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IAEA airlifts deadly cobalt out of Lebanon
Vienna (AFP) Sept 11, 2009 The UN nuclear watchdog said it has airlifted deadly radioactive cobalt materials out of Lebanon to safety in Russia. The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement that a plane carrying 36 Cobalt-60 sources -- each one radioactive enough to kill a person within minutes -- arrived in Russia from Lebanon on August 30. The cobalt materials, which came from an irradiator used for a long-defunct agricultural project, are now securely stored in Russia, the statement said. "Given the political situation in the Middle East and particularly in Lebanon we saw this source as vulnerable to malicious acts. If it was stolen it could cause a lot of damage to people," said Robin Heard, an IAEA radioactive source specialist who oversaw the mission. "The challenges to this project were all security related," Heard said. "Just after we went on our first fact finding mission to Lebanon in 2006, the Israelis bombed the airport, so there was no way we could fly the sources out at that time. So there was a long delay while we waited for things to normalise in Lebanon," he said. The cobalt "posed some threat, actually a lot of threat, on the public, on Lebanon," said Muzna Assi, head of Radioactive Waste Management at the Lebanese Atomic Energy Commission. Their removal was "a very good thing for Lebanon and for nuclear security in the world," she said. In Beirut, the secretary of the National Council for Scientific Research Mouin Hamzeh, said the airlift was "part of a European Union programme aimed at helping a number of countries to get rid of radioactive material from their territory by removing it and stockpiling it in its country of origin." The airlift cost 500,000 dollars, Hamzeh said, adding that Lebanon envisaged further such operations in collaboration with the EU. The head of the Lebanese Atomic Energy Commission, Bilal Nsouli, stressed that no leakage of radiation had been detected from the cobalt. Share This Article With Planet Earth
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IAEA gives ElBaradei honorary titleVienna (AFP) Sept 10, 2009 The UN atomic watchdog voted Thursday to bestow an honorary title of Director General Emeritus on the agency's controversial chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, who steps down in November. The title was voted on the last day of a meeting of the 35-member board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The resolution is to be formally adopted at the IAEA's general conference next week. ... read more |
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