PSAC  STRIKE

From the Picket Line: What’s at Stake in the Big Strike

Workers discuss public perceptions of ‘cushy government jobs.’ Experts eye a path to a deal.

Zak Vescera 

25 Apr 2023

TheTyee.ca
Zak Vescera is The Tyee’s labour reporter. This reporting beat is made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.
‘I do worry about being able to just afford my home and whether I’m going to be able to keep making those payments,’ says PSAC member Damir Moric. Photo by Zak Vescera.


Workers on the frontline of Canada’s largest strike in decades say their finances and careers could hinge on the outcome of the escalating labour dispute.

More than 100,000 federal workers went on strike last week after negotiations between the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the government hit an impasse over salaries and whether workers should have the right to remote work enshrined in the collective agreement.

The union has asked for 13.5 per cent over the three-year agreement, which would be retroactive to late 2021 when their last contract expired. The Union of Taxation Employees, which represents more than 35,000 workers at the Canada Revenue Agency, have asked for an increase of 20.5 per cent, on top of a one-time nine-per-cent raise.

The federal Treasury Board’s last public offer to both units was nine per cent.

On a rainy picket line in Vancouver, Matthew di Nicolo said stereotypes about federal public servants mask the realities of the job.

“If they had these cushy government jobs where they pay you to sit around, I’d love one of those,” said di Nicolo, who processes unemployment claims. “If they were offering those, I’d take one in a heartbeat, because that’s not my experience.”

The PSAC’s membership spans 155,000 government workers. They handle tax claims, cook meals for the military and inspect and maintain fisheries on B.C.’s coast, among other things.

The union says just under a quarter of those members earn between $40,000 and $60,000 a year and that almost 60 per cent are earning less than $70,000. PSAC says about 20 per cent are earning more than $80,000 a year.

Damir Moric says the wages used to be enough to get by. But now, he’s facing higher interest payments on his mortgage and rising costs as inflation spiked in 2022.

“I do worry about being able to just afford my home and whether I’m going to be able to keep making those payments,” Moric said. “It was adequate for me starting out. Now I’m not able to really make it.”

Moric and di Nicolo were among dozens of PSAC members at a picket line in downtown Vancouver on Friday. Many huddled under archways for shelter or crowded around a folding table overflowing with Tim Hortons’ doughnuts and lukewarm coffee.

Others paced around in the rain, carrying white placards that said “2% is for milk,” a reference to part of the government proposal.

At another picket line up the street, a group of bemused strikers watched as a dark blue sports car was towed away. Members are receiving $75 a day in strike pay.

The PSAC has picketed more than 250 locations across the country, the union says, and is now also stopping work at some federal ports to ratchet up pressure at the bargaining table.

On Monday PSAC members began picketing the Cascadia Terminal on East Vancouver’s waterfront, halting work at one of the country’s largest export grain terminal.

Milton Dyck, president of PSAC’s agriculture union, said the union plans to picket more locations if a deal isn’t reached, part of a broader plan to ratchet up economic pressure on the government.

“We’re not trying to close the entire port down. But we want to start selectively choosing parts here and there,” Dyck said.

“What we’re going to be doing is we’re going to be hitting different spots and scaling up.”

PSAC president Chris Aylward and the federal government traded accusations this weekend about who was responsible for the pace of talks. Aylward said the union was willing to target “strategic locations,” including ports.

The union can legally picket grain terminals because roughly 290 of its members work at the Canadian Grain Commission and are in a legal strike position, including workers at Cascadia. Dyck said other union workers at that terminal, including the Grain Workers Local 333 and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, respected the picket line.

Dyck said his goal is a fair deal for his members, who he said are often asked to do overtime because of staff shortages across the grain commission. But the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association worries the union’s plan could inflict economic pain on farmers. Association president Gunter Jochum said lengthy delays at grain ports could back up supply chains, increasing costs and potentially hurting Canadian grain prices.

“The companies will just pass that cost up down the line and it ends up at the lowest common dominator, which is the farm,” Jochum said.

The Canadian Grain Commission, which regulates the handling and export of those crops, says exports are still flowing. Spokesman Rémi Gosselin said the commission was allowing grain companies to collect samples on the commission’s behalf. Gosselin said those samples were then being tested and evaluated by commission managers so they can still be exported during the strike.

PSAC represents roughly 65 per cent of the commission’s employees, Gosselin said, something he said has had a “significant” impact on their operations. “We totally respect our employees’ right to strike, but at the same time we have a mandate to fill,” Gosselin said.

Jochum has called for the federal government to allow private inspectors to do the work, something PSAC would likely viscerally oppose, since those workers would need to cross picket lines and would undercut their pickets.

The Cascadia Terminal is jointly owned by agriculture giants Viterra and Richardson International and has more than 280,000 metric tonnes of storage space for canola, barley and other grain. A Viterra spokesperson declined to comment on the picket line when contacted on Monday.

.

Milton Dyck, president of PSAC’s agriculture union, said the union would expand pickets at grain terminals that are critical to exports. Photo by Zak Vescera.


PSAC president Chris Aylward and the federal government traded accusations this weekend about who was responsible for the pace of talks. Aylward said the union was willing to target “strategic locations,” including ports.

University of Saskatchewan political science professor Charles Smith said the PSAC doesn’t have a tradition of labour militancy.

He said the strike is part of a larger period of labour upheaval sparked by high inflation, rising interest rates and low unemployment rates that have made workers seek better working conditions and in a strong position to get them. The COVID-19 pandemic, Smith said, likely amplified that since many public federal workers were asked to continue reporting for work and launch new programs in a period of uncertainty.

“The PSAC were asked to do a hell of a lot of work in a way they were not trained for and get the job done, and they did,” Smith said.

Public opinion on the strike appears to be slightly favourable towards PSAC. An Angus Reid poll conducted last week found 48 per cent of respondents supported the union’s wage requests, compared to 40 per cent who opposed it and 12 per cent who were unsure. The online poll was conducted among a representative randomized sample of 1,276 people and had an estimated margin of error of 3 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

Mark Thompson, a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, said federal public servants typically are not as sympathetic to the public as their provincial counterparts, who are often more visible and provide more direct services.

“Not very many of us have direct interaction with federal people. And it’s not always something that we relish. If you cross the border and you want to wait in line, you just want to get it over with,” Thompson said.

Matthew di Nicolo says any perceptions of cushy government jobs don’t reflect reality. Photo by Zak Vescera.

But he said the federal government’s wage proposal was likely too low to secure a deal. Most provincial public servants in B.C., for example, secured a wage increase of between 10.74 to 12.74 per cent over three years for most positions, with the final total depending on the rate of inflation in the years of the agreement.


A Freedom Denied Canadian Workers

READ MORE

Thompson said the most interesting part of the dispute is remote work. Many federal servants began working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic and did not return to the office until this year, when the Treasury Board set a requirement for employees to report to work in person at least twice a week. In a statement, the government said it made that decision because working in-person “supports collaboration, team spirit, innovation and a culture of belonging.”

PSAC now wants the right to remote work enshrined in collective agreements, something that has been controversial in other organizations.

In B.C., the government resisted requests from unions to guarantee remote working privileges in collective bargaining last year, leaving it up to managers to decide. But the province has also signalled it wants to be flexible about remote work and that it wants more workers in different regions of the province outside Victoria and Vancouver.


‘These Workers Have Proven Their Worth Time and Again’

READ MORE

Vanessa Radunz, who works in procurement services for the federal government, says being able to work remotely has saved her hours of commuting each day on transit plus associated costs. She says she is able to do her job — which involves helping multiple federal departments buy anything they might need — from home with ease.

“It’s an extra two hours a day. You have to set all your equipment up, troubleshoot any technical things, pack it all up at the end of the day and go home,” said Radunz.

But the biggest sticking point on the picket line is still wages. The federal Treasury Board has said the union’s requested pay increases are unreasonable and that its revised offer of nine per cent reflects the recommendations of a Public Interest Commission Report. The reports are part of the process in federal labour negotiations.

Steve Claxton, a supervisor who has worked for the government for 24 years, says salaries have become less competitive over time compared to the private sector or working for the provincial government. He said many of his colleagues also worked extensive overtime at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, and were hopeful the next collective agreement would acknowledge that contribution.


Why 2023 Could Be the Year of the Union

READ MORE

“No one knew what the pandemic was going to end up like or how dangerous it was at the time, and they came in every day without a contract,” Claxton said.

Di Nicolo joined the public service in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic began. He met some of his colleagues for the first time in person on the picket line. During the pandemic, he said, he worked overtime hours to stand up the Canada Emergency Response Benefit for the millions of workers who lost their jobs in the first months of the pandemic.

“During the pandemic we got a lot of kinds words. They were saying, ‘You guys are doing a lot of work, you’re essential.’ And then two years later we’re looking for a cost of living adjustment and we’re not getting it,” Di Nicolo said. “The words are great, but I cannot buy groceries with some kind words.”

PSAC: Remote work demands helping drag out Canada civil-service strike

Randy Thanthong-Knight, Bloomberg News

The right to work from home is one of the key outstanding issues at the center of negotiations to end one of Canada’s largest strikes. 

More than 155,000 civil servants have been on strike since Wednesday to demand higher wages from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, the country’s largest employer. In addition to better pay and a right to work remotely, they’re also pushing for a ban on contracting out jobs and a requirement that seniority be respected during layoffs.

Entrenching the right to work-from-home could set an important precedent in Canada, for both public and private sectors, as workers call for more flexible arrangements while employers try to push back or impose hybrid requirements. Any return to something resembling the full-remote-work model seen during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic would have major ramifications on real estate in major cities, as well as downtown businesses. 

 “We have proposed to review, jointly with unions, the current telework directive,” Mona Fortier, president of the Treasury Board, said in an open letter on Monday. “The directive has not been re-assessed for a post-pandemic world, so a formal review would help ensure that our approach is modern, fair, and supportive” for our employees.

Last October, business groups warned that government departments were lagging “significantly” behind the private sector in bringing employees back to offices — particularly in the Ottawa-Gatineau area that is home tens of thousands of federal workers. 

The government said the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the country’s largest federal-worker union representing the Treasury Board and Canada Revenue Agency workers who are staging a nationwide strike, came to the table with more than 570 demands, and that it has managed agree “on most of them” during negotiations. 

Still, the union said despite some headway on remote work and wage increases, it’s “not there yet.” It threatened to escalate its demonstrations, particularly at ports, as a result.

The strike has resulted in a delay or pause in several government services. Impacts at key agencies include: 

• Some Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada programs and services may be affected, including research centers, poultry and wine sector programs, as well as a youth employment program
• There will be delays in processing some income tax and benefit returns at Canada Revenue Agency, particularly those filed by paper
• At Employment and Social Development Canada and Service Canada, services will be partially or fully disrupted including the temporary foreign worker program, job banks and biometrics collection
• Delays are expected for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada citizenship events, passport services, grants and contributions services, as well as immigration-related appointments and applications processing
• Transport Canada’s regulatory work, aircraft services, issuance of licenses, certificates or registrations, and the complaints and recalls hotline are expected to be partially or fully disrupted
• The public may also have trouble accessing some Government of Canada buildings where services are delivered 

Civil servants’ push for remote work has Canadian employers watching anxiously

Randy Thanthong-Knight, Bloomberg News

Canada’s government is grappling with what comes after the “forced experiment” of remote work brought on by the pandemic as it negotiates with striking civil servants, the country’s labour minister said. 

More than 155,000 federal employees launched one of the country’s largest strikes a week ago in a dispute that primarily focuses on wages and enshrining the right to work from home. 

With talks at a standstill, the union has escalated its demonstrations, targeting major ports for exports of grain and other commodities. While that’s prompted calls from industry for the government to step in, Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan declined to comment on the status of negotiations. 

Though O’Regan said the government doesn’t dictate what works for other employers or sectors, a deal that cements a right to remote work may set a precedent. If the civil servants are successful, it may strengthen the negotiating leverage of workers in other sectors to push back against employers who favour a return to office.

“The government as an employer is trying to figure it out. We as a society are trying to work this out,” O’Regan said in an interview at his Ottawa office. “We had a crazy forced experiment of remote work imposed on us. There are some workers who had no choice but to go to work. There were a lot of people who didn’t have to go anymore, and yet we functioned and our economy got through it.”

When most COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, employers started mandating a return to office or hybrid work, saying that it would foster collaboration and boost productivity. But some workers are eager to keep the autonomy and flexibility they enjoyed during the pandemic lockdowns.

LIKELY PRECEDENT

The Public Service Alliance of Canada is demanding that the arrangement be included in a new collective agreement. If that happens, it has the potential to influence the outcome of future talks between unions and provincial governments, municipalities, and even private-sector businesses. 

About a dozen clients who are currently negotiating collective agreements have already asked to delay the process to see the eventual deal from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, according to Patrick Groom, a labor lawyer at McMillan LLP in Toronto. 

“This is going to set the standard for collective-bargaining negotiations and employee expectations, even in non-union environments across the country,” Groom said. “If the federal government agrees to working from home arrangements, that’s going to be a serious and difficult challenge to overcome for employers who want to have their workforces return.” 

Employee resistance has left many business districts from Toronto to New York and San Francisco much emptier than in pre-COVID times. That’s been particularly acute in Ottawa, where more than 45% of workers were still working from home last year, compared with a national average of about 25%, according to Statistics Canada.   

In an open letter earlier this week, Treasury Board President Mona Fortier — the cabinet minister who’s leading the talks for Trudeau — said the government has proposed to review the current telework directive jointly with unions to “help ensure that our approach is modern, fair, and supportive” for employees.

“We value our workers. We’re like any other firms out there. We want make sure that we retain them,” O’Regan said. “The government has a vested interest in making sure that it gets the best employees at the best value for the taxpayer. I’m very hopeful that we’ll land in a good place.”

Farmers grow concerned as striking PSAC workers block grain exports

By David George-Cosh

David George-Cosh

Reporter

Follow|Archive

Some Canadian farmer groups are becoming increasingly concerned about the economic impact on the country’s agricultural sector after striking federal workers blocked grain exports across several Canadian ports earlier this week.

Union workers from the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) picketed the Cascadia Terminal in Vancouver on Monday, preventing grain exports from receiving their final inspection before being shipped overseas. Federal workers also picketed outside Thunder Bay, Ont. and Montreal ports, according to Milton Dyck, president of the Agricultural Union within the PSAC.

More than 100,000 federal workers walked off the job last week after failing to negotiate a new contract with the Treasury Board amid a dispute over wages and remote work. Economists estimated that the strike could see between a 0.2 per cent to 1 per cent hit to Canada’s gross domestic product in April, depending on how long the job action lasts.

The Wheat Growers Association, an industry trade group that represents Western Canadian farmers, said in a statement on Tuesday that it was “stunned” to learn that PSAC workers intentionally targeted the Cascadia Terminal and disrupted grain exports. 

“A strike is one thing, but to intentionally target a port that is critical to the lives of grain farmers and to the entire Canadian economy is the height of reckless irresponsibility,” said Wheat Growers president Gunter Jochum in a statement. “It’s time for the federal government to intervene.”

The Wheat Growers added that the Canada Grain Act needs to be amended to allow more third-party grain inspectors to handle grading and weighing services to avoid “double inspections.” It noted that Canadian farmers pay over $60 million per year to have staff from the Canadian Grain Commission inspect grain exports.

The Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) also issued a statement on Tuesday urging the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Marie-Claude Bibeau to come to an agreement with the federal workers to avoid prolonging any additional impact the strike would have on farmers.

“Delayed inspections will cause backlogs at ports. Every day a ship must wait means demurrage charges to grain companies, and these costs always make their way to the farmer,” said Ian Boxall, president of the APAS, in a statement.

In an interview with BNN Bloomberg, Dyck said that Canadian Grain Commission inspectors should be considered essential workers and are key to ensuring that Canada’s grain exports meet the high-quality standards sought after by importing nations. While he acknowledged that some farmers will likely see additional costs from demurrage charges being passed to them, those are not as significant as what the trade groups are suggesting.

“I can’t see why the costs would be onerous from one day of blocking the port,” he said.

The grain export dispute comes as Statistics Canada issued its latest outlook on farmer crop planting for this year’s harvest with 27 million acres of wheat expected to be planted, an increase of six per cent from 2022 and the biggest amount since 2001. Wheat prices have fallen by nearly 50 per cent since reaching all-time highs in 2022, while they’re up about 16 per cent from pre-pandemic levels.

How Vietnam is trying to stop rice warming the planet

Issued on: 24/03/2023

High levels of methane are generated by bacteria that grow in rice paddies and thrive if leftover straw rots in the fields after harvest 

Can Tho (Vietnam) (AFP) – As a child, Dong Van Canh watched while the rice fields of Vietnam's Mekong Delta were set alight to make way for the next crop, blackening the sky and flooding the air with potent greenhouse gases.

Rice -- Asia's principal staple -- is to blame for around 10 percent of global emissions of methane, a gas that over two decades traps about 80 times as much heat as carbon dioxide.

Usually associated with cows burping, high levels of methane are also generated by bacteria that grow in flooded rice paddies and thrive if leftover straw rots in the fields after harvest.

The message from scientists is: rice cannot be ignored in the battle to cut emissions.

In the Mekong Delta, Canh, now a 39-year-old rice farmer, does not leave straw out to decay on the paddies -- nor does he burn it, as his parents did before him.

Motivated by the memory of being forced inside his home on days the smoke was thick -- sometimes so acrid it made him choke or faint -- he joined an initiative that removes straw from the fields and turns it into mushrooms and organic fertiliser, earning a small income on the side.

Farmers drive a truck carrying rice bags in a field in Can Tho 

"If we can collect the straw and make money, all of us benefit," he told AFP, running his fingers through a large, soft mound of straw, cow dung and rice husks that will soon become nutritious food for Mekong crops.
Shrinking emissions

The programme -- organised by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) -- is one of a handful across Vietnam and the region trying to steadily shrink methane emissions from rice production.

Many of the initiatives are not new but have been spotlighted since around 100 countries signed the Global Methane Pledge two years ago, agreeing to reduce emissions by 30 percent from 2020 levels by 2030.

Several of the world's biggest rice producers, including Indonesia, Bangladesh and Vietnam, are on board -- although the two largest, China and India, failed to sign.

A farmer holds a basket of straw mushrooms in Can Tho 

In Vietnam, as the harvesting season draws to a close, farmers push carts overflowing with straw bales that will later be soaked and laid out to grow straw mushrooms.

Once the fungi are ready they will be sold before the farmers take back the straw and funnel it into a composting machine. Two months later it will be ready -- and can be sold for around 15 cents a kilogram (2.2 pounds).

"In the past a few farmers did this manually but it took too much manpower and the cost was high. Now we've cut costs by half and we will expand to meet the demands of the market," said Le Dinh Du, a rice farmer who also heads the local district's plant protection department.

"The rice goes on a nice journey. We don't waste anything."

Methane-producing bacteria

Vietnam's environment ministry says irrigated rice accounted for almost half of methane emissions in 2019.

Climate-friendly straw management has been introduced and spread "widely to farmers and local agricultural officials" throughout the country, according to CGIAR, an international agricultural research centre.

How many practise what they have learned is unclear. Last year the World Bank said that more than 80 percent of rice straw in the Mekong Delta is still burned in the fields after harvest.

The need to find solutions is pressing.

Unlike other crops, rice paddies have a layer of standing water, so there is no exchange of air between the soil and the atmosphere, explained Bjoern Ole Sander, a senior scientist at the IRRI in Hanoi.

These conditions mean different bacteria are active in rice, compared to wheat or maize fields.

Farmers use a roller to collect straw in a field in Can Tho 

"And these bacteria eat organic matter and produce methane," he said.

As well as straw management, IRRI says another scheme called Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD), which involves breaking up standing water to replenish oxygen and reduce methane-producing bacteria, could also help cut emissions.

Practised on more than 200,000 hectares (494,210 acres) of rice-growing land in the Mekong delta's An Giang province, CGIAR says it has made a significant difference.

For Mekong farmers that have taken the leap, there is pride in contributing to more sustainable farming while getting the most out of their crops.

"We lived hard lives," said Canh. "But once we realised how to take advantage of the straw, things have gotten easier."

© 2023 AFP

PHOTOS © Nhac NGUYEN / AFP

PAKISTAN

The cost of the shadow economy

Dr Abdul Wahid

Published March 13, 2023 


The informal sector’s contribution to Pakistan’s economy is remarkable as it adds a handsome volume of approximately $661 billion, tantamount to 35.6 per cent of GDP. According to the International Labour Organisation, it constitutes 75pc and 68pc of jobs in rural and urban areas; however, it is pregnant with issues like child and bonded labour, gender-based discrimination, and insecurities in the workplace.

Moreover, it embodies small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that are populated by self-employed entrepreneurs, small businesses, informal associations, and street vendors in agriculture and micro-enterprise setups, and thus, they tend to be more resilient to economic downturns. Despite its volume and contribution to the economy, the informal sector creates financial vulnerabilities for formal setups.

Let’s consider the formal market. The Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) board of the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) is a sub-market for SMEs and high-growth companies looking to go public. The GEM board was established following Alternative Investment Market in London, which itself was established in 1995 by the London Stock Exchange as a sub-market to provide a market for SMEs, business startups, and incubates to raise capital and provide a platform for investors to access returns from small businesses.

It has become one of the world’s leading growth markets in the UK for smaller companies, with over 3,000 listed companies from over 70 countries. Though companies listed on the GEM board in Pakistan are subject to less stringent listing criteria and regulations as compared to the ones listed on the main board of the PSX, to the present date, only three SMEs made it to the GEM board, i.e. Pak Agro Packaging Ltd, Supernet Ltd and Universal Network Systems.

Informal setups are backed by special interest groups through a complex mix of tax laws and regulatory compliances for the formal sector

This anomaly has a handful of reasons, like investor participation seems minuscule as only 0.3 million accounts are registered with the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited out of around 57.5m bank accounts. This indicates less than 0.5pc of investor participation at the PSX forum.

Investor participation, driven by incentivisation and a less stringent regulatory burden to the informal sector, is visible in real estate property pricing bubbles, higher forex trading returns, and inflationary pressure. These avenues produce ample easy money with the least risk and low regularity compliances under state patronage.

The Imran Khan-led government launched a construction amnesty scheme to promote housing to generate jobs and fill the gap of millions of housing unit shortages. According to Zameen.com, since 2018, the average per square feet price has increased from Rs3,300 to 7,000, which is 26pc returns per annum in open plots investment in Islamabad.

It not only doubled the real estate prices in other cities such as Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Faisalabad but also shifted the investment chunk toward the real estate sector. Many industrialists shifted their attention to the real estate sector.

Similarly, the gold price in December 2017 was Rs56,200 per tola, but now it is Rs201,000 per tola, which is more than 50pc return per annum in gold investment. Likewise, on 14 Jan 2018, the exchange rate of rupees to the dollar was Rs110 to a dollar, and now it is Rs278 — an average of 30-35pc returns per annum.

On the flip side, KSE-100 Index provided compounded annual returns of 14.55pc, and industrial profit was recorded at less than 15pc per annum. The inflation rate in 2018 was 5.08pc, and now it is above 30pc. If the inflation-adjusted returns per annum are calculated, it can be said that the real return an investor receives in the formal market and industrial setup is negative.

Pakistan already has one of the highest income tax rates in the world as far as corporations are concerned, which further depicts a decrease in the wealth of formal sector investors. Consequently, since 2013, more than 200 companies have been delisted from PSX. Only 526 companies are listed on the main board, and just three SMEs are listed on the GEM board; however, the total number of registered companies with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan now stands at 176,000.

The prominent explanation for delisting is a cost-benefit trade-off. If a listed firm’s marginal benefit/cost ratio is less than shedding avoidable costs, this may lead to de-capitalisation.

Nevertheless, investor participation is more in informal sectors in which most of the businesses are unregistered. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) confirms that more than 90pc of the SMEs that operate in the informal sector are set up with the help of family members and friends.

These businesses generally operate in agri-business, food chain, agri-machinery, and textile sectors. Some of these raise money for seasonal products and services and wind up their business when the season ends. These setups are more visible during harvest in rural areas and in food chain industries in urban areas. They earn money by stocking up on necessities like sugar, flour, wheat, grains, oils etc.

They employ the staff on a seasonal or contractual basis and then lay them off. Furthermore, fewer salaries are paid to them compared to minimum wages in cash form without any social security i.e. health insurance and accommodation. Consequently, social and financial vulnerabilities for unemployed youth are increasing drastically, resulting in modern slavery.

Informalisation is proliferated to avoid income tax, intense documentation and regulation, which further fuels decapitalisation and insecurities in the labour market. These informal setups are backed by special interest groups of local politicians, families of bureaucrats, and land elites through a complex mix of tax laws and regulatory compliances for the formal sector.

The writer is an Assistant Professor (PhD Financial Economics) at the National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad. He can be reached at (abwahid.fms@gmail.com)

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, March 13th, 2023

TOXIC DANGEROUS GOODS

Ohio Gov. DeWine warns of possible 'major explosion' at train derailment site; evacuations ordered

Alan Ashworth and Thao Nguyen,

 USA TODAY NETWORK
Sun, February 5, 2023 

AKRON, Ohio — Authorities warned Sunday that a "major explosion" is possible at the site of a train derailment, which led to a chemical fire, causing environmental and safety concerns in northeastern Ohio.

Residents living within a mile of the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, a village near the Pennsylvania border, were given an urgent evacuation order Sunday night. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Sunday that there had been a "drastic temperature change" in a rail car, which could cause a "catastrophic tanker failure," making it possible for an explosion with deadly shrapnel traveling up to a mile.

Nearly half of the village of 4,761 residents were told to evacuate late Friday after a train carrying hazardous materials derailed and caused a chemical fire. The village remained under a state of emergency and evacuation order but local officials said more than 500 people have declined to leave their homes.

MORE: Train derailment in northeastern Ohio causes massive fire, evacuations

LOUISIANA TRAIN DERAILMENT: Train derailment causes acid leak in Louisiana, prompting evacuations, road closures

Dozens of train cars, lingering fires

During a news conference early Saturday, officials said about 50 train cars were involved, many of them still burning at the time.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the incident, 20 train cars were carrying hazardous materials and ten of those cars derailed.

Five of the ten derailed cars were carrying vinyl chloride, the NTSB said in a statement Saturday. The agency said it has “not confirmed vinyl chloride has been released other than from the pressure release devices.”

The cars involved were also carrying combustible liquids, butyl acrylate, and residue of benzene from previous shipments, as well as nonhazardous materials such as wheat, plastic pellets, malt liquors, and lube oil, according to the NTSB.

The NTSB announced Sunday that a mechanical issue with a rail car axle caused the fiery derailment.

In a brief statement after the accident, Norfolk Southern, the transportation company that owns the derailed train, said it was coordinating with first responders in the village while assembling its own team to respond.

Village Mayor Trent Conaway issued an evacuation order for residents in a 1-mile radius around the derailment. He said no injuries or fatalities had been reported.

On Saturday afternoon, the Columbiana County Sheriff's Office said a curfew starting at 10 p.m. would be enforced in a 1-mile radius around the derailment.

Conaway warned people that arrests would occur if people did not stay away from the scene. He said one person was arrested for going around barricades right up to the crash during the night.

“I don’t know why anybody would want to be up there; you’re breathing toxic fumes if you’re that close,” Conaway said.

He also stressed that air quality levels away from the fire showed no concerns and that the village's water is safe because it is fed by groundwater unaffected by some material that went into streams. Environmental protection agency crews were working to remove contaminants from streams and monitor water quality.

MISSOURI AMTRACK DERAILMENT: At least 3 dead, 40 injured after Amtrak train derails after hitting truck in Missouri

'If you have to come to East Palestine, don’t'

East Palestine Fire Chief Keith A. Drabick said in a news conference Saturday morning that the train had been en route from Madison, Illinois, to Conway, Pennsylvania.

Drabick said first responders had been pulled from the scene, but unmanned ground monitors were being used and air quality monitoring was ongoing. He said there had been several explosions, leading to the decision to pull responders from the scene.

“If you have to come to East Palestine, don’t,” he said. “Stay out of the area.”

Conaway said about 25 to 30 agencies were helping respond to the derailment. He said about 1,500 to 2,000 residents live in the evacuation zone, adding: “It’s about half the town."

On Facebook, former University of Akron student Eric Whiting said he had been among those evacuated in East Palestine.

“The train is burning with chemicals on it and makes the air hard to breathe,” he posted.

Contributing: The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: Ohio officials urge evacuations near derailment amid explosion fears

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/02/50-car-train-derailment-causes-big-fire.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/02/freight-train-derails-in-ohio-us-huge.html

Kashmir: facing multiple assaults

India’s actions in the occupied region mimic Israeli settler policies in Palestine.

Maleeha Lodhi 

Published January 9, 2023 
The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK & UN.

Just about every aspect of life for Muslims in occupied Jammu and Kashmir is under assault by India’s ruling BJP.

The year 2022 saw Indian actions aimed at disempowering its Muslim population by reshaping Kashmir’s demographic landscape and measures to systematically erode Kashmiri culture, language and religious identity.

Properties were confiscated and new land laws were introduced that would seize land from locals and give it to outsiders. The media has been muzzled, and journalists jailed and prevented from travelling overseas. Human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings and torture, continue with impunity while the entire leadership of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) remains in detention. More paramilitary forces were inducted into the world’s most militarised region.

A more egregious example of repression such as that in Kashmir can hardly be found anywhere in the world. Yet this grim situation is met by silence from countries that claim to be standard-bearers of human rights. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s international campaign to expose this is fitful at best, preoccupied as it is with multiple crises at home. Islamabad’s Kashmir diplomacy is now limited to just sending letters to the UN.

Although the occupied territory has seen violent oppression for over seven decades, Delhi’s unilateral action on Aug 5, 2019, opened a more brutal chapter in Kashmir’s tortured history. The Indian government illegally annexed the state of Jammu and Kashmir, bifurcated it, and integrated it into the Indian union. This was in blatant violation of UN Security Council resolutions. There are 11 resolutions on Kashmir. Specifically, it was a contravention of UNSC Resolution 38, whose para 2 clearly states that neither party to the dispute can bring about a material change in the situation in Kashmir.

A prolonged lockdown and communication blackout was imposed, the military siege tightened, public assembly was banned, the press silenced and Kashmiri leaders, including pro-Delhi politicians, jailed to prevent a popular upsurge against the move that robbed the Kashmiri people of virtually all their rights.

Since then, the BJP government has taken a number of steps —administrative, demographic and electoral — to disempower and disenfranchise Kashmiris and change the Muslim identity of Kashmir. Several actions mimic Israeli settler policies in occupied Palestine. In May 2022, India’s Delimitation Commission announced a plan to carve out new electoral constituencies, aimed at giving Jammu greater representation to reduce the political weight of Muslims in the J&K assembly and shift the balance to Hindus. Muslims constitute over 68 per cent of J&K’s population while Hindus represent around 28pc according to the (last) 2011 census. The BJP government wants through the delimitation plan to turn the Muslim majority into a minority.

India’s actions in the occupied region mimic Israeli settler policies in Palestine.

Demographic changes have also been set in train by new domicile rules introduced by Delhi. Over 3.4 million so-called domicile certificates have been issued to non-Kashmiri outsiders, who became eligible after abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A of the Indian constitution in 2019. In July 2022, the chief election officer in the occupied Valley announced granting voting rights to any Indian citizen, even temporary residents, in a brazen effort to change the region’s demography. This would add almost 2.5m additional voters, including non-locals, to the electoral rolls. It represents an increase of 30pc voters to the electorate. Like the delimitation plan, this announcement provoked anger and resentment in Kashmir. APHC leaders denounced it and as did traditionally pro-India former chief ministers and politicians. Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference said the “inclusion of non-locals” was a “clear-cut ploy to disenfranchise the people of J&K”.

None of this has deterred the Modi government from pressing ahead. Nor have its actions been limited to electoral gerrymandering. Last year, BJP authorities seized the J&K Waqf Board and thus all its properties across the region. This marked a drive to take control of all prominent places of religious significance for Muslims in the occupied territory, including shrines. Religious leaders and Islamic scholars were arrested and prayers have been barred in many mosques across Kashmir. In the guise of cracking down on Jamaat-i-Islami, banned in 2019, the authorities have more recently seized properties worth millions of rupees. This includes a home that once belonged to the iconic Hurriyat leader, Syed Ali Geelani, who was denied a proper funeral in 2021.

BJP’s attack on Kashmiri culture has also involved eroding the status of Urdu. For over 100 years, Urdu was the official language of J&K. But in 2020, Urdu’s exclusive status was ended by legislation that made Hindi, Kashmiri and Dogri official languages in J&K, in addition to Urdu and English. Moves are now afoot to change the script of the Kashmiri language from Nastaliq to the Devanagri script.

None of this has attracted much international attention. What has been denounced by international human rights organisations is the silencing of Kashmir’s media, the arrest of journalists under sedition and anti-terror laws and the atmosphere of intimidation that has been created especially in the wake of the new, harsh media policy of 2020. In February 2022, Human Rights Watch condemned the intensified crackdown on the independent media and noted the “increasing harassment, threats, and prosecutions of journalists and human rights activists” in Kashmir. In September 2022, Amnesty International detailed the clampdown on the media and sweeping curbs on the freedom of expression, noting that the Kashmir Press Club had been closed down.

The BJP government seeks to use intensified repression, demographic changes and changing the electoral map to set the stage for eventual elections in J&K. This aims to consolidate and ‘legitimise’ its August 2019 action and enable Delhi to claim that the situation in Jammu and Kashmir has been ‘normalised’. But its efforts to entice and enlist even pro-India Kashmiri leaders to support this plan have failed. In the face of overwhelming Kashmiri opposition to the delimitation plan and new voting rules, it is hard to see how elections can be held, and if they are, whether they will be credible. Delhi’s policies of force and fraud have long failed in Kashmir and only deepened the alienation of its people and strengthened their resolve to resist occupation. There is little reason to think this will change in the future.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2023

GB protests

Editorial 

Published January 9, 2023 

MASSIVE protests held across Gilgit-Baltistan over the past several days have united the region’s geographically and religiously diverse communities, as well as supporters of different political parties. Moreover, traders’ bodies in the northern region have also backed the demonstrations. GB’s people have taken to the streets in freezing temperatures for a raft of reasons, which include questions about land rights, taxation, extensive power cuts as well as a reduction in the amount of subsidised wheat the centre provides the region. The fact is that GB’s residents are protesting about many of the same things people in other parts of Pakistan also raise their voices against. However, GB’s ambiguous constitutional status, as well as the lack of infrastructure compared to the rest of the country, makes this region’s plight unique. The protesters are not in favour of the GB Revenue Authority Bill, which was passed by the region’s assembly last year, as they say it imposes additional taxes on the region without giving it any representation in the federation. Moreover, the locals also have serious reservations about the state taking over land in the region that they say belongs to the people. The state has been acquiring land in GB for CPEC as well as other projects.

Considering that the people of GB have united over these issues, the state has to engage with them, listen to their concerns and arrive at mutually agreed solutions. Ramming ‘solutions’ down the people’s throats will only aggravate matters. The local people have a valid point where it comes to additional taxation. If the state is extracting revenue from the region, then it also has a responsibility to provide elected representation for GB in parliament. Of course, the constitutional status of the region has been kept vague due to the Kashmir dispute, but as has been argued in the past, a provisional provincial status can be considered for GB until that imbroglio is resolved. Coming to the land issue, this is a very sensitive matter and only through engaging with the local people politically can it be resolved amicably. While the state has a right to acquire land it feels is essential in the national interest, the people need to be taken on board and compensated accordingly, and no forced takeovers of land should take place. It is hoped that representatives of the government engage with the people of GB and resolve these issues in a democratic fashion.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2023

Gilgit-Baltistan

Gilgit-Baltistan, formerly known as the Northern Areas, is a region administered by Pakistan as an administrative territory, and constituting the northern portion of the larger Kashmir region which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947, and between India and China f... Wikipedia

SORRY YOU SOLD THE WHEAT BOARD, YET

• This year's harvest under possible threat of Canada's supply chain shortcomings

Caitlin Yardley, The Canadian Press

This year's important harvest has farmers hopeful it will make up for last year's poor crop yield, yet supply chain stalls could put a further wrench in agriculture profits.

The Western Grain Elevator Association said that capacity remains stable but not comfortable, as grain elevator levels reach 85 per cent, leading to fears of grain delivery delays.

Western Canada's grain harvest is an estimated 75 million tonnes this year, said Wade Sobkowich, executive director for the Western Grain Elevator Association, as drought, floods and wildfires contributed to a below average harvest of 49 billion tonnes the year prior.

Sobkowich said 85 per cent is an acceptable fulfilment level. When the rate drops below that, railcar delays impact the entire supply chain, leading to a buildup at the grain elevators and slow down farmer deliveries.

"Farmer's don't get paid until they deliver," he said.

Last year, one in nine people were employed by the agriculture sector, contributing $135 billion to Canada's gross domestic product, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Currently, farmers are ordering around 10,000 to 11,000 railcars per week, said Sobkowich.

The AG Transport Coalition's most recent grain report from September, said that Canadian National Railway fulfilled 88 per cent of hopper cars and Canadian Pacific Railway fulfilled 77 per cent, at an increase of 73 per cent the week prior.

CP spokeswoman Salem Woodrow, said in a statement that the company is prepared to meet the transportation needs of grain customers this crop year.

She said CP ramped up hopper car delivery at the start of the crop year, matching record order fulfilment and port unload levels over September.

Sobkowich said the discrepancy in the numbers between CP and CN is due to the recording methods of CP as the railway company calculates the demand they accept rather than legitimate demand.

"Probably, in CP's view they are performing better than what our numbers show," said Sobkowich.

CN also said it has made record grain movements, as 2.62 million tonnes of grain move from Western Canada in September, said CN spokesman Jonathan Abecassis.

Although, Abecassis said CN did have a slow start to the season, as the harvest was slow to get underway and grain supplies were tight given the impact of last year’s drought.

"Unfortunately, getting trains moving again is a progressive process, it doesn’t all just happen at once,” said Abecassis in a statement.

Sobkowich said CN seems to be holding at an acceptable level, "although of course we would like to see them get closer to 100 per cent."

He said the WGEA will continue to watch fulfilment levels closely but has some concerns about how delivery stalls could persist into the fall.

Transport Minister Omar Alghabra announced an $8 million investment in new grain terminal equipment in the Port of Montréal earlier this month to improve the quality of the grain-cleaning service, optimize traffic flow in the yard, and increase capacity for loading and handling containers.

“Thanks to these funds, grain exports here at the Port of Montréal will be able to move more than double,” said Alghabra at a news conference.

In a phone interview, Alghabra said a new rail regulation will come into force, that requires rail companies to provide more information about operations and performance. However, no exact timeline on when the regulation will come into effect has been announced.

The Minister's announcements come after the National Supply Chain Task Force said in a final report that urgent action from both government and industry is needed to keep goods flowing in Canada.

ADVANCED CAPITALI$T ECONOMY

Fragility of Canada's supply chains on display as burning Alberta bridge stalls grain shipments

'An entire economy is relying on these little ribbons of steel through Canada'

Author of the article: Jake Edmiston
Publishing date: Oct 06, 2022 • 

A Canadian National Railway Co. container at the Intermodal Terminals in Brampton, Ont. 

PHOTO BY COLE BURSTON/BLOOMBERG FILES
Article content

Greg Sears was supposed to deliver 90 tonnes of his canola crop to a grain elevator near Grande Prairie, Alta., about 500 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, on Oct. 6. But before he left his farm, a local rep at Viterra Canada Inc., a major grain exporter, called and told him to hold off, likely for several weeks.

“That’s $75,000 to $100,000 of product that I’m not going to get a cheque for any time soon,” Sears said.

About 24 hours earlier, a bridge burned down on the Canadian National Railway Co. line, about 95 kilometres to the south, severing the only rail link in or out of Grande Prairie and causing backlogs for the grain shippers who depend on that track to get their product to port.

CN said the severed line only moves a fraction of the total grain coming off fields in Western Canada. But for grain farmers and exporters, the bridge fire was another example of the fragility of the national supply lines that connect one of the world’s most important bread baskets with seaports and global markets.

“An entire economy is relying on these little ribbons of steel through Canada,” said Sears, who serves as board chair of the Alberta Wheat Commission, a farm lobby group. “One bridge washout or fire or any type of event can cause some major impacts.”

CN already has angered exporters this season for making excuses about its inability to meet all of the demand for grain hopper cars during one of the most anticipated harvests in recent memory.

A CN locomotive pulls a train in Montreal.

 PHOTO BY CHRISTINNE MUSCHI/BLOOMBERG FILES

In an email to customers, the railway said it will be “at least a week” before trains start running again on the line affected by the bride fire, which spans from around Jasper National Park north to Grande Prairie.

David Przednowek, who heads CN’s grain unit, said the Grande Prairie line is one of two serving the broader Peace River region in northwestern Alberta. And the whole region represents about three million tonnes out of a total average annual crop of 75 million tonnes harvested in Western Canada, Przednowek said.

“That’s how you have to think about the overall scale,” Przednowek said. Still, he acknowledged that for farmers in and around Grande Prairie, it’s “a very consequential” event. “We are working as fast as we can,” he said.

The farm that Sears runs, near Sexsmith, Alta., 15 kilometres or so north of Grande Prairie, just finished harvesting canola, wheat, barley and field peas. He’s got to pay bills for that harvest, and start buying fertilizer and other inputs for next year. But he hasn’t had any cash flow for months, because he sold the last of his previous crop back in June.

“This is definitely not a great time for a rail outage,” Sears said. “For most farmers, it’s when your bank account is at its lowest.”

For most farmers, it's when your bank account is at its lowest

GREG SEARS

Pressure has been mounting in Ottawa for the government to co-ordinate an overhaul of the national transportation and supply infrastructure following major disruptions in the past year, including the extreme flooding in British Columbia last fall that effectively cut off West Coast ports from the rest of Canada.

“The system buckles. Every couple of years, it buckles,” Evan Fraser, director of the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph, told the House of Commons agriculture committee last week. “You end up with these tiny, umbilical links between the Prairies and world markets,” he continued. “All the food production in this area the size of Europe going through, essentially, a small number of rail lines through a couple of passes.”

Przednowek, CN’s assistant vice-president for grain, said some of those disruptions are unavoidable.

“The CN network overall is 19,000 miles. It’s an outdoor sport,” he said, “and there are factors that are beyond anybody’s individual control that will have impacts on the supply chain. All of those can’t be eliminated.”

On Thursday, a federal task force issued a report warning that the supply chain is reaching “a breaking point.”

The National Supply Chain Task Force, a panel of executives and experts assembled by the federal government earlier this year, found that Canada’s patchwork of ports, railroads, warehouses, loading terminals and airports is so interconnected that the “slightest problem” can reverberate across the system, said Louise Yako, a logistics industry veteran who co-chaired the task force.

“This report is an urgent call,” Yako said at a news conference.

Yako and her colleagues settled on a list of 21 actions that need to be taken “before our country’s reputation as a reliable trading partner is further tarnished,” their report said.

And those major changes won’t happen without government intervention, the report said, because Canada’s supply chain is made up of private operators all trying to “to optimize their own operations without considering their impacts on others in the supply chain.”

• Email: jedmiston@postmedia.com | Twitter: jakeedmiston

The SKELP Directives: U.S. Secret Financing of Germ Warfare during the Korean War

BY JEFFREY KAYE  SEPTEMBER 23, 2022

LONG READ

Facebook

TwitterRedditEmail

Picture of “bacterial bombs” modified from U.S. psychological warfare leaflet bombs, from the September 1952 “Report of International Scientific Commission for the Investigation of the Facts Concerning Bacterial Warfare in Korea and China,” pg. 357 (For history of this report, click here.)

The General was irritated. It was mid-January 1952, and from accounts subsequently released by China, North Korea, and international investigators, a campaign of aerial bombardment with biological weapons (BW) was taking place over both China and North Korea.

The germ weapons attacks allegedly were aimed at both military personnel and civilians, and included the dissemination of plant diseases. Now, suddenly, the bureaucrats in the Pentagon were turning off the secret money spigot for some of the most classified projects of the war!

What happened?

This essay is the first historical account of the secret funding used for the research into and production of chemical and biological weapons during the Korean War. It is based largely on declassified documents available in the U.S. National Archives, many of which are available at the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” collection at brillonline.com.

Besides clandestine forms of funding their secret weapons, this article will also look at other ways in which the BW program was kept secret, including the use of unwritten orders, the false labeling of weapons during shipment, and extraordinary security procedures taken during the movement of such materials.

The Korean War-era BW allegations have remained controversial for decades. A few years ago, this author postedonline a few dozen declassified CIA communications intelligence (COMINT) reports documenting the fact that various Communist military units were indeed reporting, in encrypted dispatches with authorities and other military units, U.S. attacks by biological weapons in the early months of 1952.

Units from China’s People’s Volunteer Army and the DPRK Korean People’s Army continued making such internal reports at least through the end of the year, and existing evidence argues these reports continued until nearly the armistice agreement in July 1953.

Despite such clear evidence of BW attack by U.S. forces, Western historians and commentators have ignored the CIA COMINT reports, relying on dubious documentation from “experts.” At the same time, historians have been unable to ignore the fact that the U.S. military, with assistance from the CIA, vastly accelerated its BW research program during the Korean War. Even as hundreds of anti-crop biological bombs were forward positioned in England and North Africa against the USSR as early as 1951 (as will be described below), Western scholars today insist that the U.S. did not implement actual offensive BW operations during this period.

In December 1958, as part of the sedition trial of John and Sylvia Powell, who reported on U.S. use of germ warfare in China and Korea, Ft. Detrick official John L. Schwab, stated under oath in an affidavit to the federal court that from the period 1 January 1949 through 27 July 1953, “the U.S. Army had a capability to wage both chemical and biological warfare, offensively and defensively.” Schwab had been at one point Chief of Ft. Detrick’s Special Operations Division, which worked closely with CIA on concocting BW and chemical weapons for use in sabotage and assassination operations.

View of the main entrance to Fort Detrick in 1956, west of current main gate on West 7th Street. Prior to 1956, the site was known as Camp Detrick (Source: Ch. 3, “Cutting Edge: The History of Ft. Detrick,” Public Domain)

Schwab then added that “during the aforesaid period, the biological warfare capability was based upon resources available and retrained only within the continental limits of the United States.”

As we shall see, biological munitions were indeed sent overseas as early as 1951. Declassified documents from the Department of Defense show that Schwab apparently committed perjury on this point.

Screenshot from the Pentagon’s 15 July 1952 Weapons System Evaluation Group report, “An Evaluation of Offensive Biological Warfare Weapons Systems Employing Manned Aircraft,” Enclosure “E”: “Characteristics of Anti-crop Agents, Munitions, and Weapons Systems”, p. E-59 — The “two overseas installations” were in England and Libya, as discussed elsewhere in this article. “ZI” is the “Interior Zone” of the U.S., aka the continental United States.

In any case, if there were any covert BW campaign — one that operated on a strict need-to-know basis— we would expect its funding would also be highly classified, and directions regarding its operations deliberately muddled or unrecorded. That is exactly what we do find, as attempts were made to keep such evidence as secret as possible.

Verbal instructions only

A declassified Summary History of the U.S. Chemical Corps, dated 30 October 1951, and covering the period 25 June 1950 through 8 September 1951, revealed that under the pressures of intense warfare and U.S./UN military setbacks on the Korean peninsula, the Chemical Corps gave a “terrific push” to the development and creation of new biological and chemical agents. The relevant secret orders were delivered orally. There was no mistaking the urgency behind these orders.

Screenshot from pg. 11, “Summary History of the U.S. Chemical Corps, 25 June 1950 through 8 September 1951″

According to this previously top secret internal history, the Chief Chemical Officer of the Chemical Corps at the time, Major General Anthony C. McAuliffe, “issued verbal instructions that, regardless of previous plans,” both chemical weapons (CW) and “a BW interim weapon” “were to be rushed to completion.”

The use of “verbal instuctions” implied that aspects of this program were too secret or sensitive to be written down. The operations of portions of the BW program were covert, subject to deniability by the President and other top U.S. officials. Indeed, President Truman always maintained that he never ordered their use, or a change from a supposed policy of using such weapons in retaliation only.

The use of verbal orders to maintain secrecy is hardly unknown. According to OSS documents dating from the close of World War II, verbal instructions were used to authorize field commanders to use anti-crop biological weapons. Turning to a different era, the Vietnam War, Congressional investigations documented that the orders and instructions for the U.S. Air Force to secretly bomb Cambodia were delivered orally.

Similarly, Canadian scholars Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman documented in their 1998 book, The U.S. and Biological Warfare (University of Indiana Press, p. 11), that in 1949, “preparations… for ready implementation” of biological warfare plans were in the hands of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, bypassing the National Security Council. “These plans were so secret that they were presented orally to Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal and Secretary of State George Marshall.” When such plans were discussed again in 1952, “it was decided that only the secretary of defense” — and not the secretary of state — would be notified. (1)

Whatever the level of secrecy involved, war plans costs money. Secret operations must leave some kind of trail. Newbie journalists are advised in their investigations to “follow the money.” And so we shall.

So let’s return to our irritated general. He was Major General Egbert G. Bullene, who left his post as head of Edgewood Arsenal to succeed McAuliffe as Chief Chemical Officer of the Chemical Corps in mid-1951. In January 1952, he and the Chemical Corps were in the very sensitive first operational stages of implementing their “stop-gap,” “interim” biological warfare plans against North Korea and China.

The plans utilized a combination of BW weapons, many apparently based upon designs from Japan’s old biowar Unit 731, which heavily relied on traditional forms of sabotage, as well as the unique use of insect vectors to deliver bacterial agents such as bubonic plague. Other BW munitions designed by Ft. Detrick and/or the U.S. Air Force, such as experimental use of aerosol dissemination of pathogens, may also have been in the mix. But suddenly the spigot of secret funding had been cut off! (2)

“Normal military channels were by-passed

17 January 1952 secret memorandum  (click to download) from Gen. Bullene to Secretary of the Army Frank Pace, Jr., source Brill Online/National Archives

In a 17 January 1952 secret memorandum from Gen. Bullene to Secretary of the Army Frank Pace, Jr., the Chemical Corps chief complained about the sudden lower priority assigned by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to development of both Sarin nerve gas (codename GB) and to biological weaponry. The unexpected reduction in funding priority was retarding development of the Chemical Corps’ new agent production facilities for GB and BW, codenamed Projects Gibbet and Noodle, respectively.

“Priority and urgency must go hand in hand,” the general said.

“You will recall more than a year ago,” Bullene wrote to Pace (via Michael E. Kalette, special assistant for Construction at the Munitions Board, working in the office of the Undersecretary of Army for Research and Materiel), “a directive was issued to the Chief Chemical Officer… to initiate design and construction of certain highly classified projects in the field of GB and BW.”

Bullene continued:

“These projects were initiated with vigorous action under a scope of highest priority and unusual administrative procedures. Normal military channels were by-passed in the interests of urgency and for other peculiar reasons known to the Secretary’s office.”

Did the “other peculiar reasons” too secret to be detailed in a merely “secret” memorandum concern the use of “interim” Unit 731-style BW projects, which were utilized until the Chemical Corps more mainstream projects, such as the anti-personnel Brucella suis and anthrax bombs were ready for full-scale use?

The September 1952 report of the International Scientific Commission, headed by respected British scientist Joseph Needham documented the kinds of Unit 731 BW attacks that allegedly occurred throughout the first nine months of 1952. Looking at the use of insect vector attacks and other types of infected materials, such as chicken feathers, UK scientist Joseph Needham, and other scientists investigating the BW allegations in summer of 1952, wondered “whether the American Far Eastern Command was engaged in making use of methods essentially Japanese… questions which could hardly have been absent from the minds of members of the Commission” (pg. 12).

A sketch of an Uji Bomb, an “improved porcelain experimental bomb for bacterial liquid drawn from sketch submitted by Lt. Gen. Shiro Ishii,” was included, along with other Japanese bomb designs, in Chemical Corps’ officer Lt. Col. Arvo Thompson’s May 1946 report to Ft. Detrick on Japanese BW activities

Needham and company could hardly have known that Fort Detrick already had sketches of biological bombs drawn from information personally obtained from Unit 731’s Shiro Ishii.

Nor could the ISC have known that U.S. Army Chemical Corps researchers believed at the time that “Insects and other arthropods act as vectors and reservoirs of some of the most promising and highest priority BW agents affecting man and animals.” The 1953 fiscal year annual report for the Chemical Corps Biological Laboratoriesfurther enthused, “Arthropods provide a tactical concept of BW agent dissemination, as they can efficiently carry agents to specific targets.” (See pg. 77 of the report, which while dated 1 July 1953, covered the period from 1 July 1952 to 30 June 1953.)

Imperial Japan’s Unit 731 and the U.S. Army’s Chemical Corps Intelligence Branch

The October 1951 “Summary History of the Chemical Corps,” quoted earlier above, described in its section on “Intelligence” how the activities of its Intelligence Branch — which operated under the Plans, Training, and Intelligence division of the Chemical Corps— “were greatly increased with the advent of the conflict in Korea. The branch received a vast amount of military and technical intelligence from the Far East. Consequently it was confronted with the job of reorganizing to meet this influx and of acquiring the qualified personnel to fill new positions. At the present time these problems are not entirely solved, and temporary expedients have been adopted to meet the emergency.” [pg. 32, bold emphases added.]

Unfortunately, we still don’t know too much about how the Chemical Corps incorporated this “vast amount of military and technical intelligence,” which can only have been the data and studies provided by Japan’s Unit 731 personnelunder the terms of an amnesty for war crimes secretly granted by the U.S. Most likely much of that information was destroyed, or still remains carefully guarded in the vaults where especially sensitive information remains sealed.

A portion of these materials ended up in the U.S. National Archives. In 1960, the U.S. government declassified three “key documents” from the Unit 731 materials. Titled “The Report of A” (anthrax), “The Report of G” (glanders), and “The Report of Q” (bubonic plague), the reports are hundreds of pages long. “They are available to the public at the U.S. Library of Congress.”

The 744-page Unit 731-Ft. Detrick report on “Q” (bubonic plague) rested for some years in the Technical Library at the Chemical Corps’ Dugway Proving Ground.

Much of what we do know about the postwar activities of Unit 731 and the work at Ft. Detrick during the Korean War comes from the investigations and reports of Chinese and North Korean military and scientific personnel, the limited release of certain COMINT documents by the CIA, a handful of contemporary newspaper reports, and the work of investigators from the International Association of Democratic Jurists and the International Scientific Commission.

Of much significance in this regard is a 26 June 1947 memorandum to the State, War, Navy Coordinating Committee for the Far East from two Defense Department officials, Edward Wetter with the Research and Development Board (RDB) and Dr. Henry I. Stubblefield from Ft. Detrick.

The Wetter-Stubblefield memo explained that the U.S. agreement not to prosecute Ishii or other Unit 731 criminals was based on the promise “that information given by them on the Japanese BW program will be retained in intelligence channels.”

Evidently the materials became the property initially of the Intelligence Branch of the Chemical Corps, and probably the CIA, and were held closely on a need to know basis.

As an important side note, as I pointed out in an earlier article, by Spring 1950, Wetter was serving as Deputy Executive Director of RDB’s Biological Warfare Committee. He was the contact person for all the “panels” within the Committee that were working on biological warfare, including “panels” on “Man,” “Animals,” “Crops,” and “Intelligence.” The Army representative to the RDB’s BW Committee “Panel on Crops,” i.e., for anti-crop biological warfare, was Wetter’s old colleague, Dr. Henry I. Stubblefield.

Code Name “SKELP”

Meanwhile, in January 1952, Gen. Bullene, in charge at the Chemical Corps, had his own fish to fry. In his memo to Pace, he described the special procurement procedures unique to both the Sarin and BW crash development programs:

“An expediting group for priority procurement was established within the Munitions Board, and direct access to the National Production Authority was exercised. These projects were pursued under a code name of ‘SKELP’ and MPA directives issued for these projects were known as SKELP directives. These measures insured special and positive actions regarding procurement.”

Hence, according to Bullene’s account, it appears that the funds for building the secret productions facilities to produce Sarin gas and agents of biological warfare were hidden in the guise of special Army military personnel directives (MPAs).

But now Bullene was flustered. Even though the “scope of priority and procedure” for procurement had continued “without hesitation or question” for over a year, suddenly in December 1951, the Munitions Board was throwing bureaucratic obstacles in the way of the Chemical Corps’ top secret projects.

Bullene described how that December the Munitions Board suddenly was requiring “a statement of priority from the Office of the Under Secretary of the Army” before proceeding with the special procurement procedures, “since the impact of other priority programs was being felt and the situation needed clarification.” When the Munitions Board did not receive such a “statement of priority or urgency,” it discontinued the SKELP priority procedures. For Bullene, the situation could not have come at a more “critical time.”

What other “priority programs” could suddenly have arisen to necessitate some kind of “clarification” at the Munitions Board (or in the office of the Under Secretary of the Army for Research and Materiel)? And why was December 1951-January 1952 such a “critical time”? Among other things, this was the period of the onset of large-scale bombing raids that allegedly used biological weapons. But there were other projects as well.

The subject line for Bullene’s memo specified that two classified programs were at stake here: the construction of a plant to develop Sarin gas (Project Gibbet) and one to produce biological weapons material, in particular, anti-crop agents (Project Noodle).

Author and researcher Nicholson Baker wrote about Project Noodle in his recent book, Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act (page 112):

“A factory for vegetative agents, code-named NOODLE, was being built in Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas, according to a Department of Defense progress report prepared in December 1951 by Earl Stevenson of Arthur D. Little and CIA chemist Willis Gibbons. ‘The anti-crop program is aimed at the bread basket of the Soviet Union,’ the report said. ‘Unfilled bombs for these agents have been produced and delivered to overseas bases. This year, increasingly significant quantities of anti-wheat and anti-rye agents have been harvested.’”

According to Baker, the Gibbet (or GIBBETT) Sarin plant was built in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The Noodle plant to produce “vegetative agents,” such as wheat stem rust, was part of an anti-crop program of biological warfare whose main target was the Soviet Union.

A little over a month after Bullene sent his complaint to the Department of the Army, the Joint Chiefs of Staff prepared a draft memorandum to the Chairman of the Munitions Board. Dated 25 February 1952, the draft memo, “Priority for Chemical and Biological Warfare Facilities,” proposed that both Projects Noodle and Gibbet be transferred to “the urgent ‘S’ category” for funding purposes. This policy had the backing of the Army’s Chief of Staff, who noted that previously, both Noodle and Gibbet “were given the highest authority under the name of SKELP.” (According to a 2012 Department of Defense history on DoD acquisition, [pg. 108], “S” category represented the “highest priority” of military urgency for munitions production, reserved for programs to be selected by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.)

The February 1952 JCS memo was the only other mention of SKELP directives that I have ever found in any of the extant documentation declassified to date.

“Somebody’s pet enthusiasm”

Screenshot, from pg. 4, 29 October 1951 memo to Air Force General Howard Bunker from William A. M. Burden, Source: Brillonline/National Archives

A final, suggestive explanation as to why SKELP funding of BW programs was suddenly curtailed in late 1951 appears in a 29 October 1951 memo to Air Force General Howard Bunker from William A. M. Burden, special assistant for research and development to Secretary of the Air Force Thomas Finletter, and also an “heir to the Vanderbilt fortune,” (N. Baker, Baseless, p. 173).

Burden, who had conducted his own “brief review of the present BW program,” visiting Camp Detrick (later Ft. Detrick) and Edgewood Arsenal, while also conferring with the BW Committee at the Pentagon’s Research and Development Board (RDB), was critical of the program on a number of points. His criticisms were aimed at creating a robust BW capability in the least amount of time.

Burden pointed out that some unnamed “technical consultants” at the RDB BW Committee were critical about the selection of BW agents then under development. Burden didn’t say which agents these might be, but indicated the RDB consultants claimed the choice of BW agents had been made because “a) they were easy to produce, or b) or they were somebody’s pet enthusiasm, rather than because they were the most effective agent against the type of targets on which they would actually be used.”

Could the “easy to produce” agents, the product of “somebody’s pet enthusiasm” have been a reference to the mass of infected feathers, spiders, flies, fleas and voles that in late 1951 were being planned for BW drops on North Korean and Chinese troops and villages? Whether that turns out to be the case or not, we can see that even at high organizational levels of the BW effort there was conflict over which programs and munitions were best to pursue.

Project STEELYARD and the Transport of BW Agents Overseas

The anti-crop program aimed at the Soviets was code-named STEELYARD. By December 1951, 800 biological cluster bombs were positioned outside the continental United States, meant for use against the Russians. Four hundred had been sent to RAF Lakenheath, England, and the other 400 were positioned at Wheelus Air Force Base near Tripoli, Libya. Baker noted (p. 113) that Wheelus was “temporary home of the CIA’s 580th Air Resupply and Communications Wing.”

The Air Resupply and Communications Service (ARCS) had been created by the Air Force Psychological Warfare Division, in the Pentagon’s Directorate of Plans, and was initially connected to the Military Air Transport Service (MATS). (3) My own research shows the 582nd ARCS was stationed for a while at RAF Molesworth, only 55 miles from Lakenheath.

Whether or not ARCS was involved in the biological warfare program, the anti-crop munitions sent abroad were modified versions of the Air Force M16 leaflet bomb, a staple of the Air Force Psychological Warfare Division. But these bombs were modified to carry infected feathers — tens of thousands of them — meant to spread disease to the wheat and rye crops of the Soviet Union. The CIA had supplied a detailed report to the Pentagon in early 1952 describing the vulnerabilities of each targeted area.

Ft. Detrick’s Special Operations and Crops divisions had earlier produced a top-secret report, “Feathers as Carriers of Biological Warfare Agents.” The report explained that by December 1950 the Chemical Corps had determined that “feathers dusted with 10 per cent by weight of cereal rust spores and released from a modified [leaflet bomb] M16A1 cluster adapter at 1200 to 1800 feet above ground level will carry sufficient numbers of spores to initiate a cereal rust epidemic.” (Thanks to intrepid researcher Alice Atlas for providing this document.)

In general, anti-crop biological weapons, as well as the use of chemical defoliants against crops, was more advanced at the time of the Korean War than the rest of the U.S. biowarfare program. Despite the budgetary cutbacks that had hit the military after World War II, according to historian Simon Whitby, “Between 1943 and 1950 some 12,000 chemical agents had been screened for their potential as anti-crop chemical agents.” [Whitby, S.. Biological Warfare Against Crops (Global Issues) (p. 129). Kindle Edition.] The U.S. program also benefitted from close collaboration with both British and Canadian anti-crop BW programs.

According to a declassified portion of the Joint Chiefs’ Weapons System Evaluation Group’s (WSEG) July 1952 examination of “Offensive Biological Warfare Weapons Systems Employing Manned Aircraft,” the Air Force biological bombs used for Operation Steelyard were also intended to be sent to a base in French-held Morocco, as well as “a base in Cairo,” Egypt. Whether they ever were sent there or not is unknown. See pg. E-68 in document embedded below.(4)

WSEG Report №8, Enclosure “E”, Characteristics of Anti-crop Agents, Munitions, & Weapons Systems (Source: National Archives) — Click here to download declassified report

In early March 1952, Air Force Mission Support Services (AFMSS) sent a Top Secret, “Operational Immediate” memoto the Commanding General of Air Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson, and a number of other very high-ranking military officials, including the Commander in Chief of U.S. Air Force (European Command) in Wiesbaden, Germany; MATS command at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland; the Commanding General at the Air Force Air Research and Development Command in Baltimore; Gen. Egbert Bullene at the Chemical Corps; Commanding General Third Air Force, headquartered in South Ruslip, England; the Commanding Officer at Wheelus AFB, Tripoli; and the commanding general, Strategic Air Command at Offutt AFB outside Omaha, Nebraska. The subject was Operation Steelyard.

The memo reiterated the positioning of 400 biological bombs each at Lakenheath and Wheelus, and stated the need for modifications to the bombs necessary for deployment. The memo further described the plans for airlift and delivery of agent fill for the bombs (5), including time bomb fuzes and arming wire. The fill and the fuzes were to be shipped from Edgewood Arsenal. The MATS commander was ordered to prepare for the airlift.

The memo concluded, “The time period for use of these munitions is from the present thru 30 May 52. Accordingly all planning and action required must be completed as soon as possible. Implementation of delivery and airlift for (TS) Steelyard will require specific directive this hq” (parentheses in original).

Disguising the Shipment of Biological Bombs

The secrecy wasn’t just in the procurement details. As early as 19 September 1951, a memo from AFMSS at USAF headquarters in Washington, D.C., to the Commanding General at Air Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson airbase described the necessity of camoflaging the biological bombs to be transported overseas. The memo was copied to the Commanding General, Strategic Air Command at Offutt AFB in Omaha; Commanding General, Army Chemical Center at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland; and the Chief of the Army Chemical Corps in D.C.

Screenshot from 19 September 1952 memo from USAF Mission Support Services to Commanding General, Air Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson AFB, re “shipping instructions for Biological Warfare munitions”

As written by “Mr. Williams” at AFMSS, the memo described the special shipping instructions for the bombs’ delivery to Lakenheath, England:

“Each adapter must be inclosed in a box, and designation on each box and all shipping instructions, such as bills of lading will be marked ‘Hardware’… There will be no markings or other indication on boxes or bombs to indicate purpose.”

Delivery to the U.S. Air Force Commanding Officer at Lakenheath was requested “as soon after 1 October 1951 as possible.”

Whether or not the anti-crop weapons sent to England and Libya for possible use against the Soviet Union were ever sent further onward to Korea is a matter of speculation. There is no evidence as yet they ever were. But as with the extraordinary SKELP directives, they point to the type of procedures the military may have used when sending non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction, such as biological weapons, to the Far East.

The idea of a transfer of BW munitions outside the European theater is not out of the question. A top secret 11 June 1951 U.S. Air Force “Staff Study” on the “BW-CW Program in USAF” aimed at fulfilling an earlier directive (JCS 1837/18) from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Dated 21 February 1951 — during a period when the U.S. Army was in pell-mell retreat before Chinese forces in North Korea — the Joint Chiefs had called for “a BW-CW combat capability at the earliest possible date.”

Screenshot from USAF Staff Study on the “BW-CW Program in USAF”, 11 June 1951, National Archives/Public Domain (Link)

“BW and CW offer a tremendous military potentiality against the overwhelming manpower superiority of the Soviet Union,” the Staff Study stated. The report continued, without explanation, “It may be necessary to use BW against the Chinese suddenly.”

Further pursuit of Pentagon and CIA documents may yet reveal the full parameters of the U.S. biological warfare activities during the Korean War. It’s clear that the claims of various scholars that biological weapons from Ft. Detrick never made it to the Korean War theater, including Japan, Guam, etc., are specious in that almost all of these analyses have failed to mention the implementation of operational offensive action with anti-crop bioweapons. To my knowledge, there has also been no mention of the secret funding that enabled important aspects of the BW program. Nor do any of these analyses persue the hints about “stop-gap” interim BW weapons in Korea, or the similarity between the kinds of BW reported by China and North Korea and the weapons developed by Unit 731, whose designs (at the very least) were handed over to the U.S. Chemical Corps.

BW and Strategic Air Command

One example of outstanding documentary evidence regarding the shipment of classified materials to the Far East in this period comes from a top secret 17 December 1952 memo from Commanding General Curtis LeMay, at Strategic Air Command, Offutt AFB to the Commanding General, 15th Air Force at March AFB. Other addressees included the Commanding General of Air Materiel Command (AMC), Wright-Patterson, and Commanding Officer, 3rd Aviation Field Depot Squadron (“3AFDS”), Andersen Air Force Base, Guam.

3AFDS had been assigned to 15th Air Force in mid-May 1951. A history of the Air Force Special Weapons Project(AFSWP) lists the 3rd AFDS as one of the components of the US Air Force’s Special Weapons Units, and trained by AFSWP.

USAF, Cable, CGSAC to CGAF 15th Air Force, et al., December 17, 1952, Top Secret, NARA

The memo, marked “Top Secret [-] Security Information [-] Operational Immediate,” was copied to the Air Force Chief of Staff in Washington, D.C., the Commanding General of the Air Division at Travis AFB, and the commanding officers at two units at Kelly AFB in Texas. It described an airlift of “highly classified material” from Kelly to Travis AFB on 19 December 1952. From Travis, the classified materiel departed the U.S. mainland (“ZI departure point”) for Anderson AFB, Guam, and an unspecified place of arrival in Japan.

The AMC C-124 cargo plane was to be closely monitored on the trip. SAC’s commanding general advised that Travis be ready for the shipment with salvage and security teams, as well as standby aircraft and crew. Travis was to pay special attention to perimeter security for the cargo plane’s arrival.

It seems most likely the secret shipment concerned nuclear materials or munition components, given the memo’s origination from Strategic Air Command. But many people are unaware that SAC was drawn into BW plans at various points. Some of that history, as well as other relevant aspects of the BW story touched on in this article, can be found in Nicholson Baker’s excellent book, Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act (see in particular discussion beginning pg. 165).

The BW-SAC connection can be seen directly in a 17 June 1952 letter from Gen. LeMay to Lt. General Thomas D. White, Deputy Chief of Staff, Operations, at the Pentagon. LeMay explained, “As you know, Strategic Air Command has been directed to achieve a one-wing CW-BW operational capability by 1 December 1952.”

LeMay told White that the plans for such a wing were simple. An SOP developed at headquarters would be sufficient “for the briefing of the few key people of the wing who need to know about the CW-BW mission.” The remainder of the letter concerns LeMay’s concerns about maintaining the project’s details to as few people as possible.

Was the mid-December 1952 shipment of “highly classified material” from Kelly AFB to Guam and Japan relevant to the “one wing CW-BW” project? We don’t know. But again, until full perusal of all existing documentation, and declassification of currently classified material, takes place, the primary point here will be that such overseas transfers of WMD materials did take place, and it’s not inconceivable at all that some of these materials related to biological and/or chemical weapons. Indeed, in the case of anti-crop biological weapons, we know that to have been the case.

It’s the contention of this author that the revelations of a secret, outside normal channels, method of funding certain BW and CW projects, as discussed in this article, can be extrapolated to the actual biological warfare operations carried out in North Korea and China during the Korean War. Whether the latter were funded via SKELP directives, or by other equally secret means, is something that will ultimately become known as further declassifications take place, and as a new generation of historians and journalists with an appetite for truth pursue these questions.

ENDNOTES

(1) Endicott and Hagerman state, “[the] recommendation by the Army chief of staff that the secretary of defense but not the secretary of state be included in the implementation of bacteriological warfare is [in] an undated document titled ‘Deception in the Biological Warfare Field’ released with [a 1 Feb. 1952 Memorandum form the Chief of Naval Operations to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Subject: Memorandum by the Director, Joint Staff on Deception in the Biological Warfare Field].” Endicott and Hagerman, The United States and Biological Warfare, pg. 225, n. 2.

(2) Some might contend that the secret, special funding stream for the Chemical Corps concerned ongoing projects to complete the Corps’ standard, if highly classified, biological and chemical warfare projects, such as Operation Steelyard, which is reviewed elsewhere in this article. By late 1951, it was apparent that availability of operational BW in particular was taking longer than expected to implement, given the serious military setbacks for the U.S. and allies that had occurred after China entered the war in late October 1951, which created an “emergency” situation for the U.S. military.

Nicholson Baker has forwarded to me a copy of a November 1952 memorandum for the record from Col. Arthur Hoffman at the AF AFOAT BW-CW division office to Gen. James Doolittle, who was a big supporter of biological warfare, and was then special assistant to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. Hoffman indicated that “Phase I” of the military’s Biological Warfare program needed to be extended out another six months, due to “slippage in the Chemical Corps production program.”

In fact, this delay in completing Chemical Corps BW projects was why “stop-gap” measures, and an “interim BW weapon” were necessary. But it is likely not helpful for historians to draw a hard boundary between the official classified programs to develop biological weapons capacity ongoing at this time and the covert, Japanese-influenced (if not also partially staffed) programs to utilize whatever materials were at hand, including insect-vector munitions and old-fashioned sabotage tactics, in the fight with the DPRK and the PRC. While the programs were bureaucratically separate, there was significant overlap due to the fact that the actors involved — the Chemical Corps scientists and engineers, the Air Force command (particularly the Air Force’s Psychological Warfare Division, and Air Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base), the Research and Development Board, the Strategic Air Command, the Atomic Energy personnel, and the Munitions Board, and the CIA — were essentially the same, or drew upon the same pool of talent and expertise. The full story of the covert, Unit 731-related Korean War-era program has yet to be revealed.

(3) See discussion on ARCS by Endicott and Hagerman, The United States and Biological Warfare, 1998, University of Indiana Press, pp. 121–123.

(4) According to a 18 August 1952 U.S. Air Force Memorandum, “BW-CW Logistics Out of the ZI,” “seventeen areas in Africa and the Middle East and seven areas in the Atlantic” were considered for BW-CW storage as part of the logistics plan for the U.S. Air Force European Command. Presumably this included the STEELYARD plans, as suggested by late historian Matthew Aid in a historiographical essay on the period at Brill Online. Aid’s essay is of some interest, but one wonders what his agenda was, or if he had not yet completed his examination of the period. For one thing, in his discussion of the SKELP directives, he indicated they covered the construction of a pilot plant for Sarin production, but was mum on the documented connection with the work on biological weapons (particularly anti-crop weaponry).

(5) As regards the availability of the BW agent fill for the anti-crop bombs, see a 9 November 1951 memo from Air Force headquarters to Air Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson AFB, which indicated that at that point there was 1,200 lbs. of Wheat stem rust “available for shipment,” and 600 lbs of rye stem rust (with another 4,200 lbs. also to become available at some point). The Secret 9 November memo (declassified) is included as an enclosure to a separate memorandum from USAF Col. James Totten, Chief, BW-CW Division, Office of Assistant Director for Atomic Energy to the Chief, Psychological Warfare Division, Director of Plans, Operations Division USAF, dated 5 December 1951.

Jeffrey Kaye is a psychologist (retired) and author of “Cover-up at Guantanamo“.

Suffield Base Canada's Area 51: plawiuk — LiveJournal

plawiuk.livejournal.com › ...

Suffield Base in Alberta is the largest chemical biological weapons research centre in North America, and one of only three NATO CBW research projects world ...

Alberta's British invasion: Massive military base allows troops ...

nationalpost.com › news › canada › albertas-british-invasion-massive-milit...

May 26, 2017 - CFB Suffield has occasionally been dubbed Canada's Area 51, not because of any extraterrestrial links, but because it is also the epicentre of ...