Radiation is an "effective and established" tool to sterilise personal protective equipment (PPE) that is in high demand during the COVID-19 pandemic, except for respiratory face masks as it weakens their filters, the International Atomic Energy Agency said yesterday.

The recent fires in the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine have not led to a hazardous increase in air-borne radioactive particles, the International Atomic Energy Agency said on 24 April. The State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine has regularly provided information on the fires through the IAEA's Unified System for Information Exchange in Incidents and Emergencies.

A forest fire on the western tip of the exclusion zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine has not affected background radiation levels, state authorities said today.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) has released a report on two potential methods for disposing of treated water currently being stored on the site of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The report considers the discharge of the water into the sea and via vapour release.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has launched a new, national cancer control project for Uganda that promises to continue the path towards stronger, more accessible cancer therapy services. Each year, nearly 30,000 new cancer cases are reported in the country and more than 20,000 cancer-related deaths are recorded.

A nuclear technique has successfully reduced the tsetse fly population in Senegal without harming other insects, an eight-year study has found. The study was supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency, together with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation. The sterile insect technique (SIT) is an insect birth control method that uses radiation to sterilise male flies.

The US Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration has unveiled three new nuclear incident response aircraft. The King Air 350ER aircraft are equipped with specialised radiation detection systems and will be used to conduct measurements of air and ground contamination following a nuclear or radiological accident or incident, as well as conducting baseline surveys for normal levels of radiation in the environment in preparation for major public events.

Following the March 2011 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the Japanese government launched decontamination work in the surrounding area. With most of this work now completed, the European Geosciences Union has today published an assessment of the effectiveness of the strategies used, with a focus on radiocaesium.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has announced the retrieval of abandoned, highly radioactive used nuclear fuel assemblies from the bottom of Building 5 at Andreeva Bay in north-western Russian. Following the successful operation, radiation levels at the facility have fallen by over 40%, enabling further decommissioning work and removing "one of the most significant radiological risks to the Barent Sea region", the London-headquartered bank said.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has accepted SHINE Medical Technologies' operating licence application for its medical isotope production facility in Janesville, Wisconsin. SHINE said the NRC's acceptance confirms that its application was "complete and of sufficient quality" for the NRC to start its detailed technical review of the application.

A used fuel reprocessing plant in the southern Urals region of Russia is the most likely source of a release of the isotope ruthenium-106 detected across Europe in late 2017, a study has concluded. No incident has, however, been reported at the Mayak facility or any other Russian nuclear facility and Rosatom has always maintained this.

The US Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded cooperative agreements for the production of molybdenum-99 to three US companies. The announcement came as one of the companies - Shine Medical Technologies - submitted an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to produce medical isotopes at its new production facility in Janesville, Wisconsin.