{"id":83023,"date":"2015-03-22T13:00:47","date_gmt":"2015-03-22T11:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=83023"},"modified":"2018-04-05T13:28:00","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T11:28:00","slug":"south-africa-refuses-to-let-go-of-its-nuclear-explosives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/83023\/south-africa-refuses-to-let-go-of-its-nuclear-explosives\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa refuses to let go of its nuclear explosives"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Centre for Public Integrity<\/strong><\/a>, a US-based non-profit investigative news organisation, has published a report which says that South Africa has\u00a0enough nuclear explosives<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to fuel half-a-dozen bombs.<\/p>\n

According to the report, the nuclear explosives are locked in a former silver vault at the Pelindaba Nuclear Research Centre close to the Hartbeespoort Dam.<\/p>\n

Pelindaba is operated by The South African Nuclear Energy Corporation, and was were South Africa’s atomic weapons under apartheid were developed, built, and stored.<\/p>\n

These explosives were created by the apartheid government as part of its nuclear weapons programme.\u00a0According to a report by Marcus Duvenhage, South Africa had six nuclear devices, and was busy constructing a\u00a0seventh, by the time the programme stopped.<\/p>\n

South Africa ended its nuclear weapons programme in 1989, and these weapons were dismantled.<\/p>\n

However, the highly-enriched uranium fuel was extracted, melted down, and cast into ingots.<\/p>\n

The report states that roughly 220kg\u00a0of this fuel remains, and that South Africa is \u201ckeeping a tight grip on it\u201d.<\/p>\n

This weapons-grade nuclear fuel means South Africa can easily become a nuclear state again.\u00a0However, the biggest concern to the United States is that it will be stolen by militants and used in a terrorist attack.<\/p>\n

According to U.S. officials and experts, South Africa\u2019s nuclear explosives are among the most vulnerable in the world to theft by terrorists.<\/p>\n

U.S. officials further argue that South Africa has no clear rationale for holding its nuclear explosive materials, because it no longer needs them to make medical isotopes.<\/p>\n

The Centre for Public Integrity said that US President Barack Obama twice directly asked the South African president to relinquish this weapons-grade uranium. However, the SA president did not oblige.<\/p>\n

The full report is available here:\u00a0South Africa rebuffs repeated U.S. demands that it relinquish its nuclear explosives<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Dismantling of SA\u2019s atomic bombs<\/h3>\n

In a 2012 interview former SA president FW De Klerk said that soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall they decided to announce the dismantling of South Africa\u2019s atomic bombs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe announced as soon as possible that we had broken those [nuclear] bombs down, [and] that we could account for every milli-milli-milli-milligram of material,\u201d said de Klerk.<\/p>\n

He added that they \u201cwould open all facilities to full inspection by the International Atomic Agency, and that is exactly what we did.”<\/p>\n