Representative Duncan Hunter Washington File 17 Mar 2003 -- long shadow hangs over the horizon of Krasnoyarsk, a city in central Russia. It is a $10-million plant built to neutralize volatile missile fuel that American taxpayers funded but will never benefit from. It will never be operated because the Russians diverted the fuel to their space program before the plant was even completed. This giant, empty facility is another example of the problems plaguing efforts to control weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union.
  • U.S. to Help Russia Close Three Remaining Plutonium Reactors Washington File 13 Mar 2003 -- U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and Russian Minister of Atomic Energy Aleksandr Rumyantsev signed agreements in Moscow March 12 to facilitate the closure of three Russian nuclear reactors in Siberia that produce weapons-grade plutonium.
  • RUSSIA / U-S / NUCLEAR VOA 12 Mar 2003 -- The United States today (Wednesday) signed an agreement with Russia to help close down Russia's last nuclear reactors producing weapons grade plutonium.
  • Lugar Urges Repeal of Jackson-Vanik Amendment for Russia Washington File 11 Mar 2003 -- Senator Richard G. Lugar (Republican of Indiana), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, introduced a bill March 10 to exempt Russia from the provisions of the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the 1974 U.S. Trade Act and to authorize the President to grant permanent normal trade relations to Russia.
  • U.S. Senate Unanimously Approves Moscow Treaty Washington File 07 Mar 2003 -- The U.S. Senate March 6 unanimously approved the Moscow Treaty, which will reduce U.S. and Russian long-range nuclear warheads by two-thirds by the year 2012.
  • RUSSIA-US TREATY VOA 07 Mar 2003 -- Russia has welcomed the Senate's ratification of a Russian-American treaty calling for major reductions in both countries' nuclear-weapons stockpiles.
  • Vershbow on Opportunities, Challenges in U.S.-Russian Relations Washington File 06 Mar 2003 -- "U.S.-Russian relations are increasingly guided by common interests, and the scope of our cooperation is expanding in ways that would have been inconceivable ten years ago," U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation Alexander Vershbow said February 27.
  • U-S RUSSIA - TREATY VOA 06 Mar 2003 -- The U-S Senate late Thursday unanimously ratified (by a 95-zero vote) a treaty between the United States and Russia to reduce both countries' nuclear weapons stockpiles.
  • "Moscow Treaty is Full of Holes," by Senator John Kerry Washington File 05 Mar 2003 -- This column by Senator John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), was published in The Boston Globe March 5: "President Bush claims that his Moscow Treaty "will liquidate the legacy of the Cold War" by eliminating thousands of nuclear arms left over from a bygone era when the United States and Russia faced each other across the nuclear divide. In reality, it does no such thing."
  • U-S / RUSSIA / WEAPON REDUCTION VOA 04 Mar 2003 -- A congressional committee has criticized what it calls waste and mismanagement in a more than decade-long program under which the United States helps Russia and former Soviet republics reduce their nuclear and other weapons.
  • "Wasteful 'Threat Reduction' in Russia," by Representative Duncan Hunter Washington File 04 Mar 2003 -- Deep in the heart of Russia stands an enormous, new, empty facility built with 100 million American tax dollars. It has no purpose or future. It is a monumental example of U.S. good intentions gone awry and another disturbing chapter in the history of the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program.



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