RE: Interesting News RElease

[Chris Davey <cdavey@med.phys.ualberta.ca>]

For those who wonder exactly what the news was:
VILNIUS, Feb 1 (Reuter) - 
According to the news report I read, and paraphrasing to avoid any 
copyright problems:
Povilas Vaisnis, the director of Lithuania's State Nuclear Safety 
Inspectorate told Reuters that his organization was checking its Ignalina 
nuclear reactor for possible leaks because Finland and Norway reported 
radioactive fallout in January.
He was quoted as saying "A mishap at Ignalina may have been overlooked last
month," but noted that nothing unusual had been detected in preliminary 
investigations.
Norwegian officials said yesterday that radioactive fallout was detected
for a week in January, and that it could have come from a nuclear reactor 
abroad. Finnish officials also stated that they had measured fresh 
fallout in the same period but that the radioactivity was within 
normal limits.
         A Norwegian daily newspaper (Aftenposten) speculated the 
radiation could have come from Russia or the Baltic states.
    -Then comes the usual 'scare tactics' or exciting slant feature, 
designed to sell this news: "Ignalina houses the largest of the 
Soviet-era RBMK nuclear reactors, the type that caused the world's worst 
nuclear disaster at _Chernobyl_ in 1986.  Western experts are _racing_ to 
make it safer but it often suffers from minor accidents, although they do not 
usually involve any radioactive leaks."

any clearer?

Chris Davey, RSO, Cross Cancer Institute, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
email:  cdavey@med.phys.ualberta.ca