Subject: HEADLINES 1-2 November 1995

      1 Nov 1995 (Reuter) - Western experts opened fresh talks 
with Ukraine on financing the closure of the Chernobyl power
station by the year 2000. Ukraine's Environment Minister said
he was guardedly optimistic Ukraine would find common ground
with experts from the  Group of Seven rich countries during
two days of talks. So far the two sides have failed to agree
on the conditions - and the price tag - of Chernobyl's
closure. But Kiev and the G7 have moved closer together.

      1 NOV 1995 (Reuter) - A fire broke out in an office
building at Ukraine's Zaporizhya nuclear power station, but
firefighters put out the flames. It was not clear how serious
the fire was and officials at the station could not be reached
for comment. The Zaporizhya station in eastern Ukraine is
Europe's biggest, with six nuclear reactors. 

      1 Nov 1995 (Reuter) - France urged the International
Court of Justice to reject a UN request for advice on the
legality of nuclear weapons. A French foreign ministry legal
official argued that the request was inappropriate and that a
nuclear deterrent was key to national self-defence. The World
Health Organisation and the U.N. General Assembly have asked
the court, the U.N.'s main judicial body, to give an historic,
though non-binding, pronouncement on whether international law
permits the threat or use of nuclear weapons. The court's
decision is expected early next year.

      1 Nov 1995 (Reuter) - Germany has privately told France
it does not agree with Paris' resumption of nuclear tests,
Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel. "We Germans understand the
large disappointment of Japanese over the resumption of
nuclear tests. Our people felt exactly the same way," Kinkel
told a media lunch in Japan, the only country in the world to
have suffered atomic bombings.

      1 Nov 1995 (Reuter) - New Zealand's prime minister, host
of next week's Commonwealth summit, said most member states
would condemn nuclear testing and many would view Britain's
support for French tests as provocative. Prime Minister Jim
Bolger said the 51-member body was unlikely to forge a
unanimous position in the light of London's endorsement of
French testing in the South Pacific.

      2 Nov 1995 (Reuter) - Ukrainian and Western experts
narrowed differences on how to finance the shutdown of the
Chernobyl nuclear power station but put off a final agreement
pending further talks. Both sides said progress had been made
in the latest round of talks with G7 industrialised countries.
But they admitted an agreement to close the site of the
world's worst nuclear accident by the turn of the century
could be pushed back from this month to the end of the year.

      2 Nov 1995 (Reuter) - Australian anti-nuclear protesters
disrupted the loading of a French Antarctic ship and stopped
uranium from being loaded onto another ship. Altogether 10
people were arrested in the protests in Australia's most
northern and southern cities, police said.

      2 Nov 1995 (UPI) - Ukraine and the Group of Seven
leading industrialized nations appeared close to finalizing a
$3.2 billion deal to shut down the Chernobyl nuclear power
plant by the year 2000. Ukrainian officials said they expected
to reach an agreement by Friday under which the West would
contribute $2.3 billion and Kiev would pay $900 million to
close the ill-fated reactor and replace it with a conventional
power plant.

      2 Nov 1995 (UPI) - The proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction will be the major concern for the United States at
a security conference next week in Chile. The Nov. 8-10
conference of assistant ministers, sponsored by the
Organization of American States, is a follow-up to last July's
meeting of 34 hemispheric defense ministers in Williamsburg,
Virginia.