Awwal 14, 1432 / April 18, 2011, SPA -- The European Commission said on Monday it will allocate an extra 110 million euros ($157 million) towards the cost of building a new shelter over the Chernobyl nuclear reactor which blew up in 1986, Reuters reported. "Tomorrow I will announce an additional pledge of 110 million euros," Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told reporters after meeting Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich in Kiev. "We hope that our key partners will also step up their contributions in order to complete the works of the shelter by 2015," he said in a separate statement later. The Chernobyl plant on Ukraine's northern border with Belarus became the site of the world's worst nuclear accident in 1986 when one of its reactors exploded after a risky experiment, contaminating the surrounding area. -- SPA
