WAR ON TERRORISM \ Developments

The latest developments in the war on terrorism:
The United States and Russia will sign an agreement Thursday that should finally lock down some of the world's most dangerous and poorly guarded nuclear fuel. Atomic scientists have long warned that supplies of highly enriched uranium at research and university reactors around the world are particularly vulnerable to theft by terrorists. The new U.S.-Russia program would retrieve the uranium from 20 reactors in 17 countries and bring it back to Russia for storage. "This fuel is of great interest to terrorists, so the program is quite significant," said Daniil Kobyakov, a nonproliferation expert at the PIR Center, an independent policy research organization in Moscow.
Japanese police raided homes and businesses linked to a Frenchman suspected of Al-Qaida connections and arrested five people, stepping up action in a case that has raised concerns about Japan's vulnerability to terrorists. Investigators searched 10 locations around Japan today, including Tokyo and the northern city of Niigata where Lionel Dumont, a French citizen with a history of violent crime, worked as a car salesman in Japan in 2002-2003. Dozens of investigators flooded office buildings, businesses and apartments in early morning searches, and police said that raids continued throughout the day at the homes of the five people taken into custody and related sites.
Source: Combined dispatches