AUSTRALIA
by the way Friends of the Earth have launched a beaut new interactive site - everything you ever wanted to know about Australia's history and present, in matters uranium and nuclear http://australianmap.net/
Still under the radar, perhaps, but nuclear and uranium news are alive and well, here. Well, perhaps not exactly well. The promoters of the uranium industry keep getting all this positive news spin published - about the prospects in Queensland and New South Wales. But the facts are conveniently forgotten - BHP's pullout from uranium mining, Paladin's disastrous losses, Cameco selling uranium below the cost of production. Toro undecided, now that Western Australia has made stricter environmental regulations. THE AUSTRALIA in particular continues its spin - also about SILEX laser uranium enrichment, about how Australia 'needs' nuclear submarines.
The Australian government dishes out more money for Lucas Heights nuclear reactor - for its fig leaf medical radionuclides. (Never mind that this is last century's technology, while non nuclear cyclotrons can produce those same medical radionuclides)
Lynas rare earths corporation has applied to Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) to import radioactive waste back to Australia,
Renewable Energy: Renewable Energy Target under fire from Australian utilities (understandably - they will need help as renewable energy succeeds) Canberra going for 90% renewable energy by 2020 . Hepburn Council asks the Victorian government to ease its effective ban on wind farms, to allow their small community wind farm project.
INTERNATIONAL
Japan Business prioritised above safety: Japan caves in to global nuclear Establishment, and backs away from its zero nuclear power commitment. Japan sets up a new Nuclear Regulation Authority which has a daunting, years long, task to develop safety rules. News on the environmental/health effects of Fukushima continue to filter out. Japan to renew building of two new nuclear reactors.
India's Kudankulam anti nuclear movement widens to a national movement, despite the government's continued repression of anti nuclear activists.
NIMBY in Britain - Not in My Backyard, say UK Councils about nuclear waste burial, (even if it is the least worst way to deal with UK's pile of plutonium.) New nuclear looking pretty much impossible in UK, as even the Supporters of Nuclear Energy are rejecting the government's plan.
France shutting down Fessenheim, its oldest nuclear reactor- to cries of rage from EDF.
Choruses of pro nuclear hype from vested interests around the world - promoting continuance of nuclear power in Japan, exalting all the nuclear dream factory's latest illusions - especially thorium as a nuclear fuel. Meanwhile many sources explain the flaws in thorium reactors - not least of which is their lack of economic viability.
Climate change - reaching a crisis point, with summer sea ice at its lowest level ever. Nuclear reactors in USA continue to be affected by heat - e.g Vermont Yankee causing heat pollution in the Connecticut River .