Financial Times: Two-step solution sought to lift Areva capital
’The French government is leaning towards a two-step solution to resolve the urgent need to raise capital for Areva, its state-owned nuclear power champion. The nuclear group is likely to be asked to sell its profitable power transport and distribution equipment (T&D) business in a first step this summer that could raise 3bn-5bn euros ($4bn-$7bn). However, the long-awaited capital increase to bring in new strategic investors is likely to come later this year, according to several sources close to the subject. ‘The aim is for this to happen in a second stage,’ said one. However, they said the final decision had not yet been taken by President Nicolas Sarkozy, who sees the group as a launchpad for France’s nuclear ambitions abroad. The government has been waiting for the strategic review, completed this week, by Arevaâ’s newly appointed chairman Jean-Cyril Spinetta. Areva insiders said the group was resigned to losing the T&D business, without which it would have fallen into losses last year.

Democrat and Chronicle: Nuclear Regulatory Commission to examine Ginna safety system
’A four-person inspection team from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is heading to the Robert E. Ginna nuclear power generating station to look into the problem of a repeatedly malfunctioning backup safety system. A turbine-driven auxiliary feedwater system, which pumps cooling water into the plant's steam generators in the event of a plant shutdown, itself shut down during inspections on Dec. 2 and again May 26. Constellation Energy is trying to sell three upstate nuclear plants - including Ginna and two plants near Oswego - to a nuclear energy joint venture that it would operate with Electricite de France SA. Under the proposal, EDF would invest $4.5 billion in Constellation's nuclear energy subsidiary in exchange for a 49.9 percent stake. The sale currently is held up in Maryland as Constellation is fighting in court a decision by that state's Public Service Commission that the state agency must sign off on the joint venture.’

Common Dreams: Chesapeake Safe Energy Coalition Applauds PSC’s Decision to Regulate Nuclear Sale
’BALTIMORE - June 11 - The Chesapeake Safe Energy Coalition applauds the Maryland Public Service Commission's (PSC) decision today to assert its jurisdiction over the nuclear sales transaction between Electricite de France (EdF) and Constellation Energy.As a result of today's decision, the PSC will review Constellation's proposed sale of half the company's nuclear assets to EdF - already Constellation's largest shareholder - as well as the right to sell up to $2 billion of non-nuclear generating plants to EdF. The terms will significantly increase the French company's influence over Baltimore-based Constellation. The coalition - which includes Beyond Nuclear, Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Clean Water Action, the Maryland Green Party, Maryland PIRG, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Public Citizen and the Maryland chapter of the Sierra Club - urges the PSC to consider recent revelations about possible anti-competitive practices by EdF in the European Union and the indictment of two senior EdF officials by a French court for spying on the environmental group Greenpeace France.’

Christian Science Monitor: North Korea ratchets up nuclear defiance
’Washington - North Korea has responded with defiance to the United Nations Security Council resolution condemning its May 25 nuclear test, declaring as "absolutely impossible" any chance of giving up its nuclear program and accusing the United States of maintaining a nuclear arsenal "completely within range" of its own borders. In the latest rhetoric from Pyongyang, the state-run newspaper Tongil Sinbo forecast a nuclear arms race in the region, saying "the Korean peninsula is becoming an area where the chances of nuclear war are the highest in the world." That statement reflects North Korea's view that US nuclear weapons bases in Japan or in the Western Pacific pose a threat, even if the US withdrew all of its nuclear weapons from South Korea around 1990, as the US has claimed. Against that background, North Korea says it's stepping up its own nuclear program and will respond militarily to any attempts to stop any of its ships suspected of carrying nuclear components or the missiles for firing them to distant targets.’

AFP: Italy seizes radioactive biomass fuel
’ROME (AP) - Police across Italy have seized 10,000 tons of wood fuel pellets contaminated by a radioactive substance, news reports said Sunday. The fuel seized Saturday had been imported from Lithuania in the fall and was found to contain caesium-137, a highly toxic isotope whose radiation can cause serious health problems, including various types of cancer. The Corriere della Sera daily quoted police officials as saying the pellets could have posed a health threat only through the smoke and ashes they produce when burned. Further tests on pellets were being conducted to determine how dangerous they were.’

Earth Times: Fire breaks out at Taiwan nuclear power plant, no radiation leak
’Taipei - A fire broke out at a Taiwan nuclear power plant Friday, but no one was injured and there was no radiation leak, Taiwan's Atomic Energy Council said in a statement. The fire occurred at 3:15 pm (0715 GMT) at the Taiwan Power Company's No 3 Nuclear Power Plant in Hengchun, south Taiwan, when a 345 kilovolt transformer caught fire, the Atomic Energy Council said, adding that the fire was put out at 3:48 pm. "There was no radiation leak and no effect on public safety or the environment," the statement noted. The council and the Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) are probing the cause of the fire, and plan to replace the burnt-out transformer with a spare transformer Saturday.’

Reuters: Japan delays MOX nuclear fuel goal by 5 years
’TOKYO, June 12 (Reuters) - Japan's power industry utilities' association said on Friday it has delayed a target of having 16-18 nuclear reactors using mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel by five years to March 2016, denting the resource-poor nation's goal of a "closed" nuclear fuel cycle. Japan is aiming to move towards a closed cycle where it recycles its own spent fuel and then burns recovered uranium and plutonium as MOX fuel. The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan, made up of 10 utilities, said it would do its best to achieve the target by the year starting in April 2015, when a nuclear reprocessing plant in northern Japan is scheduled to start operations.’

Palestine Chronicle: In Mortal Hands - A Cautionary History of the Nuclear Age. Stephanie Cooke. Bloomsbury, New York, 2009 - Book Review
’In an era when the corporate media and the corporate politicians and the corporate military men gang up together and denounce and threaten other countries because of their nuclear related activities, they should spend much of that rhetorical energy by cross-examining themselves in a mirror. North Korea’s latest nuclear test received much more attention than its earlier ‘possible’ test because of its greater power and the strategic message sent by its politically timed Taepodong II rocket launch. Iran has moved a little bit off the radar screen as its elections have proven more interesting than its nuclear ‘threat’ but it is under increasing scrutiny as it reaches weapons potential. When placed in relation to this ‘cautionary history’, North Korea and Iran are acting only as all other nuclear powers have acted in the past, for the main theme behind In Mortal Hands is that of lies, deceit, deception, cover-ups, and secrecy to cover up the real issues with the nuclear industry. The real issue as reiterated constantly and perceptively by Stephanie Cooke is that of an industry whose central purpose is to create fissile material for weapons production regardless of and in spite of all other attempts to equate nuclear energy with peaceful purposes and with the ‘greening’ of the energy industry. It is a trillion dollar industry, supported by governments of all genres as no private developer is able to cover the costs of development, the insurance liabilities in case of accident (highly likely, already highly significant), and the huge timelines and costs of decommissioning the radioactive waste from the reactor’s fuel as well as the radioactive hulks of the reactors themselves.’