Public information activities of the IAEA

Since the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979 and increasingly since the Chernobyl accident 1986, the Division of Public Information (DPI) of the IAEA has become a contact point for journalists on all questions related to the nuclear energy and nuclear applications. The IAEA receives a continuously growing number of hits on its Internet Homepage. This is followed by an increasing number of E-mail letters from all over the world. The three main fields of general information activities of the IAEA's DPI are: 1 - the verification system of IAEA in the framework of international treaties concerning non-proliferation of nuclear weapons; 2 - the IAEA's work for safe operation of nuclear installations and its many services to improve the safe application of radiation and isotopes as well as safe operation of nuclear power plants. Questions on illicit trafficking and dangers of wrongly applied radiation sources play an important factor in our public information work in the field of nuclear safety; 3 - the IAEA's activities in the transfer of technology and the application of radiation and isotopes in agriculture, health, industry, hydrology and research. In addition to the new ways of providing information on the IAEA there is still the long established means of contact through periodicals like 'IAEA Bulletin' and 'IAEA Newsbriefs' or general information films like, for instance, 'The International Atom', 'The Nuclear Age', 'How a nuclear power plant works', 'Nuclear Energy and the Environment', 'The Safe Transport of Radioactive Material', 'The International Chernobyl Project', 'Mission Iraq' and others. Besides, there are aspects on longer lasting perspectives which should be considered: - physics teaching at schools; - information on nuclear fission, nuclear power, radiation and isotopes in a science museum in the capital; an information center at nuclear research facilities in the country. Nuclear has many advantages but it is difficult these days to convince normal people on that. It is important to be prepared to use the arguments on the beneficial uses of nuclear energy whenever a debate arises