China

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:28 — 9.9MB)

Listen above to the new edition of the FAS Podcast series “A Conversation With An Expert” featuring Hans Kristensen, Director of the Nuclear Information Project. Topic discussed include: the  attitude of the United States toward Chinese nuclear arsenals, the recent report regarding China’s increasing nuclear forces in The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and opinions regarding the recent study conducted by Georgetown University students on China’s nuclear forces.

To read the podcast transcript, click here (PDF).

Department of State

This week the State Department released the unclassified version of a report on specific countries’  “Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Committees” (henceforth referred to as the Compliance Report). One section of this report covers compliance issues with the Biological and Toxins Weapon Convention (BWC, aka BTWC).  The Compliance Report indicated that following State Parties and signatories to the BWC were in compliance: Egypt, India, Iraq, Libya, and Pakistan.

One year ago today, an earthquake struck the Sichuan Province in China. The earthquake was the 19th deadliest of all time. Early surveys indicate that over 170,000 square miles were affected at a level of “slightly damaging”, and over 1200 square miles on the level of “devastating”. As of May 7^th,, 2009, there are 68,712 dead and more than 17,923 missing. With such excessive damage, rebuilding has been required on a massive scale.

In late April of 2009, media outlets reported that families displaced by the Sichuan Earthquake housed in Temporary Housing Units (THUs) were experiencing health related problems due to the buildings. There is speculation that formaldehyde is the culprit. While FAS has no direct evidence to support or discredit this claim, the work we did on air quality in emergency housing built after Hurricane Katrina makes it possible to make some informed guesses about what is happening in China.

To this end, we’ve put together an article looking at the potential indoor air quality problems in China, with proposed solutions moving forward. The paper can be found here.