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South Africa's plan to build a nuclear plant to tackle its energy shortages has to be revisited in light of the economic climate and the project may be postponed, an energy ministry official said on Thursday. The country plans to build its second nuclear power plant, estimated to cost billions of dollars and meant to provide 20,000 megawatts of power to help meet fast-rising demand that the country has not been able to keep up with.

Even as Australia reiterated its inability to sell uranium, India on Monday signed an agreement on civil nuclear cooperation with Namibia. "Among agreements that we signed today is the cooperation between us on uranium. I believe that we have the best uranium (in the world)," said Namibian president Hifikepunye Pohamba after discussions with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The pact is an umbrella agreement that includes sale of uranium to India. An MEA press release issued after signing of the agreement noted the "many opportunities for investment available in Namibia in the uranium, diamond, agriculture, energy, transportation, railways, mining, ICT and SME sectors and resolved to encourage Indian investments in these areas". Namibia's Uranium resources are about 5% of the world's known reserves.

The Huffington Post ran an interesting feature today, just one day after Capt. Richard Phillips was rescued from that hostage situation in Somalian waters. The feature is an essay written by a Somalian-Canadian singer/activist and explains why Somalians don't condemn, and sometimes even encourage, their pirates. The argument has been tossed around the Internet a bit, but I haven't seen it much in mainstream media, and especially not now that we've just recovered one of our very own from a dangerous situation. The argument runs: Many Somali pirates are just trying to keep Somalia's waters clean.