Subject: Headlines 25-27 december


     26 Dec 1995 (Reuter) - Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi
Murayama will visit Moscow in April to attend an international
nuclear power safety summit and meet President Boris Yeltsin.
Meanwhile senior officials were relieved of their duties at
the governmental Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development
Corp after it was revealed the corporation tried to conceal
information on the Monju accident.


     26 Dec 1995 (Reuter) - Japanese nuclear experts found
fault with plant design, warning systems and operating manuals
behind the recent accident at the Monju reactor.
The interim report pointed out the following: -- Gauges
measuring volume of leaking sodium were not in the same room
where the alarms were located. -- There were no television
cameras to monitor the portion of the plant where liquid
sodium circulated. -- Air ducts were located directly beneath
pipes where the leak occured. In the recent accident, leaking
sodium melted the ducts, releasing a sodium compound into the
atmosphere (although not radioactive). -- The instruction
manual did not give the duty director the authority to stop
the reactor.


     25 Dec 1995 (Reuter) - In the northern Japan prefecture
of Miyagi, a nuclear reactor owned by an electricity utility
was closed on Monday due to a water leakage problem. A
spokesman for Tohoku Electric Power Co Inc said it was not
certain when the reactor would start operating again. "The
radioactivity level in the leaked water was very low. The
incident is a minor matter,"
   One other nuclear power reactor has been closed and power
generation has been reduced at another nuclear plant since the
beginning of December due to operational problems, according
to the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI).


     28 Dec 1995 (Reuter) - France has staged another nuclear
weapons test, the fifth and possibly the second last. The
underground explosion took place at Mururoa atoll in French
Polynesia at 2230 Paris time (2130 GMT) on Wednesday. A
Defence Ministry spokesman said the blast was equivalent to
less than 30,000 tonnes of conventional explosives -- roughly
double the atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of
Hiroshima in 1945. It was the fifth in a series that broke a
1992 moratorium on French nuclear testing. The first took
place on September 5, the second on October 2, the third on
October 27 and the fourth on November 21.


     28 Dec 1995 (Reuter) - Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi
Murayama again asked France to stop nuclear tests after it
staged its fifth test this year. Foreign Minister Yohei Kono
called in the acting French ambassador in Tokyo on Thursday
morning to protest about the latest round of nuclear tests.



     28 Dec 1995 (Reuter) - South Pacific nations, including
Australia and New Zealand, on Thursday expressed condemnation
and outrage over France's latest nuclear test blast. "Its
reputation in the Pacific is at an all-time low. When the
tests are over, France will have to rebuild its credentials in
the region. It has a long way to go," New Zealand Prime
Minister Jim Bolger said in a statement.


     28 Dec 1995 (Reuter) - The South Pacific Forum condemed
France's fifth nuclear test in French Polynesia, accusing
Paris of disregarding a U.N. resolution calling for an
immediate end to nuclear testing. The South Pacific Forum,
which groups 16 Pacific island nations including Australia and
New Zealand, suspended diplomatic ties with France in October
over nuclear testing.


     27 Dec 1995 (Reuter) - The international environmental
group Greenpeace condemned the latest French nuclear test in
the South Pacific and accused President Jacques Chirac of
endangering the safety of the world. "Whilst people around the
world are hoping for a safe and peaceful New Year, President
Chirac is instead guaranteeing one of continued nuclear
weapons testing and a world filled with nuclear weapons."