Subject: HEADLINES 1 - 5 September 1995 (1 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - South America's Pacific Rim nations criticised France's planned resumption of nuclear testing on Friday, saying the tests could damage their marine environment. (1 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - Chile called on Latin America to launch a regional protest against the forthcoming French nuclear tests. Chile has ordered its ambassador in Paris to return to Santiago immediately after the first nuclear test is carried out. (1 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - France seized two Greenpeace protest ships near its South Pacific nuclear testing site and said this spelt the end of attempts to disrupt its forthcoming nuclear tests. Navy commandos stopped the environmental group's flagship Rainbow Warrior after it sailed into a 12-mile exclusion zone around the Mururoa atoll and sent dinghies and two divers into the lagoon testing site. They later seized the MV Greenpeace outside the exclusion zone after its helicopter had flown over the banned zone. (2 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - Anti-nuclear activists vowed to keep the pressure on security forces guarding France's main South Pacific nuclear test site, as thousands of Polynesians and foreign legislators, including Japanese Finance Minister Masayoshi Takemura, marched into the centre of Papeete in protest against the imminent resumption of testing. (2 Spet, 1995) Reuter: - Greenpeace Netherlands has asked the Dutch government to lodge an official complaint with the French government for seizing two nuclear protest ships in the South Pacific, which were sailing under Dutch flags. One was sailing in international waters. (2 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - More than 100 anti-nuclear activists proclaimed China's first "nuclear-free zone" at the world women's forum Peace Tent in Huairou and demanded France and China halt nuclear testing. (2 Spet, 1995) Reuter: - An unbowed Greenpeace environmentalist movement demanded the return of two of its ships seized by the French navy in the south Pacific and vowed to continue its campaign against French nuclear tests. (2 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - A senior official at the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) said the campaign was unlikely to begin until next week. The Defence Ministry said each blast would be announced only after it has been carried out. (2 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - A Fijian anti-nuclear protest ship has broken down on its way to Mururoa Atoll and is adrift near the Cook Islands with 70 people aboard, including Fijian and European politicians. (2 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - The New Zealand government refused to be drawn into a confrontation between French military authorities and Greenpeace, despite pressure from opposition leaders accusing France of "piracy." The New Zealand navy ship Tui would maintain its presence off the Mururoa Atoll test site only to symbolise the country's opposition to the planned underground blasts. (2 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - Ten thousand people attended a rally in Tokyo on Saturday to protest imminent French nuclear tests in the South Pacific. The mayor of Hiroshima, Takashi Hiraoka, left for a tour of France during which he will lodge an official complaint in Paris over its planned tests at Mururoa Atoll, while Japanese Finance Minister Masayoshi Takemura left for Tahiti to take part in a protest rally in Papeete. (2 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - Anti-nuclear protests continued in Australia as thousands took to the streets in Sydney in a last-minute bid to force Paris to abandon its test programme. Australia's Pacific Islands Affairs Minister Gordon Bilney was due to leave Australia leading a multi-party delegation on a tour of European capitals, including Paris, to rally opposition against the tests. (3 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - Joined by leftist congressmen, protesters from local environmental groups emptied bags of French cheese, wine, pate de foie gras, cosmetics and other products onto the sidewalk outside the French embassy in Santiago, Chile, on Sunday to protest France's plans to resume nuclear testing. (3 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - French commandos boarded the French sloop Kidu just inside the military exclusion zone around France's nuclear test site on Sunday, the third protest vessel in as many days to be seized by force. The yacht and its crew of three will be towed to Mururoa (3 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - Military officials in Tahiti denied a French test had been held. A naval officer on the New Zealand ship Tui said he had recorded a loud noise in the water at 1546 GMT, followed by others over the next 10 minutes. They thought it could have been an underground blast. (3 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - Some 5,000 Taiwanese marched through Taipei on Sunday to protest nuclear power and urge the Taiwan government to drop the plan for a new reactor. The Nationalist- dominated parliament approved the budget for the long-delayed fourth plant in 1994. Construction has yet to start. (3 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - New Zealand will send an air-force plane to parachute-drop spare parts to a protest ship carrying European and Fijian politicians that broke down en route to France's nuclear test site in the Pacific. (3 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - A hundred women from all over the world joined at the Non-Governmental Organisations Forum on Women a protest against nuclear testing at a grassroots forum near Beijing, marching around the site shouting "Stop China Testing," "France Go Home." They were only allowed to portest inside the area of the grassroots forum. (4 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - Three people were killed and four others injured in a fire on Monday in a workers' dormitory near the South Korean nuclear power plant Wolsong. Police is not ruling out arson. (4 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - Four Greenpeace activists entered Mururoa's lagoon in two inflatable Zoadiac dinghies, but were quickly detained by French commandos. Greenpeace spokesperson Schultz said the first test was imminent and launched the "symbolic" protest because Greenpeace did not have the resources for a major action. (4 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev said on Monday he supported Greenpeace efforts to stop planned French nuclear tests in the Pacific and slammed French President Jacques Chirac. On the same day, the popular 84-year-old French scientist and oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau appealed to President Chirac to call off the nuclear tests. (4 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - On Monday, thirty demonstrators from the Nevada-Semipalatinsk movement -- which fought successfully to end 40 years of Soviet atomic testing in Kazakhstan -- chanted slogans and waved banners before handing a protest letter to an embassy official in the Kazakh capital Almaty. (4 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - New Zealand Prime Minister Jim Bolger said Greenpeace had deliberately provoked the weekend confrontation off Mururoa Atoll. Greenpeace said Bolger's failure to protest to Paris was "cowardly and reprehensible." Greenpeace activists scaled the French embassy in Wellington to unfurl two huge banners. (4 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - Australia on Monday called in France's ambassador to explain why French commandos raided the protest ship MV Greenpeace in international waters near France's nuclear test site, damaging the ships' equipment and detaining those on board. (5 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - Japanese Finance Minister Masayoshi Takemura on Tuesday dismissed France's complaint over his participation in a demonstration in Tahiti. On Monday, 30 demonstrators started hunger strikes outside the French Embassy in Tokyo. (5 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - The Rainbow Warrior and a sister ship, the MV Greenpeace, were being towed by the French military to remote Hao Atoll in French Polynesia after being seized during weekend protests against the imminent resumption of French nuclear tests. Crew is asking for legal help. (5 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - Japan did not plan to recall its ambassador to Paris, but had summoned France's acting ambassador Denis Gauer on Wednesday morning and registered Japan's official protest against the French nuclear test. (5 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - The New Zealand government was calling in France's ambassador to New Zealand, Jacques Le Blanc, to tell him that France's actions were unacceptable. (5 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - Greenpeace said on Tuesday it had several secret protest teams operating around the Mururoa atoll, but denies that some of its members were ex-SAS (British Special Air Services). This was claimed by French authorities after intercepting two activists near the test site. (5 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - "France has proceeded with its first nuclear test at 2330 Paris time (2130 GMT)," Colonel Abel Moittie said, confirming an announcement in Paris. "The ministry of defence has said the energy released was less than 20 kilotonnes," said Moittie, who refused to say whether the test was a success. (5 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - In an interview on French television on Tuesday, Chirac said he might cut to six the eight planned underground tests, due to start any day, and complete them earlier than the original May 31 deadline. "One test is one too many," said Tahiti's leading anti-nuclear activist Oscar Temaru. (5 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - EU Environment Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard is to urge her colleagues to seek more test data from France, to push for an independent delegation to visit the test sites within days and to consult Paris on the tests' possible impact on neighbouring islands in the region (5 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - France is sending 35 parliamentarians to nations in Europe, Asia and Latin America to help defuse opposition to French nuclear testing in the South Pacific, the French Defence Ministry said on Tuesday. (5 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - France complained to Tokyo and Stockholm on Monday about the presence of Japan's finance minister and Sweden's culture minister at a weekend demonstration in Tahiti against the tests. Swedish premier Ingvar Carlsson rejected France's complaint, saying nuclear testing was never a domestic matter but a concern for humanity. (5 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - Russia has received about $120 million from the United States for deliveries of processed uranium, previously used in nuclear warheads. No military-grade uranium was exported. Russia's share on the world uranium market was about five to six percent, while Russian enterprises could fill up to 30 percent of international sales if it was not for the anti-dumping measures by the U.S. (5 Sept, 1995) Reuter: - In Papeete, Tahiti, politicans from around the world have held protest meetings and marches for the past three days. French Polynesia's President Gaston Flosse said foreign anti-nuclear protesters should leave the internal policies of French Polynesia and France alone. -- ==================================================== World Information Service on Energy (WISE) Amsterdam PO Box 18185 Visitors: Ketelhuisplein 43 1001 ZB Amsterdam 1054 RD Amsterdam The Netherlands Tel: +31-20-616 8294 Fax: +31-20-689 2179 wiseamster@antenna.nl http://antenna.nl/~wise ====================================================