Nuclear Raid in Yugoslavia
Sat, Aug 24, 2002 at 1:11:02 pm PDT
A joint US-Russian team has “raided” a nuclear facility in Yugoslavia, recovering more than 100 pounds of highly enriched uranium—enough to construct two atomic bombs.
The dawn “raid” on the Vinca Institute of Nuclear Sciences in Belgrade, protected by Yugoslav Army helicopters and 1,200 heavily armed troops, was the first joint effort by the US and Russia to retrieve weapons-grade nuclear material supplied by Moscow to research centres around the world. Under a Moscow-Washington agreement, America will help to finance a programme to retrieve all the research uranium from 17 countries formerly allied with the Soviet Union.
But don’t feel too reassured just yet, because there’s a lot more of the stuff out there:
A recent report by Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in Washington said that there were 345 operating or idle research reactors in 58 countries that had highly enriched uranium that could be converted for use in a weapon by terrorists.
Matthew Bunn, one of the authors, said security at the research facilities ranged from “excellent to appalling”. He named the 16 other countries with Russian nuclear fuel as North Korea, China, Libya, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Romania, Ukraine, Belarus, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, Syria, Vietnam, Latvia and Bulgaria.
And surprisingly (to me at least), a certain super-rich media mogul—who’s come in for plenty of criticism for his stupid remarks recently—is footing the bill:
The media tycoon Ted Turner funded the operation with a £3.3 million donation from the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a non-proliferation foundation of which he is co-chairman.
Frank says:
