nuclear-news

South Africa’s stockpile of nuclear fuel – a target for terrorists

Technicians extracted the highly enriched uranium from the apartheid regime’s nuclear weapons in 1990, then melted the fuel down and cast it into ingots. Over the years, some of the cache has been used to make medical isotopes, but roughly 220kg remains, and South Africa is keeping a tight grip on it.

That gives this country – which has insisted that the US and other world powers destroy their nuclear arsenals – a theoretical ability to regain its former status as a nuclear-weapons state. But the US is worried that the nuclear explosives here could be stolen and used by militants to commit the worst terror attack in history.

Senior current and former US officials say they have reason to be concerned given that in November 2007, raiders breached the fences at the Pelindaba research centre and some fear they were after the bomb-grade uranium.

Washington has waged a discreet diplomatic campaign to persuade South Africa to get rid of its stock of nuclear-weapons fuel.

But President Jacob Zuma, like his predecessors, has resisted the White House……..http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/terrorists-could-steal-sa-nuclear-fuel-us-1.1832093#.VQX8RNKUcnk

March 16, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, South Africa