Is ths pic real? What kind of weapon is that? Sure looks familiar but what conventional weapon does something like that?

Another link in the same newspaper-thread:

https://civil.ge

at the bottom of the page a fat “sponsored by NED”

The abundance of uranium and thorium is of the same magnitude. The thing is economics. Uranium is cheap, and as long it is, we use the sources we have. As the peice of uranium rises other sources get economical including sea water extraction which is effectively renewable.