In Brief... Anthrax "Time Bomb" Ticking in Aral Sea, Researchers Say
CNN-Today, with the sea reduced to half its former size, and a much larger Vozrozhdeniye closing in on the shore, some U.S. researchers believe the island is a toxic time bomb set to infect central Asia with some of the deadliest germs on earth.
According to the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, Vozrozhdeniye was a secret biological weapons test site. Soviet, and later Russian, scientists routinely released deadly agents-including plague, small pox, tularemia and anthrax-into the air over the island for much of the last 50 years, the Institute claims.