Brazil launches program to build nuclear submarine in a decade

Brazil advanced today toward its target of joining the small club of nations that have nuclear-powered submarines with the opening of a naval shipyard installation that will build French-designed submarines.

President Dilma Rousseff inaugurated the factory that will make metal hull structures for four conventional diesel-electric Scorpene attack submarines and eventually a fifth submarine powered by a nuclear reactor developed entirely by Brazil.

She said Brazil, one of the BRICS group of leading emerging nations and Latin America’s largest nation, was a peaceful country but a defense industry was needed to deter and prevent violent conflict.

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