Laka has its roots in the Dutch antinuclear movement. Since 1981 Laka collects information on nuclear energy and related issues. The archive accomodate an extensive collection of newspaper clippings (250,000), books (7,500), TV documentaries (several hundreds), professional journals, technical literature, antinuclear magazines and posters.

Until the late 80s, Laka was mainly focused on nuclear energy in the Netherlands. Due to increased information requests from abroad and the cooperation with the international organized World Information Service on Energy (WISE-International, Amsterdam) the center oriented more and more internationally. Our target group expanded drastically. Information became accessible for environmental groups, scholars, students, journalists, residents organizations and individuals from home and abroad.

The answering of information requests is considered as the most important task. Insitutes, researchers and journalists are charged with an hourly wage; individuals only pay the copies and forwarding-charges; organizations and persons without means have no costs. Laka is doing research on own initiative or on request.

* Laka is approached daily by students and scholars. On request Laka delivers background information or material on a certain aspect of nuclear energy.

* Regularly, groups from abroad ask Laka for information and advice. Laka has a lot of contacts with environmental groups in Central and East Europe, Russia, South America and Southeast Asia.

Since spring 1992, one of Laka's main projects is the depleted uranium issue. The documentation center contains about 5,000 articles and tens of books. In 1992, a staff member visited Iraq in a fact-finding mission. Since 1993, Laka plays an important role in the discussion about the El Al 1992 airplane crash in Amsterdam and the presence of depleted uranium in the plane. Laka published several articles in Dutch and foreign newspapers and magazines on the civil and military uses of depleted uranium. It also contributed to many (international) book-projects, tv-documentaries and attended numerous international conferences on the issue of depleted uranium, and it published several research-papers on the consequences of the Amsterdam crash. Laka is considered widely to be one of the most important sources for information in Europe on depleted uranium.
 

stichting Laka documentatie en onderzoeks- centrum kernenergie Ketelhuisplein 43 1054 RD Amsterdam tel: 020-6168294 fax: 020-6892179 E-mail: laka@laka.antenna.nl

Laka foundation documentation and research centre on nuclear energy Ketelhuisplein 43 NL-1054 RD Amsterdam Netherlands tel: +31-20-6168294 fax: +31-20-6892179