Free Republic

For the first time, a news crew has been allowed to fly in a helicopter that circles the city’s incoming cargo ships, scanning for illegal radioactive material that could be smuggled in by sea. It’s a fear that’s heightened as North Korea pushes on with its nuclear testing, posing a serious security threat to the U.S. A video that recently surfaced from North Korea state-run media showed a screening of what appeared to be a fictional nuclear annihilation of San Francisco. And adding yet more uncertainty: the future of the U.S. nuclear deal with Iran. Of all the ports in...

Iraq is searching for "highly dangerous" radioactive material stolen last year, according to an environment ministry document and seven security, environmental and provincial officials who fear it could be used as a weapon if acquired by Islamic State. The material, stored in a protective case the size of a laptop computer, went missing in November from a storage facility near the southern city of Basra belonging to U.S. oilfield services company Weatherford (WFT.N), the document obtained by Reuters showed and officials confirmed.

A package of radioactive material that was supposed to be delivered to an on-campus office at Texas A&M University has gone missing, CBS affiliate KBTX reports. According to an internal email sent by Christopher Meyer, an assistant VP with the Office of Safety and Security, the FedEx shipment of was sent from Science Engineering and Education Company in Edina, Minnesota. The company makes radioactive material for equipment and research, KBTX reported. In a statement to KBTX, a Texas A&M spokesperson said the school is confident the package was not received by the university's Radiation Safety Office. "We obviously want to...

What could go wrong? Barack Obama released a nuclear terrorist back to Afghanistan this month. Mohammad Zahir was in possession of uranium for use in making an atomic bomb when he was captured. Daniel Greenfield at Frontpage Magazine reported: If Obama has a red line when it comes to releasing terrorists, we haven’t seen it yet. There appears to be no threat that a terrorist can pose and no crime he has committed too severe to prevent him from getting a plane trip out of Gitmo at taxpayer expense. The last releases saw terrorists rated as high risk freed by...

BOISE -- Crews are still trying to sort through unknown substances in a Boise apartment that could contain low levels of radiation. The Environmental Protection Agency began cleaning up the mess found inside a unit at The Renaissance at Hobble Creek. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been investigating the case along with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality. The EPA began cleaning the apartment, stairs, and sidewalk where they say traces of the potentially hazardous material were found. Last Wednesday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission interviewed the tenant who was suspected of buying and selling radioactive material on eBay. Once the...

There have been cases of people stealing radioactive material without knowing about it, and an IAEA spokeswoman said that may have been the case with the stolen truck in Mexico. Mexican authorities are searching for the stolen truck.

Photo released by Mexican authorities shows the radiotherapy device, containing radioactive material, being loaded for transport before it was stolen.A truck carrying "extremely dangerous" radioactive material was found Wednesday close to the place where it was stolen in Mexico, authorities said. The cargo was found about half a mile from the container. The vehicle was transporting radiotherapy equipment containing the radioactive isotope cobalt-60 from a hospital to a waste storage center, the International Atomic Energy Agency said. "At the time the truck was stolen, the source was properly shielded," the IAEA said in a statement. "However, the source could be...

The Obama administration has failed to meet a legal deadline for scanning all shipping containers for radioactive material before they reach the United States, a requirement aimed at strengthening maritime security and preventing terrorists from smuggling a nuclear device into any of the nation’s 300 sea and river ports. The Department of Homeland Security was given until this month to ensure that 100 percent of inbound shipping containers are screened at foreign ports. But the department’s secretary, Janet Napolitano, informed Congress in May that she was extending a two-year blanket exemption to foreign ports because the screening is proving too...

ISLAMABAD, July 10: The Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority (PNRA) is looking into two unclaimed containers of radioactive material found buried on the premises of an Oil and Gas Development Corporation Limited (OGDCL) workshop in Karachi. The discovery of the containers has sparked fears that more such material could be in the vicinity and a search has been launched. It is suspected that the neutron source material was of Soviet origin and could have been lying there for decades. The PNRA believes that during this period neither the employees working at the facility nor the general public were exposed to radiation...

See my translation below

Colombia's FARC guerrilla movement was trying to get hold of radioactive material to make a "dirty bomb," Colombian Vice-President Francisco Santos said on Tuesday. Santos told the United Nations Conference on Disarmament that materials found on computers of Raul Reyes, the deputy commander of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), showed the group was in negotiations to get hold of radioactive matter for a bomb. (Reuters)

Czech military monitored Iranian plane - press Prague- The Czech military, including the Gripen fighters, on Thursday monitored an Iranian transport plane crossing Czech territory as it was to have radioactive material aboard, according to U.S. sources, the daily Pravo reported. Czech Defence Ministry spokesman Andrej Cirtek said it was not a traditional escort when soldiers establish a contact with the plane, but only "shadowing." Pravo writes that the Czech military was on top alert. U.S. colleagues informed the Czech military intelligence service that there was radioactive material aboard the Iranian plane, Pravo says. Consequently, the aircraft was constantly watching...

Slovak Police Say Seized Radioactive Material Was Uranium By Stefan Bos Budapest 30 November 2007 Officials in Hungary and neighboring Slovakia say police have detained three suspects who were in possession of material enriched enough to be used to make a so-called "dirty bomb." Stefan Bos reports for VOA from Budapest. A spokesman for the Hungarian Customs and Finance Guard, Attila Kiss, tells VOA that, after months of preparations, Hungarian and Slovak police detained three suspects on charges of trying to sell enriched uranium for at least $1 million. Kiss says police discovered half a kilogram of enriched uranium in...

LONDON, July 20 (IranMania) - Bulgarian border authorities halted a lorry carrying radioactive material to Iran at its frontier with Romania, the country's nuclear supervsion agency said, AFP reported. The lorry was registered in Turkey and had been hired by a British company, the agency said.

A Canadian man undergoing treatment for prostate cancer ran afoul of airport security while traveling to the United States in October 2003. A Canadian man undergoing treatment for prostate cancer ran afoul of airport security while traveling to the United States in October 2003. According to the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the businessman was passing through customs when a guard with a pager-sized radiation detector accosted him. "He was taken into a separate room where he was asked to stand against the wall and refrain from speaking while workers examined his luggage," the man's doctors wrote in a letter to...

Homeland Security Uses Nevada Site to Test Machines That Detect Nuclear Devices, 'Dirty Bombs' NEVADA TEST SITE, Nev. - The scientists stood waiting for a read-out from a hand-held Geiger counter-type machine placed next to a large corrugated metal shipping container. During the test at the Radiological-Nuclear Countermeasures Test and Evaluation Complex in the Nevada desert, the equipment failed to identify the plutonium in the container. On a second try, it worked. Beyond the checkpoints, fences and armed guards, Homeland Security scientists here are working on a $33 million program to perfect devices that can more accurately detect nuclear devices...

I got this from my cousin's husband over the holidays and thought I'd post it. It may be old news, but it was new to me, and sent chills up my spine, and still does. God help us if this ever happens. It literally could bring about the collapse of the United States, and at the very least, the country would never be the same again. And while all this is going on, democrats are doing all they can to kill those 14 provisions of the Patriot Act, taking the CIA, NSA, and FBI to pre-9/11 rules where intelligence gathering...

Wed Dec 28, 5:35 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to transfer American "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla from U.S. military custody to federal authorities in Florida -- one week after an appeals court refused a similar request. In a filing to the high court, Solicitor General Paul Clement asked for Padilla's release so he can stand trial on charges of being part of a support cell providing money and recruits for militants overseas. Padilla was indicted last month in Florida for conspiracy to murder and aiding terrorists abroad but the charges make...

EVER SINCE 9/11, we learned last month, federal officials have been monitoring radiation levels around a number of American mosques. It is an understandable precaution, given Al Qaeda's interest in acquiring nuclear weapons, and its history of mass murder. Understandable -- but also troubling. In a nation as tolerant as this one, nobody can be happy about the need to focus self-defensive attention on mosques. Unfortunately, we are at war with violent Islamist radicals, and they are not above using mosques to incubate terrorism. If there is evidence of heightened radioactivity around a Muslim facility, the government should be aware...

<p>Faced with angry complaints, U.S. officials defended an anti-terrorism program yesterday that secretly tested radiation levels around the country ... and insisted that no one was targeted because of his or her faith.</p> <p>One official knowledgeable about the program explained that Muslim sites were included because al Qaeda terrorists were considered likely to gravitate to Muslim neighborhoods or mosques while in the United States.</p>