Uranium Seized In Turkey - Made in Germany?

Great Debates
81

The best you get in the way of attribution from the original link in the OP was an image with this underneath:

The uranium was found in a taxi
Reuters

  • no author’s name appears in relation to the piece on the link to the Sky ‘article’

Didn’t see it elsewhere. Obviously doesn’t mean the BBC (or others) didn’t carry the ‘story’ but I’d imagine everyone’s starting to get pretty jumpy about verification now the game’s well and truly afoot.

I guess we now move into the world where the dirty tricks boys really get to earn their money. Why does it always have to be so predictable…oh, I remember; Because it always works.

82

BBC Story

83

Oh and lots more.

84

www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2065837a12,00.html]Let’s try that again

85

ah fuck it.
Just search http://news.google.com/ for uranium +turkey

86

Well done, the big guy !

<quote>

Turkish police** say** they have seized 100 grams of weapons grade uranium, which had been smuggled into the country from Eastern Europe.
At first officers announced gave the quantity as 15 kilograms (34.5 pounds)** but later explained **that this included the weight of a lead container.
Two men have been arrested for questioning in the south of the country, close to the Syrian border.
**According **to the Turkish state news agency, the uranium was being transported in a taxi, concealed beneath the seats.

</quote>
…I’d guess the BBC could smell that one from a mile away. Fecking hope so…

87

It doesn’t help that the rust stains on the outside of the container, and the lack of dents make it appear to be more of a steel container than a lead container. Details, details…

88

India & Pakistan sure got around it in 1998; where were Ritter’s gamma ray bloodhounds then? That was not that long ago. Do we have some amazing new technology that allows us to detect the intermediate stages of nuke building?

89

[side note]
I was thinking of posting on the day it was discovered that it couldn’t have been 30 pounds or 30 kilos of U. That’s just too much U together. Even if it weren’t shaped correctly for critical mass, any people nearby would have been pretty unhappy (or dead) from the large amount of free neutrons flying around.

90

As some of You knows I am a Finnish citizen living in Russia.
I have been in the import-export business between Russia and Finland since 1993.
The first years I had “all kind of contacts”. It means that the Russian business world was only shaping and everyone that wanted/was able to elbow himself somewhere tried to do so. And there was a lot of frauds from east and west.
Shortly: there were winners and losers. There are those that got a palace and those who got jail or a coffin.
I am working in the wooden business. E.g. in 1996 when I was working for an EU-project, I was teaching about this east-west business. In those days the Finnish police of international crimes estimated that 80 % of the wooden business is in criminal hands. Just imagine what it was in steel etc. big business!
The saw-mills in St Petersburg area were divided to districts between the criminal gangs. The most amazing thing was that the militzia was working with them. Even collecting protecting money “for the guys” from small business runners!
You had to have a “roof”, as it is called here. The “roof” is protecting from rain etc.

There was not a trace from “socialism”, it was just bandit-capitalism and the law of the jungle. Everyone could be bribed. Everyone was looking for bread for the day.
Now the business begins to be a little bit more sane. In president Putin’s days there has been many changes for the better. Even the militzia is put into jail and the signals into the direction of corrupted law-forcement has been clear: “Behave or You find Yourself
behind bars.” There is special pisons “for cops only”, otherwise they would not be alive till the next morning.
Everything goes slowly forward. There is too big interests from the bottom to top.

Back to the first years: I got all kind of faxes; sugar-frauds, metal-frauds, Marlboro-frauds etc.
Mostly the faxes came from the Russia, USA and the Nordic countries. In that order.
Mostly it was about osmium, red mercury, sugar, metal, etc.
I think that 90% of everything were frauds or “governmental jobs”.
With governmental jobs I mean that a “three-letter-agency”, American, Russian, Finnish, German etc., was putting up a business in the illegal market and begun to make follow-ups.
But,
there was certainly an illegal traffic of very dangerous stuff. You can read some of them in my answer to a thread that I posted some days ago and to which I referred in my earlier post.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=136706&pagenumber=2

Many of the “facts” there are fabricated by one or another “official source”, that I am sure of. But there are also those that are quite well registered, not only by media.
Russia’s concern in this topic is genuine.

But I do not like when people only blame Russia. I used to do that also, but after living here for five years, I begun to think a little bit differently.
When there is a need, the market grows up like mushrooms in the forest.
This market contains of greedy people and criminals. From all over the world.
But for the press it is very lucrative to point out any threat from “east”.
The propaganda war is immense, (nowadays especially against the non-christian countries):

  • The Turkish affair ended with that the guys were freed today.
  • You might remember the case of the “Swedish-Tunisian terrorist” from 30.08.?
    It was one month ago and the misinformation was high. The secret services from England/USA leaked out misinformation about this guy more than Reuters and the others could get down writing shorthand. The Swedish SäPo told to the press that it is
    not true, etc.
    Nevertheless You could read all the “truths” especially in the US press.
    Well, the guy was freed today. Have You seen any notice of that in the western press? (I saw it myself in the Finnish press).
    Or do You not think that it is news that a guy with a pistol in a plane, “that was planning to hijack it and fly it toward a US embassy in some European capital”, etc., was freed??? That would not be news worth writing about???
    I just want to say: There is a huge information war going on.

Back to me. You maybe do not believe all this what I wrote before. I do not wonder.
You can just E-mail me if You have something You want to say or ask, because everything is not maybe according to the OP. Even if the OP here has been understood as a quite broad one, hasn’t it?

I am living in Vologda, which is a city 500 km north of Moscow. I am not living in Siberia, even if my “slogan” says so. It is just a joke, written on a wooden comb I got from a Russian prisoner.
Even if this has nothing (seemingly) to do with the OP, I will ask You:
Do I do right in Your eyes if I leave all the information that I know about narcotics, trade of illegal weapons and trade of dangerous “stuff” to the country where it happens?
This means that should I do give the info to FSB (former KGB) or just to the officials in my own country? (Who in my eyes can do little about it).
Do You think that my line is tapped?

My own answer is that I should leave the information to the officials in any country that I live in and yes I believe that the officials works in every country.
Excuse me for polling in GD, but these are very serious questions these days.
Please think a little bit and if I may have a request, I would ask You all, whatever Your political views are, to try to work against the “dark forces” together with the rest of the world. No country lives in a vacuum. We are all depending on each other on this globe. It is a very small one these days and gets smaller every day.

Thank You for reading.

91

Speaking of which, how does one make Plutonium, anyway? I know that Plutonium doesn’t occur naturally and that the process of synthesizing it requires something called a “breeder reactor”, but other than that I’m clueless. Does it involve bombarding uranium-238 nuclei with alpha particles or something?

92

second try. Goddam hamsters.
Sam -

I think we are close on this, but with provisos.

Hmmm, the ‘imminent’ clause gives me pause. I don’t disagree with the sentiment, but defining ‘imminent’ is tricky. And some folks, I might include yourself, have been urging that imminent is right now.

This is emininently doable, however note points below on if it’s still doable by this administration.

Agreed.

Agreed.

Well, that is the tough question. I think we don’t need to go there yet, if the administration can or could have gotten it’s ducks in a row.

This would be the ‘madman’ strategy, per Richard Nixon: make folks think you’re nuts, out of control, a feral mad dog. Is Bush crazy, or crazy like a Doberman? You get the idea.

The problem here is that the administration’s efforts have been, or at least appeared, awkward and uneven. Folks who should be unquestionably on the administration’s side, if this is indeed the right strategy, have been publicly rebuking the administration. Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, Lawrence Eagleburger, etc have all made public statements questioning the administration’s goals.

Even if these elder statesmen are wrong and the Bush warhawks are right, it looks bad. And it makes the Bush folk look stupid. And our allies and enemies aren’t blind, they see it too and it makes us appear weak. These elder statesmen or ones like them (and perhaps a former President or two) are exactly the people that could be making the case to Russia and China and France and Germany and the Middle East. Instead they’re sidelined, and the world is understandably that much more skeptical. And it’s unnecessary and just plain dumb that this has happened.

So, if the U.N. doesn’t come on board, should the US act unilaterally? I don’t know, but right now my answer is No because the case of the imminance of the threat hasn’t been made to my satisfaction that it would justify the consequences of, to put the worst spin on it, the end of international law itself.

And if the UN didn’t come along, is it because the US was wrong or Saddam wasn’t a threat? Or will it be because this administration did such a piss-poor job at diplomacy? Bush Sr. could have finessed this situation in a heartbeat, he was that good. But I fear that the younger son’s organization is badly punting the task, probably to the detriment of everyone, and, dammit, I expect better of the people in charge.

And hope there’s still enough capital at this point. Truly, I do.

93

By way of self-correction: the Kissinger article wasn’t directly critical of the Bush strategy, but it was ambiguous (but that’s Kissinger). It did appear critical at the time, though some of this was media-spinning, but in any case this and other public comments have undermined the case the administration was trying to make.

In any case, the ‘elder statesmen’ issue is but one example of things that shouldn’t have to happen if the administration were more deft (or deft at all, some might say) in it’s handling of the Iraq situation and managing the message that it wants to get out if it seeks to build consensus with it’s partners, specifically the UN.

94

This just in from Action McNews!

It wasn’t even uranium!

Its time like this I wish there was a “gloat” smiley.

95

But still, don’t you think the incident makes a great argument for Bush to restore full funding to the Nunn-Lugar nuclear non-proliferation program ? If the president had kept up Clinton’s good works, we wouldn’t all have to get quite so nervous about this black market uranium thingy. I guess it’s a matter of priorities.

-BTW, I called it first with “stinky limberger cheese” back on page 1 :smiley:

96

Well, yes, but did you specify “weapons grade stinky cheese”? I think not!

But this is no time to nitpick. It’s time to gloat!!

We were right! You were wrong! Thats W…R…O…

97

Not only that, but the original news about “35 pounds” included the lead container. There was about 5 oz. of the nonuranium.

Once again reinforcing Gen. Patton’s dictum to never believe the first reports whether favorable or unfavorable. They are always wrong.

98

Uh, guys, why do you think this matters to me? I never said that I thought the story was true. My objection was with the automatic-characterization from some that it was likely that it was an American propaganda move. That’s all. That just didn’t pass my B.S. Smell-O-Meter.

But if you want a fun conspiracy, try this: Okay, so we know these guys were scam artists, but they must have known who was trying to buy the stuff. So they had very important information. And they were just allowed to walk out? And now no one can find either one of them? ‘Walking out’ could be a euphemism for, “being taken out of official custody and into that unofficial kind where we can beat people to find out what they know.”

Given the way Turkish officials have been known to act, that sounds about as plausible as that they were just let go without questioning.

99

Mr. Svinlesha: I didn’t follow the cites backwards from each one of those claims - I has assumed that they were all fairly well documented. In any event, even if some of them are suspect the essential fact remains that there are substantial quantities of enriched uranium floating around out there. Maybe not enough to make a bomb at this point, but we aren’t entirely sure because we don’t know exactly how much is missing.

100

And another one bites the dust.

Henry B,

I realize English is not your first langage, but for the life of me I have no idea what you’re on about.

Help!