News
Publish date: January 31, 2005
News
This news was first reported by ITAR-TASS correspondent Alexey Mikhalin on December 29,2004, but then for some reasons it was repeated by the ITAR-TASS agency again on January 28, where the day of the incident was
January 26. Both reports are almost identical.
The agency cited in the latter report a spokesman at the Federal Customs Service saying that offisers of the Orenburg customs service on the Kazakhstan border spotted the dangerous cargo on January 26 during examination of a car with a radiation detector. The radiation-emitting object was a cylindrical protective container intended for remote manipulation with radioactive substances.
It contained 37.5 kilograms of uranium-238, which is a depleted form. An owner of the container described it in a customs declaration as a dumb-bell. He said he had found it at a dump and used it for exercise and sometimes straightened nails with it. Specialists are looking for the origin of the container. A criminal case on an attempt of a radioactive substance smuggling has been initiated.
Specialists of the Russian Agency of Atomic Energy told Itar-Tass that neither a conventional nor a dirty bomb could be made from the confiscated amount of uranium.
Following Kazakhstan’s country-wide vote in favor of building a nuclear power plant earlier this month, Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom has begun a courtship of officialdom in Astana, the country’s capital, in apparent hopes of landing a contract to construct it.
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
Kazakhstan voted in a referendum last weekend on whether to build its first nuclear power plant, and an exit poll showed voters backed the idea promoted by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev's cabinet in an effort to phase out coal plants.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution and climate change.