ThomasNet: Nuclear Power: Prospects and Problems
’Amid the current drive to develop sustainable and efficient energy sources, nuclear power is experiencing renewed attention. Here we revisit the outlook for a nuclear power infrastructure. For more than half a century, nuclear power has been variously viewed as a potential solution to the world's energy needs or as an expensive and possibly dangerous alternative to more proven power sourcing methods. Although nuclear power may have a lingering association with nuclear weaponry, the search for clean, sustainable and efficient power sources has shifted discussions toward the economic feasibility and practical requirements of generating nuclear energy. Not long ago, murmurs of a nuclear revival were getting louder. But things have not gone as planned.’

San Francisco Chronicle: Diplomats: Japanese favored in vote to lead IAEA
’VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- A veteran Japanese diplomat emerged Tuesday as the favorite to succeed Mohamed ElBaradei as head of the U.N nuclear agency, after most agency board member nations backed him against four other candidates in an informal poll. Yukiya Amano received 20 votes from the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board, diplomats inside the closed meeting said. South Africa's Abdul Sabad Minty was second with 11 votes in the nonbinding poll, while Spain's Luis Echavarri was third with four ballots, the diplomats said. There was no support for Belgian candidate Jean-Pol Poncelet or for Ernest Petric of Slovenia. The diplomats demanded anonymity for divulging the confidential results. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei steps down in November, and agency members participated in Tuesday's "straw poll" to narrow the field of possible replacements before they hold a formal vote, likely on July 2.’

BBC News: France to pay nuclear test compensation
’Nearly 40 years after the first of its 210 nuclear tests, France is preparing to compensate people affected by the fallout. The move leaves the UK isolated in its policy of rejecting liability for illnesses suffered by test participants, reports Aidan Lewis. Early in the morning of 13 February, 1960, several thousand French servicemen gathered in the Algerian Sahara to witness "Gerboise Bleue" or "Blue Desert Rat", an atmospheric nuclear explosion four times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. This was the moment France obtained its nuclear deterrent, to the great joy of the president of the time, Charles de Gaulle. But the test programme it launched also exposed participants and local populations to potentially
lethal radiation. Both groups claim that they have been plagued by health problems, from aggressive cancers to minor cardio-vascular complaints. Yet the secrecy surrounding the test programme and the difficulty of scientifically proving a link between radiation and illnesses that often emerged decades later have complicated their struggle for compensation.’

Uranium Investing News: Kazakhstan and Global Uranium Supply
’By now, those interested in the uranium industry are familiar with reports that Uranium One is caught up in a scandal involving the now former head of Kazakhstan's state uranium firm (Kazatomprom), Mukhtar Dzhakishev. The KNB (successor to the Soviet-era KGB) has arrested Dzhakishev and accused him of using offshore firms to steal billions of dollars worth of uranium assets from the wealthiest nation in post-Soviet Central Asia. Rumors are circulating that political motivations are behind Dzhakishev's arrest. Some question how Dzhakishev could have stolen "more than 60 per cent of state uranium deposits worth tens of billions of dollars," as the KNB claims, out from under such a heavily monitored and audited industry as exists in Kazakhstan.’

Radio Australia: Security Council grapples with sanctions on North Korea
’The five permanent members of the UN Security Council are grappling with a final resolution to expand sanctions against Pyongyang, over its nuclear weapons programme. Presenter: Sen Lam - Speaker: Peter Hayes, Executive Director of the Nautilus Institute in San Francisco. HAYES: What's been talked about is tighter sanctions on some of the financial and trading entities or companies that the DPRK operates in places like Macau and China and around the world, that's number one. I think there's probably implicit closer tracking of North Korean travel abroad, so that the various parties know where North Koreans are operating at any point in time, greater sharing of information is implied by the sanctions, that's not part of the sanctions per se. LAM: What about this proposal to inspect suspicious North Korean air and sea cargo? I mean apart from the practicalities, do you think it has a potential to also ignite hostilities and therefore, (it's) a fairly dangerous proposal? HAYES: What they have really been pushing for is for China to tighten its inspection of containers and aircraft that fly through Chinese territory or over Chinese territory and no doubt, the Chinese can do that. The real problem here is that the most valuable nuclear material from a proliferation perspective is not a missile, particularly a missile that is unreliable and has three times been tested and it has not worked. The real problem is nuclear weapons material, fissile material, which can be broken up into small amounts and moved in diplomatic pouches if necessary and data and designs, and particularly test datas is very valuable. And these are items that really cannot be interdicted physically. It's not just possible, and not only would you have to track every single North Korean travelling around the planet and in and out of North Korea, you'd also have to track any potential customers around the planet wherever they might intersect with those North Koreans and, or going in and out of North Korea.’