- MOSCOW (Interfax) - The Russian
State Duma has expressed concern about the USA's programme to develop a
qualitatively new type of weapon.
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- "Under the High Frequency Active Auroral Research
Programme (HAARP) [website address: http://server5550.itd.nrl.navy.mil/projects/haarp/],
the USA is creating new integral geophysical weapons that may influence
the near-Earth medium with high-frequency radio waves," the State
Duma said in an appeal circulated on Thursday [8 August].
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- "The significance of this qualitative leap could
be compared to the transition from cold steel to firearms, or from conventional
weapons to nuclear weapons. This new type of weapons differs from previous
types in that the near-Earth medium becomes at once an object of direct
influence and its component.
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- These conclusions were made by the commission of the
State Duma's international affairs and defence committees, the statement
reads.
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- The committees reported that the USA is planning to test
three facilities of this kind. One of them is located on the military testing
ground in Alaska and its full-scale tests are to begin in early 2003. The
second one is in Greenland and the third one in Norway.
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- "When these facilities are launched into space from
Norway, Alaska and Greenland, a closed contour will be created with a truly
fantastic integral potential for influencing the near-Earth medium,"
the State Duma said.
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- The USA plans to carry out large-scale scientific experiments
under the HAARP programme, and not controlled by the global community,
will create weapons capable of breaking radio communication lines and equipment
installed on spaceships and rockets, provoke serious accidents in electricity
networks and in oil and gas pipelines and have a negative impact on the
mental health of people populating entire regions, the deputies said.
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- They demanded that an international ban be put on such
large-scale geophysical experiments.
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- The appeal, signed by 90 deputies, has been sent to President
Vladimir Putin, to the UN and other international organizations, to the
parliaments and leaders of the UN member countries, to the scientific public
and to mass media outlets.
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- Among those who signed the appeal are Tatyana Astrakhankina,
Nikolay Kharitonov, Yegor Ligachev, Sergey Reshulskiy, Vitaliy Sevastyanov,
Viktor Cherepkov, Valentin Zorkaltsev and Aleksey Mitrofanov.
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