The Swedish parliament has decided to consider two separate nuclear energy-related bills introduced last month by the government as a single bill, the Stockholm News reported. The first bill would allow the construction of new reactors to replace Sweden's ten existing units, while the second would quadruple the financial liability of nuclear power reactor owners in the event of an accident, from SKr3 billion ($412 million) per incident to SKr12 billion ($1.65 billion). The report said that parliament's decision to combine the bills follows a climate and energy deal made a year ago between the governing Alliance parties: the Moderates, the Liberal Party, the Christian Democrats and the Centre Party. However, according to the Stockholm News, there is "major uncertainty" if the combined bill will get a majority vote when parliament votes on it on 17 June. It says that only four dissenting votes in the Alliance are needed to overturn the government proposals and so far three members of the governing parties have said they intend to vote against new reactors, while a fourth is considering voting against it.

[Associated Press, 18 March] While Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant continues long-running commissioning tests, the USA and Russia have clashed on whether the plant should start up at all. On an official visit to Moscow, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said it would be "premature to go forward with any project at this time, because we want to send an unequivocal message to the Iranians" that they must assure the world their nuclear program is entirely peaceful. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov immediately responded that "the project will be completed and we have entered a final phase of technological preparations." Lavrov added that even slow progress at Bushehr helps to persuade Iran to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is closely monitoring that project as well as Iran's other activities.

South Africa's Koeberg nuclear power station is to undergo two maintenance outages over the next month in preparation for the World Cup soccer tournament, to be held in South Africa in June. According to South African press reports, operator Eskom is planning two one-week shutdowns to allow it to carry out pre-emptive maintenance work on cooling systems at the plant. The company is committed to ensuring a reliable electricity supply as the eyes of the world turn to the month-long football fixture, which kicks off when South Africa play Mexico in Johannesburg on 11 June.