Pakistan advertises to recover “lost” radioactive material

There’s no reason for alarm. It’s not like Pakistan is full of jihadis who’d find some way or another to use nasty stuff with a half-life:

Pakistan’s nuclear authority has said there is no cause for concern after it published press adverts for information on “lost” radioactive material.

The adverts urged members of the public to inform officials if they found any “lost or stolen” radioactive material.

They were published in major Urdu-language newspapers in Pakistan.

A spokesman for the nuclear authority said that there was a “very remote chance” that nuclear materials imported 40-50 years ago were unaccounted for.

Nothing to see here, move along.

Officials on Wednesday were keen to reassure the outside world that the latest incident in no way has the makings of another nuclear scandal, and that no radioactive material had been stolen, lost or gone missing.

But officials say they need to heighten public awareness of nuclear issues to ensure that decades-old nuclear material is fully accounted for.

“This could have been before the creation of Pakistan, and may relate to nuclear material that could not be taken under our charge,” Zaheer Ayub Baig, information services director of Pakistan’s Nuclear Regulatory Authority, said in a letter to the BBC.

Mr Baig said that the adverts were merely a public awareness campaign to make people aware of the dangers of radiation from material that might have been used in hospitals and industrial plants.

He said the advertising campaign was being expanded.

“There is nothing to worry about,” Mr Baig said.

Of course there isn’t. Who said there was?

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