Word: plutonium
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...less interested in Yekaterinburg's history than he was in Sverdlovsk-45, the site of Russia's assembly plant for nuclear warheads, 124 miles farther north. There scientists and technicians have begun the process of dismantling most of Russia's 32,000 nuclear weapons, converting the weapons-grade plutonium into commercial-reactor fuel. The KGB still blocks any visits to Sverdlovsk-45, even turning away Yeltsin's nuclear-safety inspectors. But because of its proximity to all the nuclear and missile complexes in the area, Yekaterinburg has become a shopping center for the hottest market in restricted products: the rare...
...Russians took turns explaining the situation. The plan to buy certain rare metals from a factory dismantling warheads would have to be revamped. Even though my companion was interested in purchasing only "dual use" rare metals (rather than unequivocally illegal material, such as plutonium), there was a problem. Last summer, they said, more than a dozen plant directors and supervisors from Sverdlovsk-45 -- most of them KGB officers attached to the facility -- had been arrested and sent to prison for conspiring with the mafia to sell enriched uranium and plutonium abroad. Moscow had sent in a new KGB colonel...
...enriched uranium, that cannot be used to make a bomb. But no one doubts that a market for the real stuff exists. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, membership in the world's nuclear club requires only 55 lbs. of highly enriched uranium or 18 lbs. of plutonium to make an atom bomb...
...premium since the aborted mission by the International Atomic Energy Agency in early March. After being stonewalled since February 1993, inspectors were finally allowed back to seven sites at the North's Yongbyon nuclear complex. Nothing unusual was found at six of the sites, but at the seventh, where plutonium for bombs can be extracted from nuclear-fuel rods, the team discovered that an IAEA seal on an area containing a "glove box" for handling radioactive material was broken -- a janitor's mistake, claimed North Korea. But the inspectors were not permitted to take samples from the "glove box" that...
...Russia agreed to allow mutual inspections of each other's plutonium-storage facilities, enabling both countries to better verify compliance with nuclear dismantling accords. Russia also agreed to stop producing weapons-grade plutonium soon, and President Clinton announced an extension of the U.S. moratorium on nuclear-weapons testing through September...