The first new site licence for a British nuclear power station for 25 years has been granted for EDF Energy’s planned Hinkley Point plant in Somerset.

UN inspectors criticised Japan today for under-estimating the threat of a devastating tsunami on its crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, but praised its overall response to the crisis as exemplary.

Stress tests on all nuclear plants in the EU will be carried out by the end of the year, the European Commission said this afternoon.