SOUTH Korea is trying to block moves by Taiwan to ship up to 200 000
barrels of low-level nuclear waste to North Korea. The deal could net the
impoverished communist nation more than $250 million.
The Seoul government says its northern neighbour does not have the facilities
to store the waste safely and is unlikely to allow international inspections of
the storage site, which is a disused mine.
Taiwan insists that the waste will be safe, as it consists of nothing more
hazardous than gloves and tools used to handle nuclear materials, packed in
steel drums to international safety standards.
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鈥淲e鈥檙e aware of the concerns of several countries regarding the proposed
shipment,鈥� says David Kyd, spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) in Vienna. 鈥淏ut we don鈥檛 have a mandate to supervise this transaction.鈥�
Neither Taiwan nor North Korea is a member of the IAEA.