Forest fires raging near the abandoned Chernobyl nuclear disaster site in north Ukraine are releasing a surge of airborne plutonium particles as radioactive twigs, branches and leaf litter burn.
The stricken 4th reactor at Chernobyl presents a massive long term hazard, writes Kendra Ulrich. A planned €2.15 billion containment arch remains underfunded, and even if it's ever completed, it will only last 100 years. Meanwhile the intensely radioactive nuclear fuel will remain in place representing a long term risk of further huge radiation releases.
Look beneath the surface of the wars in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine, and what do you find? Oil, gas, and contested pipeline transit routes. Never mind high-sounding talk of human rights, national sovereignty, international law and UN Resolutions, writes John Foster - fossil energy is the world's main driver of armed conflict.
As tensions grow between US-dominated NATO and Russia, former cold warrior William R. Polk hears the echoes of the Cuban missile crisis - only this time, it's Russia that feels forced to fight for its vital strategic interests. We must hear the lessons of 1962 Cuba - and negotiate a just and durable peace, before we sleep-walk into a world-destroying war.
In 1976, it looked like a good idea: to divert the waters of the Danube into a salt-water lagoon on Ukraine's Black Sea coast, and irrigate millions of hectares of arid steppe land, writes Dimiter Kenarov. But the result has been human and environmental disaster on an epic scale.
The official investigation into the downing of MH17 is without precedent in the history of aviation, writes James O'Neill, as it gives one of the prime suspects, Ukraine, a veto power over publication of the report. Grieving families of the victims may never know know the truth, as geopolitics triumphs over justice.
With 300,000 hectares of forests, fields and steppes damaged by fire, the war in Ukraine has done huge damage to the country's environment, writes Dimiter Kenarov. But there has been an upside: a new green spirit is taking root, and young volunteers are stepping in to protect wild spaces.
Ukraine's Priazovskii National Park epitomises the problems faced by the world's natural areas, writes Dimiter Kenarov, as it contends with inadequate funding, rising sea levels, dried-out rivers, industrial pollution and illegal hunting. And that's not to mention the war. But the staff battle on: 'If we don't do this, then who will?'
Hidden from mainstream media exposure, the World Bank and IMF loan has opened up Ukraine to major corporate inroads, writes Joyce Nelson. Loan conditions are forcing the deeply indebted country to open up to GMO crops, and lift the ban on private sector land ownership. US corporations are jubilant at the 'goldmine' that awaits them.
Western media have studiously ignored the far-right, violent and often outright Nazi politics of many of Ukraine's Euro-Maidan protestors, writes Robert Parry. But with the thugs now organized into Nazi brigades of the Ukrainian army, and waging war on Russian separatists, an unlikely British paper has dared tell the truth: the conservative Daily Telegraph.
As the warring parties fight for control for Donetsk, the country's biggest chemical plant has come under fire, with missiles landing close to pipelines and storage tanks. If released, toxic nitrochlorobenzene could cause widespread death.
Human Rights Watch has gathered evidence in the war zones of Eastern Ukraine which show that Ukrainian government forces have violated the laws of war by using 'notoriously imprecise' rockets in civilian areas, destroying homes, killing and injuring non-combatants.
Amid the chaos and stench of war in East Ukraine, Tanya Lokshina investigates a litany of atrocities - including abductions of non-combatants and air strikes that have left entire villages in ruins and killed many civilians including children. It's all part of HRW's campaign to secure justice for the victims of war crimes.
in Ukraine, as in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, and Syria, US policy is all about dominating the world's fossil fuel supplies, writes Mike Whitney - in this case, the gas pipelines from Russia to Europe. But the 'great aggressor', Vladimir Putin, is refusing to play his part. So what next?
Polish PM Donald Tusk is using the Ukraine crisis as a pretext to revive the EU's fossil fuel industries. His proposals spell disaster for EU emissions targets and the wider environment, writes Mark Siddi. Europe's energy future must be efficient and renewable!
Superpower confrontations and growing tensions in Ukraine, the Middle East and the Arctic are all part of a new Cold War, writes Alexander Reid Ross - and this time Green campaigners are under attack by both Russian authorities and NATO ...
Graham Phillips, a British freelance journalist reporting for RT from Eastern Ukraine was detained yesterday by the National Guard and has not been seen since. Not that you would know from British media coverage. RT wrote this open letter.
The mainstream media are working hard to obscure NATO's hideous plot to rekindle the Cold War in Ukraine, writes Diana Johnstone, as they seek to engineer our 'consent' for yet more heinous acts to come. To prevent the horror of a full scale war, first we must grasp the truth.
The EU is in a unique position to save Ukraine from becoming a failed state, writes Michael Emerson, by creating a lightly armed tripartite peacekeeping force of EU, Ukrainian and Russian personnel. But it must act swiftly!
Barys Piatrovich recalls the tension of unknowing during the days that followed the Chernobyl disaster. Today, barely any of the evacuees are still alive. Dispersed throughout the country, they died alone and unnoticed, statistically insignificant.
It was 28 years ago today that Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine ruptured and ignited, sending a massive plume of radiation across Europe. Jim Green assesses the scientific evidence for how many people died as a result of the catastrophe.
For the US fracking industry - and for Vice-President Joe Biden - fracking is more than just a way to bring in vast amounts of cash, writes Steve Horn. It's also a key weapon in the US's long war with Russia, as Biden made clear this week in Kiev.
The need for cooperation over Russia's exports of gas to the EU via Ukraine was an important reason for the tentative peace deal struck in Geneva yesterday. But as Jack D. Sharples writes, gas will also be a source of East-West tensions for a long time to come.
It's not just people, animals and trees that suffer from radiation at Chernobyl, writes Rachel Nuwer, but also decomposer fungi and microbes. And with the buildup of dead wood comes the risk of catastrophic fire - which could spread radiation far and wide.
