Subject: HEADLINES 6 February 1996

Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 04:58:36 -0500

      6 Feb 1996 (Reuter) - France, fresh from completing
nuclear tests in the Pacific, will next month sign a treaty
banning nuclear weapons from the region, official sources
said. Plans were for a joint signing ceremony of the Treaty of
Rarotonga with the United States and Britain in the second
half of March in Suva, capital of Fiji, they said.

      6 Feb 1996 (Reuter) - President Leonid Kuchma urged the
West to make good pledges undertaken late last year to help
Ukraine close the Chernobyl power station, site of the world's
worst nuclear accident. 

      6 Feb 1996 (Reuter) - The Czech government said a draft
law on the peaceful use of nuclear materials would not
preclude the stationing of nuclear weapons on Czech territory
if the country joined NATO. A foreign ministry statement
rejected a front-page story in the daily Mlada Fronta Dnes
which claimed the new law would prohibit nuclear weapons on
Czech terrritory.

      6 Feb 1996 (Reuter) - Egypt has asked that negotiations
on a timetable for gradual nuclear disarmament begin as soon
as a comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT) is signed, an
Egyptian Foreign Ministry official said. 

      6 Feb 1996 (UPI) - France said it will sign the Treaty
of Rarotonga, aimed at making the South Pacific a nuclear-free
zone, in the second half of next month.