MOSCOW (AFP) — Russia wants to take part in Vietnam's planned nuclear energy program, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Denisov said Thursday following talks with Vietnam's Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem in Hanoi.
"We know that such plans were made in Vietnam, very daring and far-reaching plans. We hope that Russia will be among those who will work with Vietnam in this hi-tech area and continue the traditions of our cooperation," Denisov said in an interview to the ITAR-TASS news agency.
Agreements on cooperation to revive Italy's nuclear sector and give LUKoil a foothold in the European refining sector topped a slew of deals signed Thursday, overseen by President Dmitry Medvedev and visiting Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
But Berlusconi, renowned for impolitic and controversial statements, grabbed the most attention with comments about Barack Obama, describing the U.S. president-elect as "young, attractive and even suntanned."
A government bill overturning Italy's moratorium on nuclear power has been approved by the lower chamber of the country's government and has been passed for approval to the country's Senate.
The bill, approved by the Camera dei Deputati on 4 November, was amended several times after much debate between the right-wing majority and the minority and also within the government itself. The amendments include a new deadline of 30 June 2009 for the government to find sites for new nuclear power plants, revised from the original deadline of December 2008 (the sites of Italy's shut down nuclear plants are no longer considered suitable); the establishment of a Nuclear Regulatory Agency, whose board will be named by the country's president in consultation with the prime minister and the government; and provision for the sites of the new plants to be subjected to military control if necessary.
POLICE officers who are called to protests outside Suffolk's nuclear power station will receive specialised training and equipment courtesy of those who own the reactor.
British Energy has given £10,000 to the county's police force to help them remove campaigners from the site at Sizewell.
(VIENNA) - The Austrian Green party called Tuesday for Austria to quit the European Atomic Energy Community (Euroatom or EAEC), saying public money paid to the body could be better used elsewhere.
Austria, which is constitutionally opposed to nuclear energy, "must exit the Euroatom Treaty," Green party spokeswoman Eva Glawischnig said.
The UK's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has formally advised the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate - the country's nuclear safety regulator - that it plans to extend the operating life at Oldbury nuclear power station, the NDA said Wednesday.
Finland's Olkiluoto power station was meant to symbolise the resurrection of nuclear power after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and to act as a showcase for Areva of France's new EPR reactor technology.
The first nuclear power station to be built in western Europe since Chernobyl, Olkiluoto 3 would demonstrate that nuclear energy was the obvious solution to growing concerns about CO2 emissions, high fossil fuel prices and dependence on imported energy sources.
Prime Minister Robert Fico said he was unpleasantly surprised by the European Commission’s (EC) lack of a response to the meeting of the European Nuclear Energy Forum (ENEF).
"I am sorry that, despite the renewed interest in nuclear energy, the European Commission did not nominate a single member to attend the forum,” he said at ENEF’s opening session. “Neither Slovakia nor the Czech Republic came to the ENEF. Nonetheless, I’d like to confirm that we are interested in its activities.”
As work started on LAES-2, a complex of six power station units with VVER-1200 reactors that is due to complement the existing four 4 RBMK-1000 units of Leningrad Nuclear Power Station (LAES), environmentalists began a protest campaign against what they call an illegitimate and potentially hazardous construction.
The project’s estimated cost is $10 billion.
STOCKHOLM, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Swedish power group Vattenfall said on Tuesday an inspection had revealed one broken control rod and cracks in about 30 percent of others at its Forsmark 3 reactor.
Forsmark communications director Claes-Inge Andersson told Reuters that about 100 out of 169 rods had been inspected and cracks had been found in some 25-30 percent of them.
