There are 69 reactors under construction today - the largest number in 25 years - but only one is in a liberalized electricity market, writes Edward Kee.

The French nuclear safety regulator has specified additional post-Fukushima safety measures to be taken at the country's fuel cycle and research facilities.

The $30 billion earmarked for the US Department of Energy in the 2016 budget proposal is 9% up on the amount it received for 2015. The $1 billion budget requested by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is nearly 3% down on the previous year as its new reactor workload decreases.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has formally withdrawn plans to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) for Dominion Energy's planned North Anna 3 following an earlier decision to revert to the reactor design originally envisaged for the Virginia site.

Switzerland's Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate has approved upgrades proposed by utility BKW for the continued operation of the Mühleberg nuclear power plant until 2019.

All five of Switzerland's commercially operational nuclear power reactors are to be retrofitted to increase hydrogen control capabilities, according to new requirements set by the country's nuclear regulator ENSI.

December saw a key milestone for the Office for Nuclear Regulation with the publication of its first strategy as a statutory public corporation, writes Nick Baldwin, the ONR Chair.

The UK's Office for Nuclear Regulation has granted permission for Heysham I unit 1 to return to service following the discovery last year of a crack in a boiler spine in the reactor. EDF Energy returned the unit to service on 10 January, ONR said.

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

Stephen G. Burns on 1 January becomes the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission's sixteenth chairman.

The Belgian government has said that two of the country's oldest nuclear power reactors - Doel units 1 and 2 - can operate for a further ten years, reversing an earlier decision that the units must shut down in 2015.

Units 3 and 4 of Kansai Electric Power Company's Takahama nuclear power plant meet new safety standards, according to Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority.