Push for Italian return to nuclear

Rome: The head of Italy’s new nuclear safety agency said he will persuade the public to embrace atomic power more than two decades after the nation voted to dismantle its reactors.

“It is safe, people are uninformed – they are afraid of phantoms and I have been fighting phantoms all my life,” said Umberto Veronesi, an 84-year-old oncologist and a senator for the opposition Democratic Party. “We are the only major European country without nuclear. We can’t afford to stay out. The benefits for jobs, energy prices and work for a myriad of our industries are huge.”