There's been a burst of new ETF filings in the past few days. Here's a capsule summary of each new filing that's crossed the transom, along with links to the relevant registration statements in the SEC's EDGAR database:

• IShares FTSE China (HK Listed): This fund will track an index that spans about 80 Chinese stocks that trade on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. By contrast, its sibling, iShares FTSE/Xinhua 25, is limited to the 25 largest Chinese stocks listed on that exchange. As such, this portfolio will reach farther down the market-cap ladder, investing in a slug of mid-cap names in addition to the usual large-cap Chinese firms. This follows on the heels of SPDR S&P China GXC, which launched last year, spans over 100 firms, and also invests in a clutch of mid-size firms.
• IShares S&P Emerging Markets Infrastructure: As the name would suggest, this fund will invest in a basket of 30 emerging markets stocks in the energy (6 holdings), transportation (12 holdings), and utilities (12 holdings) fields. Barclays already offers a global infrastructure fund, iShares S&P Global Infrastructure IGF. This fund will go head-to-head with another forthcoming ETF, PowerShares Emerging Markets Infrastructure, which will track the Red Rocks Emerging Markets Infrastructure Index.
• IShares MSCI All Country Asia ex-Japan: This fund will invest in the stocks of firms domiciled in China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. It looks like Barclays has a very similar (if not identical) version of this product trading on various foreign exchanges. If that product is any indication, this fund will invest the bulk of its assets in firms based in China, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan. Barclays already offers a U.S.-listed ETF, iShares S&P Asia 50, that employs a variant of this approach.
• IShares MSCI Emerging Markets Eastern Europe: The fund would invest in firms based in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Russia. Barclays is playing a bit of catch-up here, as SPDR S&P Emerging Europe GUR--which invests in these same countries as well as those in Turkey and Ukraine--has been trading in the U.S. for over a year. (Barclays already offers dollar-, pound sterling-, and Euro-denominated versions of this ETF on the Swiss Exchange.)
• IShares S&P Global Clean Energy: This is another case of Barclays registering a strategy that it already offers overseas. This fund will invest in 30 firms "involved in clean energy businesses", so defined by the S&P benchmark it tracks. At first blush, it appears the iShares portfolio will be less expansive than PowerShares Global Clean Energy, which recently spanned more than 80 stocks spanning 18 countries. By contrast, the iShares portfolio invested in only 9 countries as of Mar. 31, 2008, and held a bigger stake in domestic firms.
• IShares S&P Global Nuclear Energy: Similar to the Global Clean Energy fund that it has registered, this fund will invest in a concentrated basket of 20 nuclear energy-related firms. As of Dec. 31, 2007, the S&P index spanned nine countries, the U.S. and Canada representing the biggest weightings (28% and 21%, respectively) followed by France, Australia, and Germany. It'll compete with PowerShares Global Nuclear Energy PKN and Market Vectors Global Nuclear Energy NLR.
• IShares S&P Global Timber & Forestry: This will join Claymore/Clear Global Timber as the only timber and forestry-related ETFs. As we've cautioned previously, these types of funds are not to be mistaken for strategies that invest in the physical commodities. Rather, this ETF, like the Claymore offering, will invest in the shares of timber, forestry, and paper products companies (25 stocks, to be precise, many of which it shares in common with the Claymore fund).
• Vanguard Global Stock Index ETF: Vanguard has been  moving inexorably closer to offering an all-market stock ETF. This ETF, which will track an index (FTSE All World) spanning 48 developed and emerging countries and nearly 3,000 stocks, culminates that process. The fund is slated to cost 0.25%, or 10 basis points less than iShares MSCI All Country World.
• Claymore/BNY Frontier Select DR: We discussed this at some length in our Basis Pointing blog. The ETF will track the BNY Frontier Select DR Index, which consists of depositary receipts of firms domiciled in countries like Egypt, Pakistan, and Kazakhstan.
• PowerShares NASDAQ Internet: The fund will track the NASDAQ Internet Index. Interestingly, the index isn't limited to NASDAQ-listed stocks, making it something of a departure for that index family. There are already 5 internet-related ETFs on the market. However, four of those are very quirky (the HOLDRs family, which are hyper-concentrated portfolios) and none have gathered boatloads of assets. The closest direct competitor is First Trust Dow Jones Internet, though it appears the NASDAQ benchmark's scope is slightly broader.

Any thoughts on the potential capital appreciation for the global nuclear etf's?  It seems like many countries have big plans for nuclear plants and Europe relies on nuclear for quite a bit of it's power generation.  The US shuns nuclear yet our utilites that use this source seems to being well.