- News you won't see on the BBC -

On 10th April 2011 Magister Heinz Stockinger, the long-serving leader of Salzburg's Platform Against Atomic Danger (PLAGE) was awarded the "Nuclear-Free Future Award" for his life's work and the fight against the nuclear threat, reports the summer edition (no.97) of the Austrian environmental magazine Natur und Land.

He shares the prestigious prize with Dr Helen Caldicott of Australia (visit the "Love This Planet Radio" LINK >>>). Previous winners include Martin Sheen, Manuel Pino, Henry Red Cloud and David Lowry (Wales).

"My earnest wish for the future is that EURATOM is reformed. If not, as happened after Chernobyl, the nuclear energy business will in three to five years of the Fukushima accident simply carry on as before . . ." said Stockinger.

In 1977, aged 30, Stockinger led a campaign against the building of the Austrian nuclear reactor near to Vienna - AKW Zwentendorf. The result of the campaign was that a national referendum was called. And in November 1978 in Austria the result was a resounding "NO" to nuclear energy.

There followed massive pressure from the pro-nuclear lobby from within and from outside of Austria but the Chernobyl accident in 1986 finally sealed the result of the referendum. To date there are no nuclear power stations in Austria where the government has recently announced plans to completely disengage from imported nuclear energy by 2015.

In 1985 Stockinger together with Hannes Augustin started a movement to bring to attention the enormous danger posed by plans to build a so-called "plutonium factory" at AKW Wackersdorf in Germany, almost on the Austrian border. Of the 800,000 objections to the Wackersdorf plan more than half came from Austrians. The "plutonium factory" plan was scrapped. Germany has also announced the closing down of nuclear plants, as has Switzerland. And recently Italy has scrapped plans to build its first nuclear reactors.

Only a day or two ago the German leader met with her Russian counterpart. You can bet that the Russian Gas Pipeline project was on the agenda and that it will now be vigorously pushed ahead.

In Central Europe a nuclear free future is on the way. And maybe it's time that the IAEA, currently at home in the heart of Europe, in the Austrian capital Vienna, reconsidered its future and left - the removal van is waiting outside.

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