Subject: headlines 4 & 5 March
 
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 13:21:16 -0500
 

     March 5, 1996 (Reuter) - Protests by nuclear power plant
workers during France's public sector strikes last year could
have led to a dangerous situation but luckily caused no
problems, a nuclear safety official said. The state-owned EDF
electricity utility disciplined three members of the
Communist-led CGT union last year for allowing strikers into
the control room of the Tricastin plant in southeastern France
on December 4.

     March 5, 1996 (Reuter) - Greenpeace demanded that
international IAEA experts checking for radioactive
contamination from French nuclear tests in the South Pacific
make their findings public in full detail. The French have set
off 141 blasts in the South Pacific over the past 30 years,
most of them in deep shafts drilled below the atolls' coral.
Environmental groups are concerned that they could have
contaminated the atolls and surrounding waters and cracked the
atolls' basalt foundation, allowing radioactivity to leak out.

     March 5, 1996 (Reuter) - A treaty declaring Africa a
nuclear weapons-free zone, expected to be signed by 53 states
next month, should inspire the Middle East to draw up a
similar pact, African and U.N. disarmament officials said on
Tuesday. The preamble says establishment of other nuclear
weapons-free zones, especially in the Middle East, would
enhance the security of signatory states in Africa.

     March 4, 1996 (Reuter) - France will begin releasing from
next Monday the five Greenpeace vessels seized during protests
against nuclear  testing last year, a military source in the
Tahitian capital, Papeete, said on Monday. 

     March 5,1996 (UPI) -- Faltering public support for
Japan's domestic nuclear industry will force the country to
increase its energy sales to Asian neighbors, acoording to a
Greenpeace spokesman. "Japan is promoting nuclear sales to
Indonesia and China," said Greenpeace Japan spokesman John
Willis.