The Washington Post, Friday, September 19, 1997

MOSCOW -- Authorities confiscated 8.4 pounds of highly radioactive uranium-238 from a home in the southern Russian city of Ivanov and have detained several people suspected of trying to sell the substance.

Investigators said they had identified the uranium isotope -- shielded in a lead-lined container -- as the same material that was reported missing from a nuclear research center in the region three years ago.

The Interfax news agency quoted official sources as saying that the uranium had been offered several times since then to prospective buyers in Moscow, the Baltic states and elsewhere,-- copyright Reuter.

[8.4 pounds is about 1/14 the amount required to make a crude bomb.]

Respectfully submitted,
Ike Jeanes