From nukenet@envirolink.org Thu Oct 12 04:03:55 1995 Received: from envirolink.org (DOLPHIN.ENVIROLINK.ORG [128.2.22.19]) by roxy.sfo.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id EAA25282 for ; Thu, 12 Oct 1995 04:03:54 -0700 Received: from (localhost) by envirolink.org (5.x/SMI-SVR4) id AA19645; Thu, 12 Oct 1995 07:03:34 -0400 Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 07:03:34 -0400 Errors-To: mxe115@psuvm.psu.edu Message-Id: Errors-To: mxe115@psuvm.psu.edu Reply-To: wisemail@wise.antenna.nl Originator: nukenet@envirolink.org Sender: nukenet@envirolink.org Precedence: bulk From: wisemail@wise.antenna.nl To: rherried@sfo.com Subject: HEADLINES 11 October 1995 X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Status: R 11 October 1995 (Reuter) - Ukraine and Western experts launched new talks on how best to implement Kiev's promise to shut the Chernobyl nuclear power station. President Leonid Kuchma says the West must provide the $4 billion Ukrainian officials say is needed to complete the operation. He also acknowledged that Ukraine had abandoned its initial plan -- rejected by G7 -- to build a gas-fired station. Ukrainian officials have now said they view a solution in building a plant to reprocess waste from Ukraine's five nuclear power stations -- an expensive undertaking but one which Western diplomats said had not been ruled out. Prime Minister Yevhen Marchuk said the question of financing had to be settled by December. Chernobyl officials expressed a measure of optimism over the talks but said a wide gap still existed over cash. They complaint that they have received no money, although $207 million was promised at the last G7 experts meeting. The first of three reactors whose construction was frozen by Ukraine's parliament in 1991 began operating last week and two more are being completed. Marchuk said the share of nuclear energy in the power grid would rise from 33 to 40 percent next year. Ukraine, he said, hoped to build a nuclear enrichment facility as part of plans to produce its own fuel instead of relying on poor-quality Russian imports. 11 October 1995 (Reuter) - French President Jacques Chirac has decided to develop a long-range airborne cruise missile with a nuclear warhead while abolishing ground-based strategic missile silos, the defense newsletter TTU said. The country's current controversial nuclear tests in the Pacific are to certify warheads for the submarine missiles and prepare for computer simulation of nuclear weapons tests. 11 October 1995 (Reuter) - France proposed that the European Union supply free power to Bulgaria while security checks are being carried out on its oldest, controversial nuclear reactor. Industry Minister Yves Galland said that supplying Bulgaria with 400 megawatts of electricity would allow it to delay the re-start of the 430-megawatt Kozloduy reactor which has caused concern in the West that it could trigger a disaster of Chernobyl magnitude. He said existing connections made it possible to transfer power from western Europe to Bulgaria. 11 October 1995 (Reuter) - The French daily Ouest-France carried a photograph of a huge crack in coral at Mururoa atoll nuclear weapons testing site. The picture of a three-metre-wide (10 feet) fissure, which the paper said snaked for several kilometres (miles), seemed certain to fuel a debate over the safety of the underground blasts at Mururoa. Ouest-France quoted experts as saying the cracks were due to blasts carried out under the coral rim of the atolls that were discontinued in 1986. All tests since then have been carried out in rock deep beneath the lagoons. The regional daily stressed that the cracks, photographed by a diver, were located in the coral and not in the volcanic basalt where the nuclear devices are exploded deep below sea level and their radioactive debris trapped. France's Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) has admitted that there are cracks in the coral, but insists that they pose no threat and that there are none in the basalt below. 11 October 1995 (UPI) - The executive arm of the European Union called France to supply missing information on the safety of its nuclear weapons testing in the South Pacific. EU Commission President Jacques Santer told the Euro deputies that the Commission had asked France to "react rapidly" to an evaluation report by Commission experts "who were not able to get to all the (nuclear) sites." He confirmed the Commission intends to adopt a final decision Oct. 23 on whether the French nuclear tests fall under Article 34 of the European Atomic Energy Community Treaty. The article requires member nations to obtain a Commission opinion on health and safety preparations for experiments that might be "particularly dangerous" to neighboring EU states, in this case the British Pitcairn islands, population 85. If the French tests were found to qualify, it would mean France would be in violation of the EURATOM treaty. 11 October 1995 (UPI) - The International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iraq has handed over thousands of documents and tons of materials concerning the country's weapons programs. The agency said not all nuclear-related documents had been delivered. The Iraqi government, meanwhile, blamed the defector, Gen. Hussein Kamel, for hiding the documents from U.N. weapons inspectors and reiterated its full cooperation with the United Nations. Kamel headed Iraq's ministry of industry and military industrialization, which was responsible for weapons production. Kamel has since cooperated with the IAEA and U.N. officials charged with eliminating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told the council in a letter that nuclear weapons information "had been deliberately concealed by the former officer-in-charge of those programs." He did not mention Kamel by name. Aziz told the council that his government has cooperated in a "positive and responsible manner" with the United Nations.