With the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo just three years away, the government is stepping up efforts to prevent terrorist attacks using nuclear and
With the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo just three years away, the government is stepping up efforts to prevent terrorist attacks using nuclear and other radioactive materials.
The Japan Atomic Energy Agency has developed a device capable of detecting nuclear materials during airport baggage screening and is enhancing its nuclear forensics analytical technology.
“We want to improve deterrence against nuclear terrorism, ” an agency official said.
At a meeting of the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry in December, Mitsuru Uesaka, president of the Atomic Energy Society of Japan and a professor at the University of Tokyo, said it was important to “enhance nuclear security” ahead of the games.
There have been numerous incidents overseas involving attempts to smuggle nuclear materials.
In 1994, investigative authorities intercepted and seized illegally transferred nuclear material at Munich Airport in Germany. The material — mixed oxide fuel containing weapons-grade plutonium — was found on a Lufthansa flight from Moscow. Smugglers were arrested and the MOX fuel was later identified as having been used at a nuclear reactor in the former Soviet Union.
There are also fears that the radical militant group Islamic State might have made a “dirty bomb” capable of scattering radioactive materials.
