Nuclear security

Is China rebooting a Cold War doomsday device? State-sponsored tests suggest officials are building a terrifying 'salted' nuclear bomb

China may be bringing back a devastating doomsday device first dreamt up during the Cold War.

State-sponsored experiments at a Chinese research facility have raised concerns the country is building a 'salted' nuclear bomb.

The device, which one weapons expert has labelled 'highly immoral', uses a special isotope to release huge amounts of radioactive fallout

Experts at the Beijing-based Chinese Academy of Sciences recently announced they had successfully fired superheated beams of a radioactive isotope of tantalum.

The rare metal is one of few isotopes that can be added to warheads to create a salted bomb, with potentially devastating consequences.

The research was carried out at a facility in the city of Lanzhou by experts working with the Institute of Modern Physics.