A nuclear waste dump in Arctic Russia may be in danger of exploding because of corrosion caused by salt water in enormous storage tanks, the Norwegian environmental group Bellona warned today.

The prime minister of Chechnya Anatoly Popov was flown to a Moscow hospital early today after suffering a serious case of poisoning.

RUSSIA'S defence minister yesterday ordered a temporary halt to towing decommissioned nuclear submarines to scrapyards after a mothballed submarine sank, killing nine of the sailors on board.

Nine of the crew of an aged Russian nuclear submarine which sunk while being towed to a scrapyard in a gale in the Barents Sea died today.