Subject: headlines

                  NUKE-NET  HEADLINE  ALERT  '95  
 
     (May 26) Reuter is reporting that China's southern province
of Guangdong has banned new thermal power plants because they
cause too much pollution.  China is rapidly pursuing nuclear
power.
 
     (May 27) Reuter is reporting that a new agreement between
Ukrainian officials and 11 Western companies will allow the
closure of Chernobyl by the year 2000.  The consortium plans to
construct a gas-fired plant which could be operational within two
years.
 
     (May 28) UPI is reporting that India's leading defense
expert says India needs first strike and second strike nuclear
ballistic missiles to match the threat of Pakistan's recently
acquired short and medium range missiles.  India says Pakistan
already has 15 nuclear warheads and enough uranium to develop 15
to 20 more.
 
     (May 29) Reuter is reporting that Egypt is welcoming private
investors to build a nuclear power plant in Egypt.
 
     (May 29) UPI is reporting that North Korea and the US are
optimistic at the start of the second week of negotiations over
the proposed reactor deal.
 
     (May 30) UPI is reporting that reactor talks between North
Korea and the US ended 30 minutes into the 10th day of
negotiations.
 
     (May 31) Reuter is reporting that Kazakhstan destroyed the
last of its Soviet-era military nuclear warheads.  The plutonium
weapon was destroyed 425 below ground with conventional
explosives.  There was no seismological event or noise from the
blast and radiation levels were reported as normal background
levels. 
    A total of 459 blasts had been conducted at the Semipalatinsk
range, 113 of them in above-ground tests before 1963, officials
said.  Health Ministry research showed radiation caused a drastic
deterioration in the health of local people and the birth rate
halved between 1963 and 1993.  The number of deaths due to birth
defects doubled, while cancers, immune and mental
deficiencies, and disorders of the blood and nervous system were
all far above normal levels.
    Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev said last week the
blast would be the final military nuclear act in his vast Central
Asian state. 
 
     (May 31) Reuter is reporting that a railway used to ship
nuclear waste in Germany was sabotaged by anti-nuclear protestors
over a controversial nuclear waste site.  The protestors used
grappling hooks to tear down overhead power lines.
 
     (June 1) Reuter is reporting that China vows to exercise
restraint on nuclear testing and says it welcomes a comprehensive
test ban treat.
 
     (June 1) Reuter is reporting that 40-50% of the population
in the Semipalatinsk district of Kazakhstan have immune
deficiencies.  Nervous and psychological disorders had doubled in
some areas. In the adjoining Pavlodar district, rates of blood
disorders in the three areas closest to the nuclear test site are
five times higher than they were before tests started.
    Meanwhile in the area around Ust-Kamenogorsk -- located
between Semipalatinsk and Lop Nor -- cancer rates have almost
doubled.  Research shows that leukemia, throat and lung cancer
cases among children in Kazakhstan multiplied by 30 times after
1964.  Cancer rates surged again after the last above-ground
nuclear test at Lop Nor in 1980. 
    In 1993 the Kazakh parliament passed a law promising to
compensate citizens whose health had been affected by radiation
from the blasts.  The law is supposed to come into effect in
1997, but $70 million will be distributed this year.
    In Kainar, a village of 2,500 inhabitants 30 miles outside
Semipalatinsk, 180 youngsters aged between 16 and 20 have
committed suicide in the past three years.  In what is being
called "The Kainar Syndrome," those with friends and family
afflicted by illness, disability and infertility believed to
result from the tests, just give up living.
 
     (June 1) Reuter is reporting that thyroid cancer rates among
Ukrainian children were five times higher in 1993 than in 1986
according to Britain's Imperial Cancer Research Fund. 
 
     (June 2) Reuter is reporting that talks between the US and
North Korea are on the verge of breaking down.
 
     (June 2) Reuter is reporting that African experts have
adopted a draft treaty to create a nuclear weapons-free zone on
the African continent.  South America and the South Pacific are
the only other nuclear weapons-free zones. 
 
     (June 2) Reuter is reporting that South Africa's Atomic
Energy Corporation is negotiating with a potential foreign
partner on development of laser technology to produce enriched
uranium.  South Africa is the world leader in this technology.
 
end