News from the world

This document gathers short notices concerning the nuclear industry. Among them we find the following ones. A nuclear power plant will be built in Bulgaria by a Russian company, the plant is due to operate in 2013. An IAEA expert team has visited the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa site, a Japanese nuclear power plant involving 7 reactors and that underwent a severe earthquake in July 2007 (6.8 grades on the Richter scale). It appears that no major damage occurred on the reactors and that the various infra-structures involved in nuclear safety behaved better than expected. Kazakhstan has increased its uranium production by 25% to reach 6637 tonnes of extracted uranium. The Konrad well situated on the site of the ancient iron mines of Salzgitter, has been agreed by German authorities for the storage of radioactive wastes of low or intermediate level. The equipping works will last 4 years and the storage will begin in 2013. An opinion poll made in Sweden shows that almost half of the population support the construction of new nuclear power plants while Sweden is due to decommission all of its reactors within 20 years. The Russian authorities have announced the creation of a university dedicated to nuclear engineering. India has joined the international cooperation around the Jules Horowitz reactor (RJH reactor). China has become a full-fledged member of the Generation IV forum. American authorities have given their green light for a cooperation with Turkey on civil nuclear energy. (A.C.)