Scientists in India are using materials recovered from radioactive waste to protect babies and vulnerable patients from adverse reactions to blood transfusion. A production line at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Trombay creates medical products based on caesium-137 instead of the usual cobalt-60, with a range of benefits.

France's nuclear regulator, the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire, has approved the restart of nine of the 12 reactors affected by the carbon concentration anomaly in the steam generator channel heads manufactured by Japan Casting and Forging Corporation. The approval, which followed ASN's examination of the results of inspections and technical demonstrations provided by EDF for the 900 MWe reactors, was announced on 12 January.

Russia has started testing its new type of nuclear fuel, REMIX, at the MIR research reactor at the Research Institute of Atomic Reactors in Dimitrovgrad, which is in the Ulyanovsk region. Development of REMIX (from Regenerated Mixture) fuel is part of state nuclear corporation Rosatom's strategy to enable better use of recycled uranium and plutonium on an industrial scale in pressurized water reactors.

Japan has established a new organisation tasked with managing its reprocessing of used fuel, METI announced on 3 October. The Nuclear Reprocessing Organisation of Japan will be funded by the country's power utilities to cover the cost of the reprocessing work.

The owner and operator of the UK's Sellafield complex, together with the country's nuclear regulator, have dismissed safety concerns raised in a BBC documentary investigating "the shocking state of Britain's most hazardous nuclear site".

A facility for separating uranium from used research reactor fuel at the US Department of Energy's Savannah River Site in South Carolina has restarted for the first time in five years. The extracted uranium will be used in new fuel for nuclear power plants.

The municipal government of Lianyungang in China's Jiangsu province has announced the suspension of site selection work for a planned Sino-French nuclear fuel reprocessing project. The move follows public protests against the project.

Some 700 kg of British high-enriched uranium (HEU) will be transported to America in return for a form of the fuel that can be used in research reactors that create isotopes for life-saving diagnosis and treatment.

China's operating nuclear generating capacity will double over the next five years under the country's latest Five-Year Plan. The plan also calls for the preparation for construction of inland nuclear power plants and work on a reprocessing plant to start by 2020.

A series of measurements of the thickness of the steel walls of some of the evaporators at Areva's La Hague reprocessing plant in northern France has indicated faster than expected corrosion. The country's nuclear regulator, the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN), said it will monitor Areva's work to minimize future corrosion of these evaporators.

The Japanese cabinet has approved a bill aimed at "taking measures necessary for the steady implementation of the reprocessing of used nuclear fuel". The bill creates a new entity responsible for reprocessing and introduces a new system for funding it.

NuScale Power's small modular reactor has the capability of using mixed uranium-plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel in addition to conventional light water reactor fuel, a study by the UK's National Nuclear Laboratory has confirmed.