A high-ranking Japanese member of the Yakuza international organized crime syndicate allegedly planned to traffic materials containing uranium and weapons grade plutonium from Burma to other countries, including Iran, the Department of Justice wrote this week in a press release describing an indictment against Takeshi Ebisawa in the U.S. Southern District of New York.
“As alleged, the defendant brazenly trafficked material containing uranium and weapons-grade plutonium from Burma to other countries,” said Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for district, said in the release. “He did so while believing that the material was going to be used in the development of a nuclear weapons program, and while also negotiating for the purchase of deadly weapons.”
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday said it saw no significant environmental impacts from a proposed license amendment for the Tennessee Valley Authority, which seeks to produce more tritium in its civilian power reactors for U.S. nuclear weapons.
The NRC issued a notice about its finding of no significant impact in the Federal Register on Friday.
The National Nuclear Security Administration this week finalized environmental paperwork required for continued operation of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the younger of the two U.S. nuclear-weapon design labs.
The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency published its record of decision for the final site-wide environmental impact statement for the continued operation of the lab in the federal register on Tuesday.
The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran planned to host an international nuclear conference in May, Reuters reported this week.
Rafael Grossi, head of the U.N. International Atomic Energy (IAEA), was invited to attend, the wire service reported. Meanwhile, Grossi was also scheduled to co-lead a Nuclear Energy Summit in Brussels in March, the IAEA said this week.
Two years after getting an executive order to acquire the all-electric trucks, the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, took delivery of three Ford F-150 Lightning pickups, the local myhighplains.com news website reported this week.
The trucks are part of a broader five-year plan that requires National Nuclear Security Administration fleets to source only electric light-duty vehicles by 2027, the site reported.
Thomas Reed, missileer, Air Force secretary and nuclear weapons designer, died Feb. 11 at his home in Santa Rosa, Calif., following a short illness, according to an obituary posted online.
Reed “designed two thermonuclear devices fired over the Pacific in 1962,” according to the obituary.
