The cat and mouse surveillance of the two Barrow-based nuclear ships Pacific Heron and Pacific Egret entered its penultimate stage yesterday when a consignment of plutonium was loaded onto the Pacific Egret in the tiny nuclear port of Tokai Mura on 22nd March. Dashing officialdom’s best efforts to keep the loading – and indeed the ships’ entire voyage from Barrow-in-Furness via the Panama Canal to Japan and onward to the USA – under wraps, the loading of at least seven containers on 22nd March was watched and filmed by local NGO’s and Japanese media crews with helicopters who reported that, along with 331 kgs of plutonium, a consignment of Highly Enrished Uranium (HEU) may also have been loaded.
CORE 23rd March 2016 read more »