Chinese Nuke Plants; State Secrets

Two interesting and relevant stories from the New York Times today:

China plans to build three times as many nuclear power plants in the next ten years as the rest of the world combined. While China has not had a serious nuclear accident, the pace of the expansion has raised safety concerns around the world. The United States was the last country to attempt such a rapid nuclear expansion, which ended with the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979. China is also planning to build many of their plants close to major metropolitan areas, close to tens of millions of people.

In other news, the Obama administration is following a Bush-era precedent in asserting state secrets privilege to try to shut down a federal lawsuit. The Justice Department asked a federal court to throw out the case of five people who claim they were subject to forced disappearance, torture and inhumane treatment - otherwise known as rendition. However, the Amerian Civil Liberties Union, which is serving as defense counsel, is claiming that the secrets in question were no longer secret, as the government has declassified information about its interrogation methods and the Obama administration has prohibited abusive methods of interrogation and secret detentions.