Terrorism

The time bomb

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Since the end of the cold war, the United Nations has logged more than 800 incidents in which radioactive material has gone missing, often from poorly guarded sites. Who is taking it - and should we be worried? Julian Borger investigates.

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CIA used Swiss to thwart foreign nuclear programs: report

Monday, August 25, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US Central Intelligence Agency recruited a family of Swiss engineers to help it thwart the Libyan and Iranian nuclear programs as well as an underground supply network of Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, The New York Times reported on its website late Sunday.

The newspaper said the operation involved Friedrich Tinner and his two sons, who have been accused in Switzerland of dealing with rogue nations seeking nuclear equipment and expertise.

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Georgia chaos halts nuclear security effort

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

WASHINGTON - The chaos in Georgia has forced the United States to halt a high-priority program that was helping the former Soviet republic to identify possible smugglers of nuclear bomb components across its borders, long considered a transit point for terrorists seeking to obtain weapons of mass destruction, according to US officials.

A team from the US Nuclear Security Administration was providing Georgian authorities with radiation equipment and training at key border crossings and the Batumi airport on the country's Black Sea coast when Russia invaded two weeks ago. The advisers were forced to flee the country within days, according to a spokesman from the Department of Energy.

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Duke halts use of test fuel at plant

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

CHARLOTTE - Duke Energy has removed test bundles of mixed-oxide or MOX fuel from its Catawba nuclear plant on Lake Wylie as it investigates unusual physical changes in the assemblies.

Anti-MOX groups say the halt means the testing should start all over again, delaying by years a billion-dollar federal program to use surplus weapons plutonium at Catawba.

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Ferry shipments of 'terror-threat' plutonium end

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Top-secret consignments across Channel are halted as a result of IoS investigation

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Nuclear fuel to be moved

Thursday, July 24, 2008

300 tons of spent fuel in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan's military forces this summer held a training exercise to thwart a fake terrorist assault on a Soviet-built nuclear facility near Almaty, the country's former capital located on its southeastern border.

In the exercise, a reactor was the simulated target of terrorists trying to steal some of the deadliest nuclear material ever made. It came, by no coincidence, as U.S. and Kazakh officials put the finishing touches on a plan to move 300 tons of used nuclear fuel from a decommissioned Soviet nuclear reactor near the port city of Aktau on the Caspian Sea not far from Iran.

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Minister dismisses threats to n-plants

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

THERE is no credible terrorist threat to new nuclear power plants, MPs have been told.

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Swiss to investigate shredding of files in nuclear smuggling case

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

BERN, Switzerland: A powerful Swiss parliamentary committee is investigating why files in a high-profile nuclear smuggling case were secretly destroyed on government orders last year, officials said Tuesday.

The parliamentary committee charged with overseeing intelligence issues said it will collect further evidence on how the files were destroyed and publish a report before the fall.

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Man held after Swedish nuclear plant gets bomb threat

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

STOCKHOLM, May 21 (Reuters) - Swedish state energy firm Vattenfall said the country's Oskarshamn nuclear plant had received a bomb threat on Wednesday, and a source at the site said a building was sealed off after an employee was found carrying explosives.

Police said they were questioning a suspect at the Oskarshamn plant, south of Stockholm on the Baltic coast, but could not immediately confirm he was an employee of the facility.

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Papers on nuclear smuggling ring shredded

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

The government ordered the destruction of documents on an alleged international nuclear smuggling network involving three Swiss engineers, it has been confirmed.

The head of a parliamentary control committee said the material was shredded last November.

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