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"As a threatening nuclear noose around Lithuania tightens, residents are getting organised to protest the proposed construction of three nuclear power plants (NPPs) - in Lithuania itself and neighbouring Russia and Belarus. If current plans succeed, the small Baltic republic may find itself ensnared in a dangerous triangle of three new sites, losing its hard-obtained status of a nuclear-free nation. Andrei Ozharovsky, 17/05-2010 - Translated by Maria Kaminskaya To make their concerns well-recognised, residents of the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, held an anti-nuclear march last April 26 to commemorate the 24th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster and demand a withdrawal of plans by Russia, Belarus, and Lithuania to build three new nuclear power plants in Neman in Russia's Kaliningrad Region, Ostrovets in Belarus, and Visaginas in Lithuania, respectively. They urged the three nations to start developing renewable energy as an alternative to the dangerous atomic plans. "

Lithuania Thursday shut down its Soviet-era nuclear plant under an EU deal in a move set to drive up electricity prices amid an economic crisis and leave it counting on ex-master Moscow for power. "At 11:00 pm (2100 GMT) everything went offline. It all went according to plan," Viktor Sevaldin, director of the 26-year-old plant, told AFP by telephone. The plant, located in Visaginas in eastern Lithuania, provided 70 percent of the Baltic state's electricity. It gradually went offline from 8:00 pm (1800 GMT) Thursday, displaying its decreasing output on its website. It is similar to the one that exploded at Chernobyl in then-Soviet Ukraine in 1986, the world's worst nuclear accident.

Lithuania Thursday shut down its Soviet-era nuclear plant under an EU deal in a move set to drive up electricity prices amid an economic crisis and leave it counting on ex-master Moscow for power. "At 11:00 pm (2100 GMT) everything went offline. It all went according to plan," Viktor Sevaldin, director of the 26-year-old plant, told AFP by telephone. The plant, located in Visaginas in eastern Lithuania, provided 70 percent of the Baltic state's electricity. It gradually went offline from 8:00 pm (1800 GMT) Thursday, displaying its decreasing output on its website. It is similar to the one that exploded at Chernobyl in then-Soviet Ukraine in 1986, the world's worst nuclear accident.

Lithuania may have to defy the European Union and keep its Ignalina nuclear power plant open beyond 2009 if the EU cannot help it assure energy supplies, the prime minister and economy minister said on Thursday. Lithuania agreed under its EU entry treaty to close Ignalina, which has the same kind of reactors as at Chernobyl in Ukraine, where the world's worst nuclear disaster happened in 1986.

"Lithuania expressed its official disapproval of a plan pushed aggressively by the neighbouring Belarus to build a nuclear power plant (NPP) in the Belarusian town of Ostrovets, just 55 kilometres away from the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. The former Soviet republic's concerns were stated in an official note that was prepared by the Ministry of Environment and will be extended to Minsk, said the Lithuanian news agency DELFI.lt Bellona, 08/05-2010 Lithuania's note of concern states, in particular, that Minsk has yet to deliver a comprehensive environmental impact evaluation report on the future NPP and asks that Belarusian officials hold a new hearing in Lithuania where such information may be made available to the public. Belarus, however, is not obligated to take Lithuania's opinion into account, DELFI.lt reported. "

"A senior parliamentarian in Lithuania has launched an investigation into allegations that stolen parts were installed in the country's only nuclear power plant, the Baltic News Service and other local media reported Tuesday. Rokas Zilinskas, chairman of the Baltic state's parliamentary nuclear energy commission, has asked prosecutors to look into claims that equipment stolen from Russia's Leningrad nuclear power plant was later installed in Lithuania's Ignalina facility. A company called Energetikos Tiekimo Baze allegedly shipped equipment stolen from Russia to Lithuania under false papers in 2003- 2004, media reports claimed. The equipment, described as servo drives used to lower graphite rods into the nuclear reactor, was allegedly later installed at Ingnalina. "If it is found out that the law and order institutions failed to take any (necessary) measures ... this will raise serious doubts as to their competence and ability to safeguard the interests of national security," Zilinskas said in a statement."

As part of the deal to join the European Union, Lithuania agreed to close its perfectly serviceable nuclear-power station at Ignalina. No engineering or safety case for this was ever made: the requirement was a political one, sprouting from a neurotic strand of greenery in western Europe.

An Italian court has ordered the recall of 10,000 tonnes of wood fuel pellets imported from Lithuania over fears that they could have dangerous levels of radioactivity, newspapers reported on Sunday. The alarm was raised after someone in the northern Aosta Valley region, who had bought the pellets, sent them for analysis because they did not burn well. The results showed that they contained caesium 137, a highly toxic radioactive substance normally produced by a nuclear explosion or from the combustion of a nuclear reactor. The contaminated pellets themselves are not dangerous to humans, said Salvatore Aprile of the Aosta Valley court: the dangers comes from the ashes and the smoke produced when they are burned. The court ordered their recall on Saturday. The pellets at the centre of the alert were imported from Lithuania last autumn and were sold in 11 regions in the north and south of Italy.

ollowing an international tendering process, the team of companies headed up by AREVA TA (Paris:CEI) was awarded a contract to design a near surface repository for low and medium level waste on the Ignalina nuclear power plant site in Lithuania. The project, funded primarily by the EBRD, includes the design studies for the repository and on-site support during construction. The repository will receive low and medium level operational waste recovered from the dismantling of the Lithuanian power plant. As part of AREVA's Reactors and Services division, AREVA TA has extensive experience in the design of such facilities for radioactive waste, or in providing support to projects for their design and construction. Other team members include the French national radioactive waste management agency ANDRA, which will provide its expertise in this field, the Lithuanian Energy Institute (LEI), which brings experience in safety an environmental assessment, and knowledge on national regulations, the company Specialus Montazas-NTP (SM-NTP), which contributes skills in geology, civil engineering, seismic design and mechanical design, and the company Pramprojektas (PP), which brings infrastructure know-how.

ollowing an international tendering process, the team of companies headed up by AREVA TA (Paris:CEI) was awarded a contract to design a near surface repository for low and medium level waste on the Ignalina nuclear power plant site in Lithuania. The project, funded primarily by the EBRD, includes the design studies for the repository and on-site support during construction. The repository will receive low and medium level operational waste recovered from the dismantling of the Lithuanian power plant. As part of AREVA's Reactors and Services division, AREVA TA has extensive experience in the design of such facilities for radioactive waste, or in providing support to projects for their design and construction. Other team members include the French national radioactive waste management agency ANDRA, which will provide its expertise in this field, the Lithuanian Energy Institute (LEI), which brings experience in safety an environmental assessment, and knowledge on national regulations, the company Specialus Montazas-NTP (SM-NTP), which contributes skills in geology, civil engineering, seismic design and mechanical design, and the company Pramprojektas (PP), which brings infrastructure know-how.

Lithuania's hopes of being allowed to extend the life of its Ignalina nuclear power plant were dashed on Wednesday by the European Commission. In its treaty on joining the European Union in 2004, Lithuania promised to shut by the end of 2009 the second reactor at the plant, which is similar to Ukraine's Chernobyl facility where the world's worst nuclear disaster struck in 1986.

United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that Lithuania has agreed to consider hosting a missile interceptor base if the U.S. deal with Poland falls through.

MOSCOW, May 24 (RIA Novosti) - Russian nuclear power agency Rosatom dismissed on Saturday rumors circulating in the country's Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad of a radioactive leak from a plant in neighboring Lithuania. Rosatom spokesman Sergei Novikov said several journalists had contacted him on Friday asking about an alleged accident at Lithuania's nuclear plant.

"Belarus seems to be finding it increasingly hard to sell its nuclear energy plans to European nations, both near and far. This time, Minsk's desire to build a nuclear power plant (NPP) close to the Lithuanian border was thwarted by vigorous objections from Austria: representatives of Austrian NGOs and federal authorities expressed a strong disapproval of Belarus's intent at a hearing in Vienna in mid-May. Hearings similar to the one that took place in Vienna have previously been held in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius and Kiev, the Ukrainian capital. Ever since it first brought up the subject of building a nuclear power plant to a controversial Russian project, Belarus has been finding itself more and more hard-pressed to convince its neighbours that they have nothing to fear from the future site. For its location, Belarus has settled on the town of Ostrovets, in Grodno Region, just 23 kilometres off the Lithuanian border, and Lithuania has already made its position known, both as a matter of public opinion and on a state level: No, thank you, Minsk."

- A referendum to postpone the closure of Lithuania's only nuclear power plant until 2012 has failed to reach the required turnout of 50%, the country's Central Election Commission said. Only 47.6% of voters cast their vote on Sunday during a nationwide referendum on extending the life of the Soviet-era nuclear power station, which provides 70% of Lithuania's electricity. Some 88.7% of the voters that did turn out supported the decision.

Debates are still ongoing on the issue of possible construction of a nuclear power plant in Belarus. The suggested site is in the Ostrovets District in the Grodno Region - or just some fifty kilometres away from neighbouring Lithuania's capital of Vilnius. Bellona's regular contributor Andrei Ozharovsky offers a comment on the developing project and the public sentiment it is causing.

Russia's plans to build a nuclear power plant in its Baltic territory of Kaliningrad, hemmed in between Poland and Lithuania, has local residents and environmentalists worried. Russian state energy corporation Rosatom announced plans last year to build a 1,200-megawatt nuclear plant near Sovetsk by 2016. The site is just 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Lithuania's border. But memories of the world's worst nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986 in what is now Ukraine has convinced residents like Lyudmila Litvinova and others who went to a meeting with local officials that the risk is too high. "Why would we want to succumb to a radiation risk here in Russia," Litvinova, 52, told AFP.

"Russian officials today laid the foundation stone of a new nuclear power station in Russia's westernmost region, Kaliningrad, which is sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania. Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov took part in the ceremony in the Neman district, along with Kaliningrad Governor Georgy Boos, and Sergei Kiriyenko, the chief of the national nuclear-energy corporation, Rosatom. The site of the planned nuclear plant, located just 20 kilometers from Lithuania's border, has been a cause of concern for local residents and ecologists, for whom memories of the 1986 catastrophe at the Ukrainian nuclear plant of Chornobyl remain fresh. More than 300,000 people were evacuated in the wake of the disaster from areas in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. It also spread a cloud of radiation across much of Europe. "

"In conjunction with other large energy producers around the world, most notably the United States, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has just tabled a proposal to pump $1.77 billion into its nuclear industry to fund new plants, Russian news agencies have reported. Charles Digges, 02/03-2010 The government infusion comes quickly on the hells of the announcement that Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear corporation, will be proceeding with the controversial Baltic Nuclear Power Plant in the Russian enclave of Kalliningrad, between Lithuania and Poland. "

"Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius expressed hope that Minsk would drop its plans to build a nuclear power plant close to the Baltic country's border, BelaPAN reports. He said that Vilnius could encourage Minsk to change its mind on the project by offering cooperation in the sphere of nuclear energy, according to Lithuania's National Radio and Television. "

At present, Ignalina nuclear power plant buys the nuclear fuel for about 80% higher price than over the previous year. Network distribution companies are also preparing plans for raising prices. Ignalina nuclear power plant intends to present the request to the State Control Commission for Prices and Energy until October 2008 on the increase of the sale price for the produced electricity.