The first foundation stone for units 2 and 3 of the Bushehr nuclear power plant has been laid in a ceremony held at the construction site in southern Iran.

The UK's finance minister, Philip Hammond, has described the terms of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant project as a "well-designed transfer of risk". Meanwhile British company Rolls-Royce has for the second time become a 'preferred bidder' for the project in Somerset, and members of EDF Energy's advisory panel have argued it is "strongly in the national interest to press ahead with the plant".

The third unit of the Fuqing nuclear power plant in China's Fujian province has been connected to the grid. The CPR-1000 is scheduled to enter commercial operation later this year.

State financial controllers in Belarus and Russia have carried out an audit of the intergovernmental agreement between the countries for construction of Belarus' first nuclear power plant, in Ostrovets, in the Grodno region. According to Nuclear.Ru, the State Control Committee of Belarus and the Accounts Chamber of Russia have looked at the "performance of obligations" laid out in the agreement.

The first safety concrete has been poured for the containment building basemat of Tianwan nuclear power plant's sixth reactor,  in Jiangsu province, marking the official start of the unit's construction.

Argentina's National Atomic Energy Commission has awarded a contract to a joint venture between Tecna and Siemens to supply the balance of plant for the prototype CAREM-25, a domestically-designed and developed small integral reactor.

A feasibility study on the construction of nuclear power plants in Jordan is to be prepared in the first half of next year, Sergey Kirienko, director general of the Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom said today. Kirienko spoke to reporters at the second Eastern Economic Forum that opened today in the Russian city Vladivostock.

VC Summer unit 2's reactor vessel was placed inside the unit's containment yesterday, the first such operation to take place in the USA in over 30 years.

Unit 2 of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in India's southern state of Tamil Nadu has been connected to the electricity grid. It becomes India's 22nd operating power reactor.

Installation of the reactor internals within the pressure vessel has been completed at unit 3 of the Tianwan nuclear power plant in China's Jiangsu province. The Russian-supplied VVER-1000 is scheduled to start up in 2018.

First concrete has been poured for the conventional island of Fuqing 6 - the second Hualong One unit under construction at the site in China's Fujian province. Both Hualong One units currently under construction at Fuqing should be in operation by 2020.

The largest module has been installed at the Vogtle 4 nuclear construction project in the US state of Georgia. Emplacement of the CA20 module marks the heaviest lift at the project so far this year.