Rio, 1/8/2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - One of Brazil's most prominent nuclear physicists, Luiz Pinguelli Rosa, who will become the president of Eletrobras next week, says that Brazil does not need nuclear weapon technology and that recent declarations on the subject by the new minister of Science and Technology, Roberto Amaral, were badly interpreted.

According to Pinguelli Rosa, Brazil is a signee of various non-proliferation treaties and the agreement making Latin America an area free of nuclear weapons. He added that the Brazilian constitution prohibits making such weapons.

"Brazil does not have and does not need this knowledge. Nuclear technology is not for that, it is to generate energy. Bombs are a plague for humanity. What we see around the world today is sad: terrorism, war in the Middle East, people dying. Man does not have the right to make these weapons," he declared. (AB)