UPDATED The two-year delay in commissioning India's new reactors at Kudankulam may soon be over now that operators have been authorised to 'approach first criticality' at unit 1.

A project to upgrade the concrete basemat under EDF's Fessenheim 1 has been completed, allowing France's oldest operating reactor to continue producing electricity.

Four Japanese utilities have applied to the country's nuclear regulators for permission to restart ten of the country's 48 non-operating nuclear reactors. Tepco is not one of them.

Honeywell has been given regulatory approval to resume full operation of its Metropolis uranium conversion plant in Illinois. The plant, which had been idle for over a year, will be restarted by mid-July.

Japan's only currently operating nuclear units, Ohi 3 and 4, look set to continue running until September after a ruling from regulators in the light of new standards. Meanwhile, Tepco is to file for permission to restart two units at Kashiwazaki Kariwa.

Honeywell is restarting front-end operations at its Metropolis uranium conversion plant in Illinois. Permission from the nuclear regulator to resume full operation is expected next month.

Nuclear power generation suffered its biggest ever one-year fall through 2012 as the bulk of the Japanese fleet remained offline for a full calendar year.

Power companies in Japan now know the regulations they are required to meet in order to restart nuclear reactors idled as a result of the 2011 Fukushima accident. The first units could potentially come back online before the end of this year.

The European Commission proposed today that European Union (EU) member states repeat comprehensive stress test safety checks at their nuclear plants every six years and ensure that radioactive releases in any accident are "practically eliminated."

French nuclear company Areva is to work with Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd to bring the Rokkasho-mura recycling plant into commercial operation under a new strategic agreement. Franco-Japanese partnerships have been further strengthened by the signature of a cooperation between Areva and Atox.

Operators of most of the USA's boiling water reactors (BWRs) must upgrade their emergency venting systems under a revised order from the country's nuclear regulator.

Japanese boiling water reactor (BWRs) will be fitted with Areva-supplied filtered containment venting systems under an agreement with Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy.