A fire caused by a short circuit in the AT-1 grid automatic transformer of the South Ukraine nuclear power plant was extinguished within two hours yesterday, Energoatom, the country's state-owned nuclear power plant operator, said today.

There is certainly nothing wrong with the basic tenets of radiological protection, but their application without heed to non-radiological hazards can lead seriously astray, writes Jack Valentin, an independent radiological protection consultant.

Qualification irradiation tests of fuel elements for the demonstration HTR-PM high-temperature gas-cooled reactor plant being built at Shidaowan, China, have been completed in the Netherlands.

Westinghouse and Energoatom have agreed "to significantly increase" nuclear fuel deliveries to Ukrainian nuclear power plants until 2020.

Eleven countries have presented a joint declaration to the Council of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, urging the development of new infrastructure to replace ageing facilities used for the production of the most widely used medical radioisotope, molybdenum-99.

The US House of Representatives has passed legislation to authorize Department of Energy research on whether low-dose ionizing radiation poses a risk.

The US-based Electric Power Research Institute and Japan's Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry have agreed to extend their collaborative research agreement for a further five years.

Testing of a new high-performance water decontamination system has started at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. When in full operation, the new system should increase water treatment capacity while significantly reducing the volume of waste generated.

More than a century has passed since radiation and nuclear energy were discovered and the image of those energy sources has undergone much evolution with the passing of several cultural waves, each of which left its mark on the public's perception and attitude to nuclear power, writes Jeremy Gordon.

Westinghouse has been criticised by the Swedish nuclear regulator for failing to carry out required medical examinations of some workers at its fuel fabrication plant in Västerås.

Russia's Rosatom and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development have announced milestone dates for two projects in their so-called Nuclear Window program.

The American Nuclear Society has written to a Senate committee expressing its concerns that a new bill will politicize the way the national nuclear regulator oversees security of radiological materials.