{"id":37,"date":"2007-01-30T12:52:41","date_gmt":"2007-01-30T19:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/?p=37"},"modified":"2017-04-25T04:53:22","modified_gmt":"2017-04-25T11:53:22","slug":"enriched-uranium-sale-in-georgia-disrupted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2007\/01\/enriched-uranium-sale-in-georgia-disrupted","title":{"rendered":"Enriched Uranium Sale in Georgia Disrupted"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2007\/WORLD\/europe\/01\/25\/uranium.georgia.reut\/index.html\">CNN<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>TBILISI, Georgia <\/strong>(Reuters) \u2014 Georgian special services have foiled an attempt by a Russian citizen to sell weapons-grade uranium for $1 million in the Georgian capital, a senior Interior Ministry official said on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The official said Oleg Khintsagov, a resident of Russia\u2019s North Ossetia region, was arrested in early 2006 and a closed court soon after convicted him to 8\u00a01\/2 years in prison.<\/p>\n<p>Khintsagov was detained as he tried to sell uranium-235 to an undercover Georgian agent posing as a member of a radical Islamic group, said Shota Utiashvili, who heads the ministry\u2019s information and analytical department.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was demanding $1 million for 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of enriched weapons-grade uranium,\u201d Utiashvili said. \u201cThis sort of uranium could be used to make a nuclear bomb but 100 grams is not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Before being arrested, Khintsagov told agents he had another 2\u20133 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium in Vladikavkaz, Utiashvili said. After his arrest he refused to cooperate with the investigation.<\/p>\n<p>It was unclear where the uranium came from. The safety of Russia\u2019s vast stocks of nuclear weapons has concerned world leaders since the fall of the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n<p>Russia says its nuclear facilities are well guarded. A spokesman for Russia\u2019s atomic energy agency had no immediate comment on the Georgian case.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>For more information on nuclear containment and our insufficient effort to prevent proliferation, see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nti.org\/c_press\/analysis_cnwmupdate_102203.pdf\">Preventing Nuclear Terrorism: a Progress Update<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From CNN: TBILISI, Georgia (Reuters) \u2014 Georgian special services have foiled an attempt by a Russian citizen to sell weapons-grade uranium for $1 million in the Georgian capital, a senior Interior Ministry official said on Thursday. The official said Oleg Khintsagov, a resident of Russia\u2019s North Ossetia region, was arrested in early 2006 and a [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nuclear-weapons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52317,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions\/52317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}