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The Clemenceau class carriers are the first French aircraft carriers ever built in French shipyards after the World War II. The construction of the Clemenceau began in 1955, she was launched on December 21st 1957 at the DCN Brest naval shipyard...

Discover what exactly caused the catastrophic explosion at the Chernobyl plant, how the clean up was conducted at huge human cost, and the current state of the site.

The problem we call Chernobyl is not a thing of the past. Plans are now being made to export large amounts of highly radioactive waste to sites of nuclear accidents like Mayak, Semipalatinsk and even to Chernobyl. These plans are supported by the...

While for many people the Chernobyl disaster might be just a distant memory for many it is something they must live with every day. Meet Annya, a teenager living with cancer since the age of four. Read about Yuri the liquidator and only surviving...

In the Chernobyl workers' town of Pripiyat, the alarm sounded shortly after the explosion. Pjotr Khmel was at home when he received a phone call from his commanding officer at the fire station. Things were hectic and rushed. The firemen did not...

The men and women who were sent in to the closed zone of Chernobyl to deal with the aftermath of the disaster are called 'the liquidators'. The stories of these estimated 600,000 workers could provide the scripts to many a Hollywood movie. The...

In the Ukraine, 18,000km2 of agricultural land was contaminated, but the forests were hardest hit. Forty percent of the woods are contaminated, totalling 35,000km2. Many of the inhabitants of the area cotinue to eat fruits and vegetables from...

Just ahead of the holiday season, the hospital's corridors and consulting rooms are full. Surgeon Igor Komisarenko, head of the Institute for Endocrinology, has been operating all morning. Most of his patients are women with thyroid cancer. "Four...

When she was just four years old, little Anna Pesenko, trying to be a good girl, sitting up straight and eating her food nicely, would sometimes just pass out and fall flat onto the table. 'Annya' as she is called, could not explain very well...

Plutonium was discovered in the US in 1941 when scientists exposed uranium to neutron radiation in a laboratory. There is nothing natural about it, and has only been in the environment since the first atomic bomb was detonated in the US in 1945...

The International Atomic Energy Agency attempts to keep track of all kinds of radioactive materials as they move around the globe. However as the world's nuclear reactors continue to produce waste, and the nuclear five nations persist in having a...

"Nuclear terrorism is still often treated as science fiction - I wish it were. But unfortunately we live in a world of excess hazardous materials and abundant technological know-how, in which some terrorists clearly state their intention to...

All commercial nuclear reactors of the present generation are based on designs originally developed for military plutonium production or for the propulsion of nuclear submarines or other navy vessels. Although there are different ways of...

Every uranium-fuelled nuclear reactor creates plutonium during routine operation. Every 12-18 months the reactor is shut down, and one quarter of the fuel is discharged, and fresh fuel loaded. The so-called spent fuel consists of plutonium...

There's no environmentally acceptable way to "dispose" of nuclear waste, no matter what kind of waste it is. Dumping radioactive waste in remote areas just keeps the problem out of sight, out of mind, and lets the nuclear industry make even more...

Successive Russian Governments since the mid-1990's have had the ambition to create a worldwide nuclear waste importation, reprocessing, and disposal service in Siberia. While they have changed domestic law to permit the importation of spent fuel...

The nuclear industry is dependent upon the transportation of nuclear components and materials (uranium, fresh fuel, nuclear spent fuel and plutonium). Radioactive materials are carried by sea, rail, road and air. So even if you do not live near a...

Radiation is the term used to describe energy in the form of light or particles. Whereas most atoms in nature are stable and remain unchanged in composition and energy, certain natural or artificially created atoms are unstable, which means they...