Shipment of nuclear bomb material from Europe via Cape of Good Hope to Japan

On the 21st of July, two ships carrying a cargo of dangerous, weapons-usable plutonium fuel left Europe to sail around the globe, via Cape of Good Hope and the South West Pacific Ocean, to Japan. On board is nuclear fuel containing more nuclear weapons usable material than in the entire Indian and Pakistan nuclear weapons programmes.

The two British flagged vessels, the Pacific Teal and the Pacific Pintail, will left Barrow in Britain and Cherbourg in France carrying the first commercial shipment to Japan of mixed-oxide (MOX) reactor fuel, made from plutonium and uranium. An estimated 446 kilograms of plutonium is contained in the 40 nuclear fuel elements enough fissile material to construct at least 60 nuclear bombs.