Developing: Congo arrest over missing uranium

by babblingdweeb | March 8, 2007 at 07:46 am

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Developing story after the Democratic Republic of Congo's top nuclear research official has been arrested. While an arrest has been made due to allegations, I'm more concerned about the problem itself and the questions this issue brings.

We know the mines in the Congo are capable of producing weapons grade uranium...

A mine in
Congo's southern province of Katanga supplied the uranium that was used
in the atomic bombs that were dropped by the Americans on the Japanese
towns of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Key questions: How much is missing? How much could be missing? For how long has the tracking been going on?
The following is unverified by the BBC:

DR Congo's daily newspaper Le Phare reported that more than 100 bars of uranium as well as an unknown quantity of uranium contained in helmet-shaped cases, had disappeared from the nuclear centre in Kinshasa as part of a vast trafficking of the material going back years.

My only hope is that Le Phare is overstating the claims and only a trace -if any uranium is missing. Security concerns are not new to this mine, as a bar of uranium went missing in the 1970s and security has been beefed up in recent years.

Last year diplomatic and
intelligence sources told Reuters that countries suspected of seeking
nuclear arms might have exploited lax security in Congo to obtain
uranium.