Romanian officials claim ignorance of cheap Chernobyl-contaminated produce labelled safe and sold to the Middle East, finds Gabriel Ronay.
Radioactive wheat grown in Ukrainian fields poisoned by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster are being repackaged as 'Romanian-grown grain' and exported by Bucharest merchants to Arab countries in a lucrative multimillion pound scam. Radioactive fall-out from the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe in the now defunct Soviet Union on April 26, 1986, contaminated wide swathes of Europe and caused serious damage to crops and livestock as far west as the Scottish Highlands and Islands. For years afterwards, hill farmers could not sell their lambs and milk from cows that had fed on tainted grass.
It is still casting a deadly shadow over the Ukraine, the former breadbasket of the region. The radioactive contamination of the soil, one of the long-lasting effects of the explosion of the fourth reactor, is crippling independent Ukraine .
Because of evident contamination of Ukrainian wheat, and also of wheat and cereals grown in the neighbouring Republic of Moldova, Arab countries of the near and Middle East have now banned the import of grain from the two countries for fear of radioactive contamination of their people. Enter the new venture capitalists of Romania eager to make a quick buck.
Radioactive wheat grown in Ukrainian fields poisoned by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster are being repackaged as 'Romanian-grown grain' and exported by Bucharest merchants to Arab countries in a lucrative multimillion pound scam. Radioactive fall-out from the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe in the now defunct Soviet Union on April 26, 1986, contaminated wide swathes of Europe and caused serious damage to crops and livestock as far west as the Scottish Highlands and Islands. For years afterwards, hill farmers could not sell their lambs and milk from cows that had fed on tainted grass.
It is still casting a deadly shadow over the Ukraine, the former breadbasket of the region. The radioactive contamination of the soil, one of the long-lasting effects of the explosion of the fourth reactor, is crippling independent Ukraine .
Because of evident contamination of Ukrainian wheat, and also of wheat and cereals grown in the neighbouring Republic of Moldova, Arab countries of the near and Middle East have now banned the import of grain from the two countries for fear of radioactive contamination of their people. Enter the new venture capitalists of Romania eager to make a quick buck.