[CPEO-MEF] CHEMWEAPONS, GLOBAL: Shchuchye, Siberia demilitarization

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Plant to Destroy Chemical Weapons Opens in Russia
U.S. Gave $1 Billion as Part of Effort to Dispose of Huge Stockpile of 
Munitions

By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post
May 30, 2009

MOSCOW, May 29 -- Russia and the United States formally opened on Friday 
a plant in Siberia to destroy a huge stockpile of artillery shells 
filled with deadly nerve agents, more than a decade after alarmed U.S. 
officials first pledged to help secure and dispose of the weapons.

The 250-acre facility, built with $1 billion in U.S. aid, is said to be 
the largest in the world dedicated to destroying chemical munitions. Its 
debut represents a milestone in Russia's long, rocky partnership with 
the United States to safeguard and eliminate the arsenal of chemical, 
biological and nuclear arms the former Soviet Union produced.

Located in the town of Shchuchye, about 1,000 miles southeast of Moscow 
near the border with Kazakhstan, the plant is supposed to neutralize 
about 2 million shells and warheads stored nearby that are loaded with 
VX, sarin and soman.



...

For the entire article, see
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/29/AR2009052903109.html?sub=AR

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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