Apr 18. Russian police sealed a village nr Moscow today, where children were found playing with discarded nuke material. The discovery comes just before of a nuke safety summit that's to meet this weekend in Moscow.
Observers say the town is incubating an ecological time-bomb. The childrens' find was 100s of graphite rods, dumped from an accelerator down the rd. The children were using the rods for pencils. 3 teens discovered the material.
There were reportedly "massive levels of radioactivity", said [someone, unidentified]. Readings in the area showed "2000 micro R -- anything above 20 is abnormal" [said ditto].
No-one knows who dumped the material nr the village, but Russia's nuclear program is leaving ordinary Russian citizens to pay the price.
The water table at the village is believed to already be contaminated -- the rods have been removed.
Russians are likely to be left to consider how many more disasters will hit.
Apr 18 Chernobyl. There are new claims about lax safety at another nuclear plant nr St Petersburg -- Russia's most European city, and a showplace for reform.
Power for St Petersburg comes from a Chernobyl-style stn that critics say doesn't meet safety standards. It's 110 km from St Petersburg.
News crews needed special permission to get there -- there are security concerns over possible rebel Chechen attacks.
The govt says the plant has been rebuilt and has become "safe" after retraining. They are not going to repeat the mistakes of the past, say officials.
But workers at the facility tell a different story. They say sometimes workers arrive drunk, and plant operators make employees violate safety guidelines.
Under pressure the Ukraine has agreed to phase out Chernobyl -- provided the W foots the bill. But there are no such plans here. At the "Safety Summit" it's unlikely these reactors will even be an issue. Unlike Chernobyl, the reactor here is an accepted part of life.
Apr 19 Moscow. World leaders are headed for Russia and a Nuclear Safety Summit, but an Israeli artillery strike on a UN base in S Lebanon seems likely to push the Middle East up in the agenda. The G7 Summit was called to reduce the risk of another nuclear disaster similar to Chernobyl, 10 ya, and to give Pres Boris Yeltsin a helping hand in his campaign for re-election.
Apr 20 Moscow. Leaders of the world's richest ind'l countries, along with Russia, have opened a Nuclear Safety Summit with a formal dinner in the Kremlin palace. Russian Pres Boris Yeltsin welcomed US Pres Bill Clinton and the other G7 leaders to the round-table dinner.
Apr 22 Moscow. The "Safety Summit" has started with a day of back-slapping and photo-ops. Pres Bill Clinton may want Boris Yeltsin to win the up-coming Russian elections, but that didn't stop him meeting Mr Zyuganov today, just in case.
At photo ops, Pres Yeltsin dismissed thoughts of a return to Communism -- but the polls show he's in trouble. A major strike against Yeltsin is the continued fighting in Chechnya. Mr Clinton said the US recognised the Chechen region as a part of Russia.
The Safety Summit has achieved that at least.
Meanwhile, the extent of harm from Chernobyl remains largely unknown. Russian officials say there's been a sharp increase in thyroid cancer in the Ukraine nr the site of the disaster. And now similar claims are coming from Belarus.
People are angry over the failure of the govt to tell the pop'n there was a problem. Just 5 days after the disaster, all families nr the site were ordered to attend May Day celebrations, as clouds of rad material continued to pass overhead.
Observers [and the WHO] report cases of thyroid cancer have soared -- it's a treatable disease, but many cases might have been prevented.
But experts say expected leukemia cases have registered no sig increase [and in light of Thyroid cancer increases presents somewhat of a puzzle]. Some scientists say the stress from the Chernobyl accident, and fears of its long-lasting effects may have done more immediate harm than the actual rad contamination.