Brazil with nukes?

Now this is getting weirder and weirder. From the ISN/Center for Security Studies in Z�rich, Switzerland:

Brazil realizes its nuclear ambitions
Brazil has taken yet another major step toward greater energy independence, an accomplishment that will not go unnoticed in some Middle East circles.

Following an April proclamation that South America's largest country was now capable of handling all of its own oil needs, Brazilian nuclear energy officials earlier this month inaugurated the country's first nuclear enrichment facility for fueling the nation's power plants.

Brazilian officials like Science and Technology Minister Sergio Rezende said the refining facility in Resende, some 144 kilometers outside of Rio de Janeiro, would save the country millions of dollars in the coming year since it no longer had to enrich its nuclear fuel at Urenco, the European enrichment consortium.

According to nuclear officials here, the Resende enriched uranium will cover 60 per cent of the energy needs of the country�s two largest power plants, Angra I and Angra II.

Combined, those facilities produce 4.3 per cent of Brazil's energy needs and 40 per cent of the energy used in Rio de Janeiro.

Brazil claims to have one of the world's largest uranium reserves.

Things are not all bad:

Washington has also apparently given its blessing to the Brazil program. Mentioning both Brazil and Iran in the same sentence, former White House spokesman Scott McCellan said the issue that separated the two nations was simply "trust".

"I think a difference here ... if you're talking about Brazil versus Iran - is one of trust," said McCellan in February.

But they had a run-in with the IAEA:

Brasilia did battle with the IAEA over its own nuclear program not two years ago when it refused to let UN inspectors visit certain parts of its enrichment facility claiming they did not want to compromise homegrown enrichment techniques.

In 2004, nuclear officials here first asserted that Brazil had developed a refinement process at least 25 per cent more efficient than others and wished to protect its homegrown technology.

Some international observers speculated that Brazil would not allow inspectors to see its centrifuges because it was hiding its capability to refine uranium for nuclear weapons, an allegation Brazil has vehemently denied.

In April, Brazil was accused of refusing to allow inspectors to examine the Rio facility in February and March of this year, raising suspicions that Brazil may have had something to hide.

Brazilian officials countered by saying the inspections were unnecessary and intrusive since Brazil formally abstained from nuclear weapons development in the 1990s during the administration of then-president Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

The controversy was sparked when a former US Defense Department official told a leading Brazilian newspaper that the reason the UN was interested in inspecting a new nuclear facility in Resende was speculation that the technology at the plant was supplied by former Pakistani nuclear program head Abdul Qadeer Khan, who provided nuclear technology to several rogue nations over the years.

On the surface, with a stable government, this would be a great thing. Lessen the dependence to the Arab Oil Ticks and build more nuclear power plants. This presents a volatile situation if the government is overthrown, as I am sure that any number of nations like Russia, Pakistan, North Korea or China would be happy to bring in "advisors" for beating these plowshares into swords...