Between the Broadsheets

Oil giant BP has said that it is struggling to renew the visas of almost 150 staff working at its joint venture company in Russia.
The admission comes as Moscow's interior ministry said that it was deepening its investigation into alleged tax evasion by a company linked to TNK-BP, whose offices were raided by police last week. – The Daily Telegraph

An ice shelf of 5,000 square miles in western Antarctica has started to collapse, scientists said.
The disintegration of the Wilkins ice sheet, the largest on the Antarctic Peninsula to be threatened, is more evidence of rapid climate change on the continent, they claimed. - The Daily Telegraph

BP’s problems in Russia escalated yesterday after the oil giant was forced to suspend 148 employees seconded to TNK-BP, its Moscow-based joint venture, after a dispute over visas. - The Times

A vast iceberg has broken away from the Antarctic coast, threatening the collapse of a larger ice shelf that is now “hanging by a thread”.
Satellite images have revealed that about 160 square miles of the Wilkins Shelf have been lost since the end of February, suggesting that climate change could be causing it to disintegrate much more quickly than scientists had predicted. “The ice shelf is hanging by a thread,” said David Vaughan, of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). “We’ll know in the next few days or weeks what its fate will be.” - The Times

Happily for nuclear power, there are new bogeymen in town. Flatulent cows and coal fires are heating up the planet, while dodgy regimes seem to control of most of the fossil fuels. As friendly Canada and Australia sit on plenty of uranium and nuclear power generation is relatively clean once the plants are up, the industry seems set for a comeback. - The Financial Times

A nuclear energy deal has been signed which may pave the way for Russia to build Egypt’s first nuclear power station. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak made the announcement in Moscow. Earlier Mubarak met president-elect Dmitry Medvedev. - Russia Today

A move on nuclear power generator British Energy is expected shortly, and that was behind today's rise in the share price of 39½p to 660½p, valuing the company at almost £7bn. - The Evening Standard

A government minister will call today for a huge expansion of Britain's nuclear power in what he predicts could be a £20bn economic bonanza that will create 100,000 new jobs and benefit the economy as much as North Sea oil.
In an ambitious speech that will alarm the anti-nuclear lobby, John Hutton, the business secretary, will argue that the UK's nuclear programme should go beyond replacing the existing stock of 23 reactors, which provide 20% of the country's energy. Instead nuclear should contribute "a significantly higher proportion" of the nation's energy needs in the years ahead, and Britain should aim to become a world leader in the development of nuclear power technology. - The Guardian

A Government minister will today call for a massive expansion of Britain's nuclear power programme to create an industry which could be worth £20 billion with 100,000 new jobs over the next two decades. - The Telegraph

São Paulo's state government yesterday cancelled the privatisation of CESP, the Brazilian energy group, because of a lack of interest from potential bidders.
The deal would have raised a minimum of $R6.6bn ($3.8bn, €2.4bn, £1.9bn), for a company which is Brazil's third-largest power generator and accounts for about 10 per cent of the nation's electricity. - The Financial Times