Nuclear power in Europe

STUTTGART, Germany: A German engineer has acknowledged that he helped procure parts for a centrifuge system that authorities say was meant for Libya’s now-abandoned nuclear weapons program, a court said Thursday.

Gotthard Lerch went on trial in June, accused of supplying Libya with sensitive technology in the knowledge that the country was seeking atomic weapons. Prosecutors have accused him of playing a key role in the network led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. (more…)

VIENNA, Austria - The International Atomic Energy Agency says a black market nuclear network operating from Pakistan had substantial and up-to-date information on how to make an atomic bomb.

The United Nations nuclear watchdog says much of the sensitive information was passed on to customers in electronic form. (more…)

A little before dawn on a recent summer morning, a convoy of three large blue lorries, a handful of police cars and a bus rumbled along the dual carriageway heading north out of the Bulgarian capital, Sofia. Even if it had not been so early, the motorcade would probably not have drawn much attention. The lorries were unmarked, the bus carrying a few sleepy policemen was old and scruffy, while the lumbering shipment was big and slow enough to explain the escort and its flashing blue lights. (more…)

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US Central Intelligence Agency recruited a family of Swiss engineers to help it thwart the Libyan and Iranian nuclear programs as well as an underground supply network of Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, The New York Times reported on its website late Sunday.

The newspaper said the operation involved Friedrich Tinner and his two sons, who have been accused in Switzerland of dealing with rogue nations seeking nuclear equipment and expertise. (more…)

WASHINGTON — Bulgaria has sent its remaining highly enriched uranium to Russia for safeguarding from terrorist or other potential misuse.

Nearly 14 pounds of the spent fuel were received Thursday at a Russian nuclear facility, the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration announced. A first shipment of 37.3 pounds of fresh uranium fuel was sent to Russia in December 2003. (more…)

BERN, Switzerland: A powerful Swiss parliamentary committee is investigating why files in a high-profile nuclear smuggling case were secretly destroyed on government orders last year, officials said Tuesday.

The parliamentary committee charged with overseeing intelligence issues said it will collect further evidence on how the files were destroyed and publish a report before the fall. (more…)

The government ordered the destruction of documents on an alleged international nuclear smuggling network involving three Swiss engineers, it has been confirmed.

The head of a parliamentary control committee said the material was shredded last November. (more…)

By Ben Hall in Paris

Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, on Monday began a five-day visit to Paris to buy arms, nuclear power and civil airliners, triggering a storm of criticism from campaigners and an outburst from a government minister who said France should not accept his “kiss of death”.

Colonel Gadaffi was last night expected to sign a clutch of contracts valued at about €10bn ($14.7bn, £7bn) with French companies at the Elysée palace following talks with Nicolas Sarkozy. The Libyan leader is looking to buy 26 Airbus aircraft, a nuclear power station, French Rafale fighters and missiles, spare parts for his fleet of Mirage fighters and military helicopters.
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CAIRO, Nov. 5 (UPI) — Egypt’s first nuclear power plant will be online within 10 years, the convention of the country’s ruling National Democratic Party was told at the weekend.

“The first station should be working in 2017-2018,” said Gamal Mubarak, son of President Hosni Mubarak and head of the party’s powerful Policy Secretariat.

Mubarak said Sunday in a speech to the party’s ninth convention that the nuclear program would ensure Egypt’s energy independence by 2022.

The party will “start work on implementing Egypt’s nuclear program, which includes the building of four nuclear power stations by 2022, with energy output equal to 7 million tons of petrol,” he said.

President Mubarak announced last week that Egypt would re-launch its nuclear power program — making it the latest of 11 Arab nations to unveil plans for nuclear energy in the past year, according to Bloomberg News. The others are Algeria, Bahrain, Jordan, Libya, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates.

Minister of Electricity Hassan Younis said the following day that Egypt will most likely buy nuclear fuel rather than produce its own.

Egypt originally launched a nuclear energy program in the 1950s, during the heyday of President Gamal Nasser’s developmental ambitions, but it was abruptly shelved in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster.

EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told an energy conference here last week that the EU was willing to aid Egypt in ensuring the safety of any nuclear plants it builds.

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Shaun Waterman, UPI Homeland and National Security Editor

MOSCOW, November 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russian state-run nuclear fuel producer TVEL will supply 7 kilograms of low enriched uranium to a research reactor in Ukraine in 2008, the company announced on Thursday.

The nuclear fuel will be delivered under a Russian-U.S. program, Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors (RERTR), aimed at developing technical methods to convert reactors from the use of highly-enriched uranium (HEU), which can be used in atom bombs, to low enriched uranium (LEU). (more…)