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World faces real danger of nuclear catastrophe, expert warns

High security: A boy plays soccer next to a high fence surrounding the World Forum building where a Nuclear Security Summit will begin on Monday, in The Hague on Saturday

Yohanna Ririhena (The Jakarta Post)
The Hague
Mon, March 24, 2014

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World faces real danger of nuclear catastrophe, expert warns

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span class="inline inline-center">High security: A boy plays soccer next to a high fence surrounding the World Forum building where a Nuclear Security Summit will begin on Monday, in The Hague on Saturday. The summit, to be held on March 24-25, is aimed at preventing nuclear terrorism and will bring together several world leaders, including US President Barack Obama. Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend. Reuters/Yves Herman

Despite progress in security measures, the challenge of avoiding a nuclear catastrophe is a daunting one, as 2,000 tons of nuclear material are scattered across the globe without being adequately protected, an expert has said.

As 58 world leaders attended the Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) in The Hague on Monday and Tuesday, the challenges of nuclear security were made apparent.

The Nuclear Threat Initiative, a private advocacy group that promotes the safekeeping of nuclear materials, reported that in the last two years, seven countries had forsaken their uranium and plutonium stockpiles, bringing the number of nations still possessing appreciable quantities of nuclear fuel usable for bomb-making down to 25. In 1991, the number was 52.

Despite greater efforts to strengthen nuclear security, Hague Centre for Strategic Studies director Rob de Wijk said the danger of nuclear material falling into the wrong hands remained substantial.

'€œWe do not exactly know where it is but what we do know most of it comes from the former Soviet Union after [its dissolution] more than two decades ago. The nuclear material was stolen and was simply lost [track of]. This is what happened during and after [the dissolution] and it is quite worrisome,'€ de Wijk said.

There are different figures on the exact amount of nuclear material around the world.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an estimated 2,000 tons of nuclear material are spread around the world, mostly located in the geographical area of the former Soviet Union.

The country was unstable when the material was stolen 20 years ago during and after the dissolution.

De Wijk said such materials could have been stolen by people who might eventually use them for terrorism purposes, citing that in the last 20 years, 2,300 incidents had been reported around the world relating to highly enriched uranium and radiological materials.

These included cases in the UK, the US and two attempts by Chechen rebels to detonate '€œdirty bombs'€ in Russia.

'€œIt is a real danger. Almost every month something happens and criminals and terrorists are being caught,'€ he said.

As quoted by Reuters, the IAEA'€™s deputy director-general, Denis Flory, pointed to about 140 cases of missing or unauthorized use of nuclear and radioactive material that had been reported to the agency in 2013.

Any loss or theft of uranium, plutonium and different types of radioactive sources could be potentially serious as al-Qaeda-style militants could try to use them to make a crude nuclear device, he said.

De Wijk noted Asia was no exception in terms of being targeted, as the region was prone to political instability and was the base of the Southeast Asian militant group Jemaah Islamiyah.

Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons, also posed a concern for the region.

Vulnerabilities also extended to radiological waste from medical facilities, with hospitals susceptible to wrongdoing as nuclear materials were being used for medical purposes.

Early December 2013, a Mexican truck was stolen by thieves without the knowledge that it contained dangerous radioactive medical material that, according to the United Nations, provided the ingredients for a '€œdirty bomb'€.

The truck was stolen while it was taking cobalt-60 from a hospital in the northern city of Tijuana to a radioactive waste-storage center.

The Netherlands hopes the summit will produce a compelling joint communiqué supported by all the world leaders and organizations present.

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