Georgian security forces have foiled a criminal plot to sell weapons-grade uranium on the black market, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili told a gathering of world leaders on Tuesday.
The revelation brought a sense of urgency to the Washington summit on nuclear security, where US President Barack Obama called on the rest of the world “not simply to talk, but to act” to destroy vulnerable stockpiles of nuclear material, or to safeguard them against theft by terrorists.
Obama reminded leaders and ministers from 46 other nations that the world’s stores of plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) — both of which can be used in the core of a nuclear weapon — were scattered around more than 40 countries. He pointed out that it only took a lump of plutonium the size of an apple to make a warhead.
“Terrorist networks such as al-Qaeda have tried to acquire the material for a nuclear weapon, and if they ever succeed, they would surely use it,” Obama said. “Were they to do so, it would be a catastrophe for the world.”
On Tuesday night, French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed that leaders of nations that transfer nuclear material to terrorist groups should face trial in an international court under UN authority.
Pakistan came under particular scrutiny in Washington because of widespread fears that extremists could steal a weapon from its nuclear arsenal, and because of its opposition to a treaty that would ban the production of fissile material.
The revelation from Saakashvili of a nuclear smuggling case served as a reminder that there is still considerable uncertainty about whether the weapons and fissile material left behind when the Soviet Union collapsed have been fully accounted for.
Georgian sources said the HEU was intercepted in a sting operation carried out by the Tbilisi authorities last month. They said the uranium was more than 70 percent enriched. The exact analysis is expected in a few days, but it appears to have been pure enough to use in a crude nuclear weapon.
The amount seized was small, but Georgian officials said the gang was offering the HEU as a sample of a bigger quantity available for purchase. The officials would not comment on the nationality of the gang.
“The Georgian Ministry of the Interior has foiled eight attempts of illicit trafficking of enriched uranium during the last 10 years, including several cases of weapons-grade enrichment. Criminals associated with these attempts have been detained,” Saakashvili told the summit. “The most recent case of illicit trafficking was the attempted sale of highly enriched uranium in March of this year.”
US officials pointed to some concrete successes from the summit. Ukraine and Canada said they would no longer use HEU in research reactors. Malaysia announced it had enforced tougher controls on the shipment of nuclear equipment.
‘EYE FOR AN EYE’: Two of the men were shot by a male relative of the victims, whose families turned down the opportunity to offer them amnesty, the Supreme Court said Four men were yesterday publicly executed in Afghanistan, the Supreme Court said, the highest number of executions to be carried out in one day since the Taliban’s return to power. The executions in three separate provinces brought to 10 the number of men publicly put to death since 2021, according to an Agence France-Presse tally. Public executions were common during the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, with most of them carried out publicly in sports stadiums. Two men were shot around six or seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the center
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
The US will help bolster the Philippines’ arsenal and step up joint military exercises, Manila’s defense chief said, as tensions between Washington and China escalate. The longtime US ally is expecting a sustained US$500 million in annual defense funding from Washington through 2029 to boost its military capabilities and deter China’s “aggression” in the region, Philippine Secretary of Defense Gilberto Teodoro said in an interview in Manila on Thursday. “It is a no-brainer for anybody, because of the aggressive behavior of China,” Teodoro said on close military ties with the US under President Donald Trump. “The efforts for deterrence, for joint resilience
RSS