Key Facts

Eastern Europe.

GMT + 2 (GMT + 3 from last Sunday in March to Saturday before last Sunday in October).

207,595 sq km (80,153 sq miles).

9.8 million (UN estimate 2005).

47.2 per sq km.

Minsk. Population: 1.7 million (2003).

Belarus is bordered by Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine and the Russian Federation. It is covered largely by forests and lakes, which are rich in wildlife, and is crossed by major rivers such as the Dnieper.

Republic since 1991.

President Aleksandr Lukashenko since 1994.

Prime Minister Sergey Sidorsky since 2003.

The current leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, originally came to power at the 1994 presidential election. An important element of his platform was a promise to end corruption. Unfortunately, Lukashenko's rule became characterised by ever greater corruption, nepotism, censorship and arbitrary decision-making; it has since deteriorated further, with restrictions on religious and political assembly and, in the worst cases, the disappearance and death of prominent critics. In 1996, a dubious referendum had endorsed Lukashenko's intention to extend both his powers and his term of office to 2001.

The Lukashenko government's conduct has completely undermined Belarus' relations with the West, which it had initially sought to develop. Lukashenko is now looking to Moscow and especially the integration project, under which the two countries will become united at political and economic levels, adding to an already extensive set of bilateral agreements. However, the issue of government corruption still taints Belarus. In early 2005, Belarus was listed by the USA as Europe's only remaining outpost of tyranny. The EU extended travel restrictions on senior officials and the USA imposed sanctions. Street protests throughout 2004 have highlighted that Belarusians wish to keep these complaints at the forefront of worldwide media.

The official results of a referendum in October 2004 showed almost unanimous support for the removal of the two-term limit on Lukashenko's rule. At parliamentary elections held at the same time, official results also showed that opposition parties failed to win a single seat. Foreign observers claim that there was widespread corruption involved with both votes, and protests on the streets followed the elections.

Alexander Lukashenko was re-elected at the March 2006 presidential elections with more than 82% of the votes. Opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich said the result was a 'fraud' and international observers commented that the ballot 'did not meet the required international standards for free and fair elections'.

The official languages are Belarusian and Russian.

Christian, mainly Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic with small Protestant, Jewish and Muslim communities.

220V, 50Hz. Adaptors are recommended.

Handshaking is the usual form of greeting. Hospitality is part of the tradition and people are welcoming and friendly. Company or business gifts are well received. Avoid taking photographs of military or government installations.

 

Chernobyl: Basic Facts

The RBMK-1000 Reactor

The Chernobyl reactor complex just 80 miles north of Kiev, Ukraine is made up of four Russian made RBMK-1000 water-cooled graphite moderated reactor designed to make plutonium for nuclear weapons and modified to also produce electricity. There are 27 RBMK's in the former Soviet Union. One distinguishing feature of the RBMK design is its use of graphite to slow the neutrons produced by the fissioning of uranium-235 atoms. Besides the RBMK reactors, the U.S. Department of Energy operated a graphite-moderated reactor at Hanford, Washington for the dual purpose of producing military plutonium and electricity up until the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident. Within the reactor core of a RBMK, nuclear fuel is placed in long separate vertical channels surrounded by graphite, which is expected to absorb large amounts of heat as a safety feature to give reactor operators ample time to take corrective action in the event of an accident.

While significant differences in both design and construction exist between the Chernobyl-style reactor and U.S. commercial power reactors, the nuclear accident stands as an indictment of nuclear power technology and the catastrophic consequences inherent in the fissioning of the uranium atom to generate steam for electricity.

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The Ongoing Consequences of the Nuclear Accident

At 1:23 a.m. on April 26, 1986, a catastrophic nuclear accident demolished Chernobyl Unit 4. Power plant operators lost control of the reactor while conducting experiments at low power. In an enormous explosion of the reactor core, a mammoth amount of heat and disintegrated radioactive fuel violently erupted into the atmosphere. An atomic fire burned for days before Swedish authorities alerted the world to the return of nuclear fallout spewed high into the atmosphere. Only months early, Soviet Life had propagandized that operating the Chernobyl nuclear power plants was "safer than driving a car."

The facts are still coming forward:

There is roughly a 36 mile diameter "dead zone" surrounding the reactors from which over 160,000 people were evacuated, permanently abandoning over 600 years of continuous habitation and culture around the towns of Chernobyl and Pripyat. Numerous "hot spots" of radioactive contamination persist far beyond a "zone of alienation;" many areas continue to emit radioactivity at levels ranging from 40 to 100 curies/kilometer2. As many as 150,000 people were dislocated in Belarus and 75,000 in the Russian Federation.

It is estimated that nearly 80% of Belarus was hit by iodine-131 fallout at 1000 curies/kilometer2, but because this isotope is short-lived (80 day hazardous-life) it was omitted from the long-term forecasts and analysis despite its extremely significant health consequences.

Vast tracks of agricultural land and bodies of water have been poisoned in Ukraine, Belarus, western Russia, with significant radioactive contamination persisting as far away as Poland, Norway and Sweden .

In an effort to avert a second nuclear catastrophe at the site, the international atomic industry puzzles over its next move to prevent or contain the eventual collapse of the colossal concrete tomb hastily erected at great human sacrifice as a biological barrier. The concrete pillars supporting the "sarcophagus" are crumbling and ready to burst over the highly radioactive remains of the damaged reactor, which would result in another catastrophic airborne release of radioactive particulate to the environment.

Wind and water continue to spread Chernobyl's deadly radioactive contamination over even wider areas. Ground water flowing under the damaged Chernobyl reactor is spreading an underground radioactive plume into the Pripyat and Dnieper Rivers, threatening the city of Kiev's water supply.

Now, nearly ten years later, the Ukrainian government estimates 8000 people have died in their country from the nuclear accident as a result of radiation-related illness. The Ukrainian Ministry of Health places that figure at 125,000 with disease rates, miscarriages and birth defects steadily rising. Officials in Belarus estimate that roughly 2 million have suffered in some way as a result of the nuclear meltdown. Birth rates have fallen 50% in Belarus. Over 3 million Russians were exposed to the radioactive fallout in 1986. An estimated 370,000 Russians are believed at significant risk for radiation illness according to a recent Moscow medical conference. The relocation of hundreds of thousands of people from additional contaminated zones has ground to a halt for economic reasons, as has radiation monitoring of farming produce in the zones.

According to United Nation sources, Belarus currently spends 20% of its national budget dealing with the Chernobyl aftermath while Ukraine devotes 4% of its budget. In a report prepared by the Minister for Extraordinary Situations and Protection of the Population from the Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe, the estimated total cost to Belarus from 1986 to 2016 is the equivalent of 32 annual budgets from the republic's pre-accident period.