- Southern China, Guanzhou Province Australian Consulate
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- Dr Ri Chae Woo a world class North Korean Biological
Weapons expert working on a 'whites only' Genetic bomb disappears under
mysterious circumstances.
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- The clandestine lab had been pieced together over many
years, gene sequencers, autoclaves, and all of the other necessary equipment
purchased on the second hand market or imported through legitimate universities
or cancer labs, and then untraceably redirected with large amounts of foreign
currency - an activity at which his new Saudi masters seemed extremely
adept.
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- On his very first night here, he had been thrilled to
see the American ABI Prism Capillary Sequencer, peptide synthesizers, protein
sequencer, affinity analyzer, spectrometer and a small SGI mainframe computer
system. The clean room, biohazard suit and the 3 sealed airlocks told the
story this was no ordinary research lab.
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- The gene sequence and genotype specific allelels had
been painstaking to find, over 25 years behind the silk curtain of North
Korea and now another 5 years for his new masters...people whom he had
never seen. 5 years since that day in front of the Australian Embassy...not
such a long time to do the work of a lifetime.
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- The idea had been born of frustration by the former illustrious
leader. In a speech at the party conference he had railed "find me
a weapon that will sweep the Americans aside, a germ that will affect our
enemy and leave our own troops intact" ...he didn't need to add the
words 'or else'. Madness and yet in the decades that followed specific
alleles were discovered and experimented with to mixed success.
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- Ri worked with the minimum number of assistants or spies
as he privately called them, filing only the most innocuous progress reports
bringing no attention to himself. Under his direction, the lab made small
but significant contributions to other programs and for the most part the
great leader seemed satisfied.
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- Working alone, long after the others had left, drew little
comment from his communist masters. In a slim, handwritten notebook was
the accidental revolutionary discovery Ri had made...and kept hidden for
2 long years. A breakthrough that, were it known, would both guarantee
Ri a Nobel nomination in the West and a lifetime of imprisonment in North
Korea as a "national treasure."
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- Had they known or suspected the truth of what he had
planned, Ri and his entire family would have been bleached bones in the
field of traitors outside of Pyong Yang.
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- The glass ampoules in the stainless steel case held a
synthetic gene-filled protein with a highly-modified genetic structure,
a sequence unknown in nature designed piece-by-piece by Ri himself. The
Genome itself worked like a lock for a double-cut key, one portion, the
key was now growing in a Maryland farmers field. The final tumbler lay
dormant in 87% of the population of North America.
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- Closing the final airlocked door behind him Ri paused
and looked at his home for the last 1800 days and nights. Flipping off
the circuit breakers and tucking the case with the ampoules into his jacket,the
fans and airconditioners which had run 24hours a day for the entire 5 year
span finally fell silent. The warm Chilean air immediately attacked his
wrinkled suit and just for a second Ri missed the cool mountains of North
Korea.
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- Stepping into the waiting Range Rover, Ri wondered if
his unseen masters would keep their word. They were nearly five miles away
when a bend in the small cart track they were driving on allowed Ri a glance
back at the direction from which they had traveled. A thick pall of smoke
and faint russet glow on the horizon told him all he needed to know about
the fate of his lab. Suddenly chilled, he pulled his jacket together feeling
the small case that would change the world resting lightly against his
chest.
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- Answers about the viability of Genotype specific munitions
vary but history itself shows us that when a weapon is possible, it is
both built and used.
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- ____
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- Project for a New American Century PNAC a report available
on the web at www.newamericancentury.org states in part:
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- "advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target'
specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror
to a politically useful tool."
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- If that is not a death knell for life on this planet
as we now know it ... I don't know what is.
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- --Stan Bernard
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