An agreement between the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and administrators from Japan’s Fukushima prefecture was signed over the weekend, ushering in a new era of emergency preparedness and radiation monitoring for the beleaguered Japanese prefecture.

The nuclear plant closest to the epicentre of the March 2011 earthquake that struck Japan, resulting in a devastating tsunami and radiation leakage at another facility, was “remarkably undamaged,” according to a report delivered today by the United Nations nuclear watchdog.

A Hungarian laboratory is the most likely source of the outbreak of a radioactive particle recently detected in the atmosphere above parts of Europe, the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported today.