Subject: headlines  19 October 1995

     19 Oct (Reuter) - Britain dumped almost 16,000 tonnes of
low-level nuclear waste in the sea about 20 miles (32 kms)
north of the Channel Islands between 1950 and 1963, the UK
Atomic Energy Commission said. It was packed in metal
containers designed to implode as they sunk to the bottom so
that contents would disperse in the sea ways


     19 Oct (Reuter) - Two British journalists said that South
Africa had made more than 6 nuclear weaons and  over 1,000
small tactical nuclear devices. A spokeswoman for South
Africa's Atomic Energy Corporation (AEC) commented: "It's
absolute nonsense, absolute hogwash." De Klerk said in 1993
that South Africa had made six warheads and all had been
dismantled. Hounam and McQuillan said unnamed sources had told
them five nuclear weapons, including four high-technology
neutron bombs, could be in the hands of right-wingers in South
Africa opposed to the black majority government of President
Nelson Mandela.


     19 Oct (Reuter) - France confirmed it was planning to
join a South Pacific nuclear-free zone once it ends its
nuclear weapons tests. A U.S. official said earlier that
France, the United States and Britain were planning to join
the 1985 South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone (SPNFZ) treaty, also
known as the Treaty of Raratonga after France completed its
tests. 

     19 Oct (Reuter) - Britain said it was holding talks about
the South Pacific nuclear-free zone but would not confirm
reports it had already agreed to join the treaty. Russia and
China are already signatories to the 1985 treaty and South
Pacific countries have been trying to get the other
acknowledged nuclear powers to sign up for years.  


     19 Oct (Reuter) - Japan and New Zealand expressed delight
at the surprise news that France, Britain and the United
States planned to join the South Pacific nuclear-free zone.  
However, he said New Zealand's more immediate goal remained
the cessation of French nuclear testing in the South Pacific.