Fissile Material Monitors in UK and False Alarm

------ Forwarded Message
From: Paul Davey <paul@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 13:57:15 +0100
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx (Dave Farber)
Subject: For IP: Fissile Material Monitors in UK and False Alarm


This was in the Sunday Times here in the UK last week.

Apart from the fact that detectors for dirty bombs and fissile material are 
deployed here in the UK, I find it remarkable that one radioactive bolt can 
be detected within a container of scrap metal.

Full story is at

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-523-393768,00.html?gavalidate

Here's some excerpts.
Dirty bomb? alert at port David Leppard 
A FULL-SCALE terrorist alert triggered by the arrival of a suspected ?dirty bomb? at Felixstowe earlier this month has exposed serious flaws in Britain?s anti-terrorist defences. ... Earlier this year the Home Office and customs secretly installed a cordon of devices capable of detecting radioactive or fissile material ... 

Specialists from the National Radiological Protection Board and the Environment Agency found that the ?Tilbury incident? was caused by a bolt 15mm by 8mm in size which had somehow picked up radiation and was buried in the pile of imported scrap metal

regards
        Paul 

        pd Consulting Ltd                               http://www.pdc.co.uk <http://www.pdc.co.uk/> 
        Technical Architecture, System Integration and Interim Management Services







------ End of Forwarded Message