The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 8 | Issue 13 | Number 1 | Article ID 3332 | Mar 29, 2010

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The Other Deadly White Dust: Russia, China, India and theCampaign to Ban Asbestos　　もう一つの白粉末——ロシア、中国、インドとアスベスト禁止運動

Melody Kemp

The Other Deadly White Dust: Russia,China, India and the Campaign to BanAsbestos

Melody Kemp

Seoul University’s Dr Domyung Paekaddresses ANRO, Phnom Penh 2009

In parts of Asia, carrying 500 grams of onewhite powder can draw a death sentence, butimporting 1,000 tons of another lethal whitedust is both legal and profitable.

Asbestos, a known carcinogen banned in muchof the world, is a common and dangerousbuilding block in much of Asia’s developmentand construction boom. This other whitepowder causes 100,000 occupational deaths

per year, according to Medical News Today.

While images of kids with heroin-loadedneedles stuck in their arms spark publicoutrage, clouds of asbestos fibers in factoriesand on construction sites often draw officialshrugs and denials. Illicit drug use does notrank among the top ten causes of death inyoung adults, according to a 2009 global studyof adolescent health by the Murdoch Children’sResearch Center in Melbourne in 2009. But insome Asian nations including China, asbestos isin the top ten causes of occupational disease inlaborers, some of whom were exposed asworking children. The numbers are generallythought to be higher since much of Asia's datarely on a highly mobile workforce with a highturnover rate.

Like a sleeping bear, asbestos can be deadlywhen disturbed, and all along the mining,manufacturing, installation, cutting, anddeconstruction processes, the mineral is turnedinto air-borne fibers that lodge in the lungs andcause fatal respiratory diseases, includingmesothelioma.

Across much of Asia, white asbestos, alsoknown as chrysotile, is widely used to makeasbestos-cement construction material such asroofing tiles, wall panels, and expansion joints,as fire proofing, lagging, foundry gloves andoveralls and in brake linings and gaskets inbuses and trucks. As modernization andeconomic development take hold, people tradetheir insect-filled, flammable grass roofs andwoven bamboo walls for asbestos cementmaterials.

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A few years ago at a state-owned roof tilefactory in Vietnam, young male workers cladonly in shorts carried bags labeled “Asbestos-Kazakhstan.” The air was thick with white dusthuffing up like steam from lava. Visitingoccupational health and safety experts heldtheir breath as long as they could; somesmothered their faces in dust masks. Theworkers did not have that luxury. Their onlyprotection was handkerchiefs tied bandit-styleover their mouths and noses as they climbedthe sides of the hoppers.

“I know it’s dangerous,” said the managerspreading his hands and shrugging, “but it’salso cheap, and people only want to buy cheaptiles.”

Drugs or Dust

“It's just a PR campaign when they say thatasbestos can kill,” Uralasbest's Viktor Ivanovtold AFP in 2007, when he headed theChrysotile Association, an industry group basedin the Russian town of Asbest. The website forUralasbest, the Ural Asbestos Mining & OreDressing Company, calls the company theworld's “oldest and largest manufacturer andsupplier of chrysotile.” In 2005 the Russianfirm produced about a quarter of the world'schrysotile asbestos and exported it to 35c o u n t r i e s ( p d f )(http://ned.ru/en/get-analytics-file/item/356?time=1259612623): 53 percent outside theCommonwealth of Independent States (toChina, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand,etc.), and 13 percent within the CIS nationsthat had been part of the former Soviet Union(Armenia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine,etc.). Its website vigorously contests criticalclaims about the dangers of asbestos and callsf o r e l i m i n a t i n g i t s u s e ( l i n k(http://www.uralasbest.ru/eng/inf01.php)).

Uralasbest’s factory

Vietnam cannot agree with Uralasbest’scontentions. A rising tide of workers ill withasbestos lung disease arising from situationslike the one described above, has led thegovernment to collaborate with the Australiantrade union aid agency APHEDA, to develop acoordinated approach to dealing with asbestos.

Very little asbestos ends up in the West. Morethan 60 countries have partially or completelybanned asbestos, including the United States,Australia, Japan and South Korea. The EUnations and others have completely bannedboth brown amphibole and white chrysotileasbestos, and the International Agency forResearch on Cancer has classified all types as ahuman carcinogen. Although some studies havefound that chrysotile's small fiber size makes itless virulent than brown amphibole, the WHOis unequivocal: “no threshold has beenestablished for the carcinogenic risk ofc h r y s o t i l e . ” ( p d f )(http://www.who.int/occupational_health/publications/asbestosrelateddiseases.pdf)

But asbestos merchants, disputing WorldHealth Organization (WHO) data andoverwhelming scientific evidence, claim thatchrysotile is safe. Uralasbest's website decries“the wave of anti-asbestos psychose [sic] [that]was spread over Western Europe.” “Today’sasbestos industry is totally harmless,” TatianaKochetova of the Asbest-based Institute for

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Asbestos Projects told the Russian Journal.“There hasn’t been one case of asbestos-causeddisease here for many years. Locally producedasbestos does not cause any harm.”

Researchers Jock McCulloch and GeoffreyTweedale documented rates of malignanciesdropping in Asbest only after the introductionof dust control technologies (and the dispersalof ill workers). Those same safety measuresthat, in any case, mitigate rather than eliminaterisk are largely lacking in the countries towhich Russian asbestos is exported.(McCulloch J and Tweedale G 2008 Defendingthe Indefensible: The Global Asbestos Industryand its Fight for Survival. OUP.)

Russia's Exports

Asbest is a classic monogorod, or single-industry town in Bazhenouskoye in north ofKazakhstan, along the eastern slope of the Uralridge. The open-pit mine covers 90 sq. km. andstretches 11.5 km long, 1.8 km wide and almost300 meters deep. There, some 10,000 workersturn out more than 500,000 tons of chrysotileasbestos annually.

In 2009, Uralasbest was forecasting productionof 450,000 tons, “a significant portion of theworld market,” and its FY 2006 revenues were$192 million, according to Rye, Man & GorS e c u r i t i e s ( p d f )(http://ned.ru/en/get-analytics-file/item/356?time=1259612623). Russia produced 925,000 tonsof asbestos in 2008, according to the USGeological Survey, almost half the estimatedworld production of about 2 million tons a year,a n d w o r t h $ 9 0 0 m i l l i o n(http://www.russiajournal.com/node/3820).

Once state-ownd, Uralasbest is now privatized.More than half of Uralasbest share capital isowned through a Russian regional bank (UralsBank for Reconstruction and Development).Stroyexport, another Russian company, owns14 percent, and two South Africa-registeredcompanies - - Petrov & Co and Mavrol

Management -- own 21 percent. The topmanagers control about 30 percent of thec o m p a n y ( p d f )(http://ned.ru/en/get-analytics-file/item/356?time=1259612623). In 2007 Uralasbest enteredinto a joint venture with Swiss MinmetFinancing Company to recover magnesiumfrom its asbestos mine tailings. This move wasmeant as a hedge against the global decline inconstruction.

Perhaps more threatening to Uralasbest'seconomic future than recession is the growingawareness that asbestos is toxic, andalternatives are available. In 2000, citingCanada's high level support for its industry as amodel, Russian asbestos industry officialssought Vladimir Putin’s assistance incountering "asbestphobia."

Russian corporations also looked to Canada's --and Kazakh's -- marketing efforts in newly richAsian nations. That strategy has produced richresults according to the World AsbestosReports (http://worldasbestosreport.org/), andthe WHO confirms that some countries havereduced restrictions and increased productionand use of chrysotile.

China

In the grainy black and white Chinesegovernment film1, a man walked unsteadilytoward the cameras, his chest skewed to oneside. He looked to be in great pain. Anunidentified person in clinical clothing turnedthe man around indicating a tumour the size ofa small backpack pushing it’s way though theskin over the man’s shoulder blades. He diedshortly after, and the film unswervingly followsthe post mortem, the man only a few minutesago painfully alive, now dead on the gurneywith an open chest. The cause of death thevoice over intoned was mesothelioma frominhaling crocidolite fibres. The man was afarmer in Sichuan province. The film shot in1984 recorded hillsides where friablecrocidolite, (commonly known as blue

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asbestos), had been exposed after erosion andlandslips. The huge areas of virgin forests inSichuan and Yunnan provinces provided timberand land for agricultural use but exposedsubstantial reserves of crocidolite below. Thevillagers used it to make bricks and stoves,mixing it with clay. A local tradition had newbrides given a basin with asbestos towhitewash the walls of the kitchen for thenewlyweds.

The area is dry and windy. The crocidolite, sodense the film’s researchers noted that the soillooked blue, was blown into the faces offarmers and road builders who had mortalityrates of thirty plus percent. The narratoradded that the asbestos was vital to China’sdefence industries. Submarines, tanks, battleships all used large amounts of asbestos.Doubtless the Department of Defence in Chinais little different from its cohorts around theworld and close mouthed about asbestosmortality and morbidity.

The research reported in the film won severalawards for science and technology research in1990 . And yet in 2010 China remains theworld’s second largest producer of asbestosa n d t h e w o r l d ’ s l a r g e s t u s e r ( l i n k(http://www.ibasecretariat.org/)).

Traded along the Silk Road to China, it wasrelatively unknown as an industrial productuntil 60 years ago and the Great Leap Forward,which accelerated China’s industrializationbefore famine sent the economy into reverse. In2 0 0 6 C h i n a M i n i n g . o r g(http://www.chinamining.org/) reported that“China now has more than 160 asbestos minesand asbestos-manufactured productsenterprises, most of which are small. Asbestosmines in western China have been developingrapidly and now become (sic) the main base ofasbestos production in China. China's asbestosproduction is chiefly concentrated in Xinjiang,Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan. These provinces(regions) contribute about 2/3 of China's total

asbestos production.”

In 1995, Chinese dissident Harry Wusurreptitiously visited and photographedChina's largest asbestos mine, in a prison campin mountainous Sichuan province. "I told theprisoners that they have been given the deathsentence," Wu told USA Today at the time.

China reportedly has abandoned forced labourasbestos mining, but production is unceasing.In 1997 China's total asbestos production was437,000 tons, ranking third in the world.Gansu, Xinjiang and Qinghai are amongst thethree most important producers of asbestos,yielding 56.45% of China's total. Sichuan Jilin,Guangdong, Qinghai and Shijiazhuang are alsonotable suppliers. The extent of the currentsupply of Chinese asbestos is to be seen atA l i b a b a . c o m(http://chinasuppliers.alibaba.com/products/china/cid/90901/Asbestos_Products.html). Overtwo thousand products are available from 15major suppliers some of which boast ISO 9000a n d 1 4 0 0 c e r t i f i c a t i o n ( l i n k(http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/217581328/Asbestos_Products.html)).

China has open cut and underground asbestosmines. Unlike the infamous coal mines,accidents are less well reported. But it is thedaily inhalation of fibres at work and in thesurrounding environment that causes thepainful life shortening diseases.

One such open cut mine is the Shimiankuang 石绵矿 Asbestos Mine found at a giddying 3,200meters on the border of Qinghai Province andthe Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region inW e s t e r n C h i n a . ( S e e l o c a t i o n(http://www.flickr.com/photos/centralasiatraveler/2260150776/))

One visitor wrote, “though the asbestos iscertainly deadly for most of the workers, manyof whom seem not to be wearing masks of anykind, it may not be dangerous for the visitor tojust drive through. However, if the idea

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concerns you, you may want to avoid this route.Asbestos is ….also the chemical basis of thenephrite jade in the Kunlun Mountains, thesource of most of the jade in China for 3,000years.” (wikimapia.com).

There is no doubt that China is conductingdetailed and collaborative research on asbestos diseases. Journals such as Industrial Health(Cai Zhang et al 2001) and the Annals ofoccupational hygiene (Li et al 2002) are litteredwith studies . But the pragmatic anddevelopmentalist Chinese governmentconsiders worker deaths as secondary toeconomic and export development and showsno signs of diminishing production. They are,however, reported to be doing intensiveinvestigation on substitutes, and do at leastattempt to record morbidity and mortality,something that India is less diligent in doing.

India Imports

In 2008 India – along with Pakistan, Canadaand Russia – rejected the banning of chrysotileasbestos mandated under the RotterdamConvention on Prior Informed Consent (PIC).PIC lists chemicals that require exchange ofinformation on health hazards prior to trade.

India, which imported 360,000 tons of asbestosin 2006, claimed that evidence of chrysotile'slethality was not conclusive, and that it wasawaiting the results of a major health studybefore joining the convention, according toMadhumit ta Dutta o f the CorporateAccountability Desk, which is a member of BanAsbestos Network of India (BANI).

However, “India fai led to inform theinternational community ... that the [health]study was funded in part by the asbestosindustry,” charged Dutta. “Still worse, thestudy was kept under wraps, and is notaccessible to public health specialists or laborgroups.”

Gopal Krishna, a consultant on clean industry

and convenor of BANI, condemned hiscountry's rejection of PIC. “There is a politicalconsensus in India to promote asbestos at anyhuman cost,” he wrote in India Together in2006.

Underlying that consensus are the close linksbetween the asbestos industry and someprominent Indian politicians. “With asbestosfirms being owned by politicians or the stateitself, the government seems to be following aclassic ostrich policy,” Krishna wrote. “Thereality is that the country's most powerfulparliamentarians bless the asbestos industry.”

They include Buddhadev Bhattacharya, thechief minister of Bengal’s Communistgovernment, who gave Utkal Asbestos Ltd. anEnvironment Excellence Award which it used inits advertising. Rebranding itself in 2006, thecompany dropped the word asbestos from itsname. Now called UAL Industries Ltd., it is amajor producer of fiber cement corrugatedsheets and accessories under the brandK o n a r k , a n d i t s w e b s i t e(http://www.ualind.com/aboutus.html) boaststhat it “has left no stone unturned to achieve itsmotive of becoming the leading player inEastern India.”

UAL factory

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Visaka Industries’ chairman, G. Vivekanand, isthe son of G. Venkataswamy, a member ofParliament, deputy leader of the IndianCongress Parliamentary Party, and a formerUnion Textile Minister. Vivekanand put out afact sheet claiming that chrysotile is safe, andblamed Western media coverage of past eventsfor generating unfounded fear.

I n d i a n m e d i a r e p o r t e d(http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/visaka-settingnew-asbestos-cement-plant-in-orissa/374373/) that Congress Party chief SoniaGandhi encouraged Visaka industries to set upin her constituency Rae Bareli, and saw theplants as a way to boost employment andelectability. The plans were fast tracked,breaking records for passage through theDepartments of Environment and Forests.Visaka annually produces 600,000 tons ofasbestos sheets, mostly used in roofing. One ofits main marketing targets is India's ruralpopulation, 80 to 85 percent of which now liveunder thatched roofs, the company websitenotes.

In October 2009 Visaka Industries announced itis setting up a 100,000-ton capacity asbestoscement sheet plant at Sambalpur in Orissa atan estimated cost of $8.6 million “to meet therural demand.” It is also ramping up thecapacity of its Pune plant from 65,000 to100,000 tons per annum, accord ingVivekanand.

In 2007 an Indian news channel showedworkers hand-mixing asbestos into rice, while avoice-over intoned that chrysotile is safeenough to use as a husking agent. The rice waslater sold as premium basmati.

Dying to Work

“I have seen young men suffering from thecancers caused by this material [asbestos],”says a guard at an asbestos cement sheetfactory in Guangdong, China. “The bosses don’tcare, and the government intimidates us [who

are] working for safety. They say we aresabotaging China’s development. Sometimes Iget very frightened and cannot sleep thinking Iwill be arrested. I may get the disease, as theair is full of dust. I hope that someone wouldhelp me if that happened. I can’t quit. Wherewould I go? I have no skills and jobs are hard tofind.”

The participants at the Phom Penh meeting hadno suggestions.

This worker's story is echoed throughout Asia.In China alone, the official incidence ofindustrial lung diseases is around 100,000 peryear. Experts familiar with Beijing's officialstatistics would multiply that figure by three orfour to get close to the real toll. The ironyperhaps enigma of China is that it has donemore research and medical trials than anyother country in Asia. It knows more about theeffects on it own people than any other usingnation. And yet it continues to mine, export anduse it domestically.

Harvard University and the World HealthOrganization report that occupational injuriesand disease already surpass infectious diseaseas the major causes of death in the developingworld and threaten to undermine any economicor moral imperatives gained by trade. Morepeople die per day of workplace illnessthroughout the world than are killed by globalterrorist attacks, wars, drugs, or by the variouspandemics (such as avian and swine flu) thatattract huge institutional funding, according toSanjiv Pandita, director of the Hong Kongbased Asia Monitor Resource Center. If youconsider that 100,000 per year die of asbestosalone, it is not hard to believe Pandita’sassertion. Meanwhile, the systematic erosion oftrade union power and labor standards byglobalization has exacerbated the problem andundermined opposition/occupational justice.

Working for Safety

Workers and activists around Asia are not

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convinced by industry reassurances and aregetting organized. At a September 2009meeting in Phnom Penh of the Asian Networkfor the Rights of Accident Victims (ANROAV),120 activists and Asian-based academics from16 countries heard stories of frustration andharassment. Delegates charged thatglobalization has led to "state sponsoredpimping"-- governments selling workers’ bodiesand lives in return for investment.

The importance of the issue, and frustrationfrom waiting for governments and employers toact are evidenced by steadily increasingattendance at ANROAV's annual meetings overits ten years' existence. “While lots of money ismade by CSR [corporate social responsibility]consultants, we see little change in the deathrates” said Hong Chee, a Hong Kong delegate.

Mandy Hawes, an American occupationalhealth and safety advocate, reminded delegatesthat occupational standards may be legal butnot safe. “We should bring environmental andoccupational standards into line,” she said.

Opposition to asbestos is growing and is fueledaround the world by a flood of compensationdemands. Claimants, dragging desperately onoxygen, have pleaded before TV cameras forcompensation and an end to asbestos use. Aregional coordinating group was set up earlierin 2009 at a meeting in Bangkok. A-Ban isseeking an Asia-wide asbestos ban. It has itswork cut out. As the anti-asbestos activistsknow all too well, bans on international trade inasbestos have been barely disturbed theindustry. Like Uralasbest, companies havemerely shifted their marketing focus todeveloping countries where environmental andworkplace standards are more lax. China nowabsorbs 54 percent of global production, saysYe-Yong Choi of BANKO, the Korean movementthat recently achieved a ban on asbestos.

A-ban calls for an Asia-wide ban onasbestos

Ye Yong Choi and Professor Paek explainedhow the ban on asbestos in the Republic ofKorea resulted from a confluence of factors.

A serried legislative ladder beginning withinstituting exposure limits as far back as 1988and later updated to a safer limit of 0.1fiber/ccin 2003 was one of the necessary steps toachieve a ban. This represented tacitrecognition by the government of thecarcinogenicity of the mineral. Upon that wasbuilt regulations requiring health checks andcompensation for asbestos related illness. In1997 brown (amosite) and blue (crocidolite)asbestos were banned. Further incrementalsteps might have prevented a commercialshock reaction that could result from animmediate blanket ban. So in 2005 acompulsory reporting system of asbestoscontaining buildings was instituted so thatmeasures could be taken to secure safedemolition; then in 2007 came a ban ofasbestos containing friction parts such asgaskets and brake linings and constructioncement. In 2008 a ban was instituted oninsulation and textiles containing asbestos.Finally in 2009 a total ban was declared with afew exemptions such as nuclear reactors beingable to continue usage but under strictlycontrolled conditions.

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Businesses, unable to use asbestos at home,either changed production means or went offshore as local media and social movementsamplified opposition to asbestos use. Theeconomic recession accelerated the decline ofthe asbestos industry as investment sharplydeclined, while the media reported on subwayexposures and high profile cases such as thosethat came from Busan adding to negativepublic opinion. In 2008 a group of casualtiesformed BANKO to maintain pressure for policyand legislative action.

While BANKO would like to think that socialpressures led to the ban, Choi admitted thatthe stronger drivers were the recession whichdrove the industries off shore coupled with thecorrosive effects of legislation.

The Korean Parliament passed an asbestosvictims' relief law on February 26, 2010 after asustained campaign by asbestos victims groupsand labor federations. From January 1, 2011,the legislation will provide compensation forsufferers of mesothelioma, asbestosis and lungcancer who were environmentally exposed toasbestos.

There are some flaws in the legislation such asvery low levels of compensation, which areabout 10-20% of those awarded by theoccupational insurance system for the sameasbestos-related diseases. Campaigners fromBan Asbestos Korea (BANKO) promise to lobbyfor improvements.

Choi recommends a global campaign in whichactivists “move much more strategically andcollectively. …I have felt we are too gentle insome way whilst our enemy, the asbestosindustry, moves very collectively andaggressively.”

Anatomy of Asbestos

Despite industry and government denials,evidence of chrysotile's harm was clear in lungX-rays showing unmistakable white patches

indicating the inevitably deadly progression ofmesothelioma--a cancer directly linked toasbestos exposure. Etched into the medicaldata on the corner of each film was the word“chrysotile,” the supposedly safe form of themineral.

The X-rays belonged to Prof. Paek Domyung,chest disease specialist and epidemiologistfrom Seoul National University and a foundingmember of BANKO. His collection of medicaltransparencies showed that work-andenvironment-related chest disease leaves adistinctive radiological calling card that is easyto differentiate from tuberculosis and otherlung diseases.

All the victims in Paek's X-rays were Asianworkers, belying the myth propagated by someAsian labor officials that asbestosis andmesothelioma are "Western" diseases. Paekpredicted that Asian nations would seetsunamis of asbestos-related diseases, markedby the gasping deaths of the pale, drawn - andoften young - victims. His view is supported byJapanese researcher Takahashi Ken, who onreviewing historical and global trends, foundthat marked rises in incidence and prevalenceinevitably preceded national bans.

Studies cited by McCulloch and Tweedale havefound asbestos disease in young Russian andKazakh workers with less than three yearsexposure (see above reference). Victims usuallydie a year after diagnosis. Expensive drugssuch as Alimpta and Platinol can lengthen apatient’s life by up to six months, but are wellbeyond the capacity of Asian workers. Palliativecare, a tall order in most poor countries, is thebest they can hope for.

The pain of mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases can be agonizing and requiresthe other white powder -- morphine -- toprovide relief. Ironically many of the countrieswhere asbestos disease is rife, such as India,have a shortfall in the supply of legallyscheduled opiates.

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Around Asia

But there is no shortfall in asbestos. In additionto the raw mineral imported from Russia andother countries, Europeans keep sending oldships to India and Bangladesh to be broken up.Bangladesh needs the steel, but along with itcomes tons of old friable asbestos including themore dangerous brown variety.

China, in addition to its role as major importer,also exports asbestos. The sourcing websiteAlibaba.com lists at least ten Chinesecompanies, some with ISO 9001 certification,that sell asbestos products. Kawakami Tsuyoshiof the U.N.'s International Labor Organization’sBangkok office found Chinese asbestos in Laocement factories on the outskirts of Vientiane.The Lao government, currently enjoying aresources boom, is thinking of exploiting itslodes of asbestos, according to a Lao NGOworker.

There are some bright spots. Thailand, untilrecently one of the region's major users (brakelinings, gaskets, and roofing tiles), has reducedboth importation and production of asbestos-containing goods.

Other Asian countries are beginning to rethinkasbestos use. Joint research done by BANKOand Indonesia’s own fledgling anti-asbestosorganization IBAN in 2009, documentedasbestos on the windowsills of schools andhomes surrounding two asbestos cement worksin Cibinong (West Java).

Cambodia, too, is starting to recognize that itsburgeoning construction industry may bringthe hazardous materials along for the ride. Dr.Leng Tong, director of Occupational Health andSafety in Cambodia’s Ministry for Labor andVocational Training told the ANROAV delegatesthat “Cambodia strongly commits … toeliminate asbestos from the workplaces in theregion.”

“If he is serious,” Choi of BANKO commented,“it would not only gain Cambodia a hugeamount of prestige in the world, but alsoprovide a wonderful example to neighboringcountries.”

This article was written for The Asia-PacificJournal.

Melody Kemp is a freelance writer who workedin labour and development for many years andis a member of the Society for EnvironmentalJournalism (US). She now lives in South-EastA s i a . C o n t a c t m u s i @ m a g m a . c a(https://apjjf.org/mailto:musi@magma.ca).

Recommended citation: Melody Kemp, "TheOther Deadly White Dust: Russia, China, Indiaand the Campaign to Ban Asbestos," The Asia-Pacific Journal, 13-1-10, March 29, 2010.

Notes

1 A copy of the film was given to the reporter inHong Kong by a Chinese labour activist.