Global Security Newswire

Brazil resumed work of its third nuclear reactor yesterday after leaving the project unfinished for a quarter century, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, May 27).

The South American state's National Nuclear Energy Commission signed off on the Angra III reactor, located in the Angra dos Reis atomic energy complex south of Rio de Janeiro. Costs for the reactor total $4.9 billion. Construction began in 1974 only to come to a halt in 1985.

Energy Minister Marcio Zimmerman said in May that the government intended to construct as many as eight new nuclear power plants in the next two decades to meet Brazil's expanding energy requirements.

Brazil has been reported to be the only Latin American nation known to be engaging in nuclear activities that could quickly be tapped for military use. The stateonce had a secret parallel nuclear program, but it has since signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and forsworn nuclear-weapon development. It has, though, at times clashed with the International Atomic Energy Agency over nuclear oversight (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, June 1).