What’s New: In brief (June 20, 2005)

CORRECTION NOTICE: Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Group Plc. is not calling for bids as was stated in the news release published on June 20, 2005. A Royal & Sun representative says the Company has no plans to call for bids on operations.

A federal nuclear safety official representing the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission says National Research Universal (NRU), Canada’s oldest nuclear reactor, presents a safety concern. The official says NRU is run by individuals from Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) a federal Crown corporation who are “prone to ‘overconfidence,’ ‘complacency’ and ‘deficiencies in management oversight and safety culture.'” These administrative problems, the representative states, have always been present at NRU, a 50-year-old federal research reactor that uses enriched uranium fuel. The recently distributed report presenting these statements, is a result of the AECL’s request for approval from the nuclear safety commission to keep NRU in service indefinitely. NRU was set to cease operations permanently at the end of 2005.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety recently conducted frontal crash tests on five large family cars and three large luxury cars. The family cars, including the Buick LaCrosse, Chrysler 300, Ford Five Hundred, Kia Amanti and Toyota Avalon, all earned top ratings as well as, except for the Amanti, “best pick” in the frontal test. The large luxury cars Acura RL, Cadillac STS and Lexus GS also earned good ratings and “best pick” for frontal crash protection. “Large cars are a good choice for consumers looking for a safe family vehicle, but some of them haven’t always performed well in the Institute’s frontal crash test,” Institute chief operating officer Adrian Lund says. “In 1999 a large family model from DaimlerChrysler, the Chrysler LHS, along with its twin 300M, was rated poor for frontal crash protection. With these latest results we now have 10 current large family car designs that are rated good.”