WORLD IN BRIEF : GERMANY : $2.6-Billion Nuclear Energy Plan Shelved

Germany announced that it is abandoning a nuclear energy project on which it had already spent $2.6 billion, because regional authorities refuse to issue an operating license. Research Minister Heinz Riesenhuber said the decision, which ended years of political controversy, was taken because the authorities in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia refused to drop their opposition and would not issue the operating license for the Kalkar project. North Rhine-Westphalia is governed by the Social Democrats, an opposition party in the federal Parliament.