Rosatom's project to build nuclear power units at Bushehr is unaffected by current tensions surrounding US sanctions against Iran, its director general said yesterday.

The USA and UK have conducted a transfer of some 700 kg of high enriched uranium (HEU) from Dounreay to the USA. The engineering firm, Wood, created specialist facilities for the air shipment.

India and the USA have committed to strengthen bilateral security and civil nuclear cooperation, including the establishment of six US-designed nuclear power plants in India.

The US Administration's budget request for fiscal 2020, which begins on 1 October, seeks to restart the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing procedure for the Yucca Mountain geologic repository and also provides for the regulator to prepare for licensing advanced reactors.
 

Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has called on its Member States to provide additional funding for the Agency's safeguards activities, such as those to verify the nuclear programmes in Iran and North Korea.

The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation's medical isotope production facility has become the second in the world to install a high-resolution monitoring system to track emissions from its production of medical radioisotopes. The scheme is part of an initiative led by the US Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has held a pilot regional training course in Obninsk, Russia, on the security of radioactive material, including radioactive waste and mobile sources.

The last known highly enriched uranium in Nigeria has been repatriated to China, leaving the African country HEU-free.

The International Atomic Energy Agency  has signed contracts to purchase low-enriched uranium from NAC Kazatomprom and Orano Cycle, paving the way for the establishment of the IAEA LEU Bank in 2019.

China has begun the shipment of low-enriched uranium fuel for use in the Nigeria Research Reactor-1 , a Chinese-supplied Miniature Neutron Source Reactor that currently uses high-enriched uranium fuel.

International experts are meeting in Abu Dhabi to discuss global nuclear non-proliferation and export controls at a four-day workshop hosted by the UAE's nuclear regulator. Meanwhile, China General Nuclear has described a change to US policy on exports to China as inappropriate.

Nuclear Fuel Services Inc, a subsidiary of BWX Technologies Inc, has been awarded the largest single downblending contract in its history.