Lula resumes nuclear program to make Brazil 'world power'

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2007

SAO PAULO (AFP) — President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Tuesday relaunched the country's nuclear program, promising to complete a nuclear submarine and a third atomic power plant both mothballed 20 years ago.

"Brazil could rank among those few nations in the world with a command of uranium enrichment technology, and I think we will be more highly valued as a nation -- as the power we wish to be," Lula said at the navy's Technological Center in Sao Paulo.

"If money was lacking, it won't be lacking now," Lula said.

Finishing the nuclear submarine would cost an estimated 68 million dollars over eight years, he said.

"And who knows, with a little more (money), we may build it sooner, because it is running late," Lula said, 20 years after the project was...