Subject: headlines 5-8 march
 
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 07:34:33 -0500
 
     March 5, 1996 (Reuter) - Four international experts
arrived at Mururoa on Tuesday ahead of checks on the possible
impact of tests on the environment. The experts -- a Scotsman,
a Slovak, an Italian and a Croatian -- will prepare for 18
months of extensive checks by a team from the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) following the end of nuclear tests
last January.

     March 6, 1996 (Reuter) - Pakistan dismissed a newspaper
report that it was planning to conduct its first nuclear test
if India staged  one, saying it was based on faulty
intelligence. The Washington Post quoted what it called
evidence obtained by U.S. intelligence officials. 

     March 6, 1996 (Reuter) - The senior Russian ecologist   
Alexei Yablokov, who chairs the ecological safety commission
in President Boris Yeltsin's Security Council, said Russian
nuclear plants posed an "unacceptable" risk and that huge
investment was needed to bring their safety levels up to those
of the West. 

     March 7, 1996 (Reuter) - Pakistan said on Thursday it
would take appropriate steps for its security if arch-enemy
India conducted a nuclear test, its first since 1974. Pakistan
dismissed a U.S. newspaper report that it planned to conduct
its first nuclear test if India staged one, saying it was
based on faulty information.

     March 7, 1996 (Reuter) - Russia called for wrapping up a
comprohensive test ban treaty in 1996, but stopped short of
endorsing a Western position that it should also ban even a
tiny release of nuclear energy. However, the Russian envoy
failed to call specifically for a "zero-yield" or "no-yield"
CTBT, a formula which would prohibit not just underground
blasts but any release of nuclear energy.

     March 8, 1996 (Reuter) - Russia and the United States
agree that a global nuclear test ban treaty should prohibit
all nuclear explosions. U.S. disarmament ambassador Ledogar
said he believed a CTBT treaty text could be agreed by
end-June and then opened for signature in September. India,
one of three "nuclear threshold states," has demanded that
talks aimed at elimination of nuclear weapons begin at the
Geneva forum before conclusion of the CTBT.

     March 8, 1996 (Reuter) - Romanian police spokesman
Chirion Marian said that police had arrested two men for
possession of 82 kg of unspecified radioactive material,
including low-grade uranium. It was alleged they also had
secret documents from the Oravita mine where they worked.

     March 8, 1996 (Reuter) - A serious incident last November
at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was understated by staff.
The Environment Ministry said a worker was irradiated when the
hermetic seal broke on a container holding nuclear fuel. The
incident, was initially assessed at one on the international
seven-point "nuclear event" scale, but later upgraded to
three.