Germany Closes Seven Nuke Plants

With a nervous eye on Japan, Germany announced on Tuesday that it would be shutting down all of its nuclear reactors built before 1980 for an urgent safety review. It’s a quick turnaround for Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose government just yesterday delayed a decision on the plants’ future for three months. “Safety has the priority in all our deliberations,” Merkel said of the decision. Critics, however, called the move political pandering: one of the shuttered plants is in a region where Merkel’s party will soon face a critical election.