THE CITY of Košice is against a proposal to mark off almost 300,000 square metres of land near the city's Jahodná recreational area for a uranium mine. The Canadian company Tournigan Gold Corporation (TGC) is interested in mining uranium and molybdenum in this area. The city is the exclusive owner of the land in question.
Košice argues that the land lies in a protected area that includes the city's water reservoirs.
THE STATE ironed out the final wrinkles plaguing the sale of Slovak power utility Slovenské elektrárne to Italian buyer Enel in what is the country's last big privatization deal in the energy sector.
Slovakia might soon see its nuclear power plant in Mochovce completed, along with the construction of its first wind power plant if power producer Enel makes good on its investment plan promises.
The Bulgarian government has agreed to close four of the six nuclear reactors at its Kozloduy plant by 2006 at the latest, the European Commission said today. The accord means all eight reactors classed as dangerous and "unupgradeable" that are located in countries due to join the EU will be decommissioned within a decade.
The EU has repeatedly stressed that the closure of the four Kozloduy reactors by 2002 would be a condition of Bulgaria's eventual entry into the bloc. But the Bulgarian government recently passed a law which would have seen the last reactor decommissioned only in 2010.
A plan to upgrade two nuclear reactors in Solvakia may force Western governments to stop dithering over nuclear safety in Eastern Europe.
Ever since the reactor at Chernobyl exploded in 1986 spewing radioactivity over more than 20 countries, Europeans have lived in fear of another large-scale nuclear disaster. That fear grew when the Iron Curtain fell, revealing the full extent of the problems with nuclear plants in the former Eastern bloc. It also fuelled a fierce debate: should Soviet-designed reactors be shut down or could they be made 'safe'?
