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What would a Lebanese company in the Bekaa Valley that sells frozen fruits and vegetables want with a Ukrainian factory producing the special steel pipes needed for nuclear reactors and rocket production?

The Ukrayinska Pravda website in Kiev published the following report on February 20 entitled "Arabs want to buy a plant working for rocket production. For Al-Qa'idah?" (BBC English translation by subscription).

The state-owned Nikopol pipe plant, a producer of unique stainless thin-walled seamless pipes and titanium-and-nickel alloys, which currently undergoes bankruptcy procedures, can change hands to Junet, a Lebanese company willing to invest 35m dollars in the plant.

The director-general of the National Space Agency of Ukraine, Yuriy Alyekseyev, said this in a letter to the plant's financial readjustment manager.

The output of the plant, which entered a state of financial readjustment in June 2007, is used in rocket production, aviation and in the nuclear sector. It is worth noting that Junet was never before involved in this business. It sells frozen vegetables, fruit, juice and grain.

Labels: al Qaeda, Al-Qa'idah, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Ukraine