BBC News | Asia-Pacific | Kazakh anti-nuclear movement celebrates tenth annoversary

The Kazakhstan anti-nuclear movement, Nevada Semipalatinsk, has been celebrating its tenth anniversary in the former Kazakh capital, Almaty.

It was one of the first major anti-nuclear movements in the former Soviet Union and attracted thousands of people to its rallies and protests.

Its campaigning eventually led to the closure of the nuclear test site at Semipalatinsk in north-east Kazakhstan in 1991.

Soviet scientists had been testing nuclear weapons both above and below ground there for forty years.

The United Nations believes that one million people were exposed to the radiation and babies are still being born with genetic abnormalities in towns and villages around Semipalatinsk.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service