The former Soviet republic of Tajik-istan, where Josef Stalin's empire once mined uranium to create its first nuclear bomb, is on the brink of ecological catastrophe with millions of tonnes of nuclear waste polluting its land.
Contaminated soil is "open to wind and rain" and nuclear waste "is dispersed over dozens, if not hundreds, of kilo-meters around," said Saulius Smalys, the pan-European Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) environment advisor in Dushanbe.
The first Soviet nuclear bomb was tested on Aug. 29, 1949, on a field in Kazakhstan, but the uranium used to make it was extracted in northern Tajikistan.
"After the Soviet era uranium extraction in northern Tajikistan, some 50 million tonnes of radioactive waste still remain. If earthquakes, landslides or other cataclysms were to intensify, the contamination may spread," Smalys warned.
"Extraction was done manually, with sieves. The technology was so primitive that most of uranium bioxides remained in the waste dump," he said.
Stalin, who had launched an arms race with the US over the bomb's creation, ceaselessly prodded Tajiks on to speed up uranium extraction. Nuclear waste -- the rocks still containing some uranium -- were left in the field without care for ecological concerns.
Nowadays, the radiation levels now in abandoned mines exceed the norm by scores, while hundreds of Tajiks continue to live on polluted territories, with mine entrances still yawning wide open for the wind to carry contamination far away. According to the OSCE, cancer levels in the north of Tajikistan are 250 percent higher than in other regions.
"Some mines are in inundated areas, near rivers, and radioactive waste may reach the Syrdaria river with rains," Smalys said.
This would prove a catastrophe to the fertile Fergana valley along the great Syrdaria river, with its 10 million inhabitants.
The OSCE plans to aid Tajikistan in working out a technical project to decontaminate the area and is calling on sponsors such as the International Atomic Energy Agency and NATO for funds.
"First of all the mines must be covered with 3 meters of gravel and clay," Smalys said.
Tajikistan would require "hun-dreds of millions of dollars" to decontaminate about 10 abandoned mines, said Djabor Salomov, vice-director of the Tajik Academy of Sciences' nuclear security agency.
"The waste-littered places are not safe. Locals search for cables and irradiated metals in the dumps to sell or use at home," the state environment committee's councillor Djalil Buzurukov said.
"We have no funds to monitor the contaminated territories. The mines are a legacy of the past and a menace for our future," Buzurukov said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of