Subject: HEADLINES November 15-19

Nov 15 (Reuter) - Sweden's nuclear power plants cannot be shut
down fully by 2010 as decided in a referendum 15 years ago,
Sweden's Energy Minister said. Andersson's comments are likely
to alarm his minority government's Centre Party ally which
says the 2010 deadline still holds. An energy commission
reports on the consequences of closing one or more nuclear
reactors on December 18.

Nov 15 (Reuter) - The United States urged the World Court to
throw out a request for a ruling on the legal status of
nuclear weapons, saying nuclear arms were vital for global
security. The US told the court that the path to nuclear
disarmament lay in political negotiation and that an advisory
opinion on the issue might actually damage this course.  

Nov 15 (Reuter) - Austrian artist Hermann Nitsch spattered
canvases, and some spectators, with 180 litres (45 gallons) of
pig's blood in a protest against French nuclear testing, in
what he called a symbolic gesture highlighting the dangers of
testing to humans and marine life around the test site in the
Mururoa atoll. 

Nov 16 (Reuter) - The sixth reactor at the Zaporizha nuclear
plant was shut down for 10 days after a small radioactive leak
less than a month after being brought on stream, Ukrainian
authorities said: "Defects were eliminated in a steam
generator, where a small leak of radioactive water from the
reactor's equipment into a generator was." Ukraine's nuclear
authority said there was no radioactive leak in the atmosphere
and no contamination.  

Nov 16 (Reuter) - The seasonal debut in Japan of French
Beaujolais Nouveau met with fewer customers and drew
demonstrations because of France's recent nuclear testing in
the South Pacific. But it was not clear whether the reduced
enthusiasm for the  French wine was due mainly to a new-found
political activism among Japan's consumers or to changing
tastes.  

Nov 17 (Reuter) - Australia urged India to help lead its
crusade for a world free of nuclear weapons and join a key
nuclear control grouping. Indian opposition to universal
membership of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, aimed at
combating the spread of nuclear weapons, was well known.

Nov 18 (Reuter) - Taiwan said that it has not decided whether
to ship its nuclear waste to Russia but added that
negotiations with Russian counterparts are underway.  
Officials in Murmansk said on Friday that a first shipment of
nuclear waste from Taiwan will arrive in the Russian Arctic
port next April. 

Nov 19 (Reuter) - Paris's Montmartre hill will get its
customary free Christmas trees from Norway despite a boycott
by a Norwegian town in protest at French nuclear weapons
testing. Norwegian citizens were so unhappy at a decision by
the town of Sandnes to abandon its eight-year-old tradition of
giving pine trees to the French artists' haunt at Christmas
that they clubbed together to send the trees themselves.