Joint NSOI-UNODC Legislative Drafting Workshop in Ukraine – NSOI and UNODC's Terrorism Prevention Branch (TPB) held their first joint workshop on legislative drafting in Ukraine from March 11-13, 2008.  This national workshop, entitled the Legislative Drafting Expert Workshop on the Criminal Law Aspects of the Universal Legal Framework Against Nuclear Terrorism, sought to strengthen Ukraine's national legislation and international legal cooperation against nuclear smuggling and terrorism.  UNODC's legal experts, in cooperation with a representative from the U.S. Department of Justice's Counterterrorism Section, developed recommendations for necessary legislative reforms in partnership with a broad delegation of Ukrainian experts.  The goal of these recommendations is to allow Ukrainian law to fully prosecute all cases of nuclear smuggling, including scams, and to identify the necessary steps to bring Ukraine's laws into compliance with the relevant international conventions on terrorism.

Kyrgyz Republic Signs Joint Action Plan – On September 30, 2007, the Kyrgyz Republic became the fourth country with which NSOI completed an action plan when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Ednan Karabayev signed the “Program of Cooperation between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic on Combating the Smuggling of Nuclear and Radioactive Materials.”  For the U.S. Department of State press release on this event, click here.