Subject: headlines march 13
 
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 07:51:04 -0500
 
     March 13, 1996 (Reuter) - Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok
said that the Netherlands was prepared to act on Ukraine's
behalf to ensure Western organisations made good on promises
to help close the Chernobyl nuclear power station. Kok said
that he was prepared to intercede with "real international
bodies" committed to help close down the Chernobyl site. But
he made clear his influence did not extend to G7
industrialised countries, which have promised the biggest
package of credits and aid to shut down the stricken plant.


     March 13, 1996 (UPI) -- Scientists debunked claims that a
nuclear explosion was possible in the proposed Yucca Mountain
radioactive waste dump in Nevada. The Los Alamos National
Laboratory gave the University of California $125,000 to put a
team of independent scientists together and determine if such
a threat was possible. "The crux of the matter is by the time
you accumulate the necessary plutonium for an explosion --
about 550 pounds -- most of it has decayed," said William
Kastenberg, project manager and professor and chair for
nuclear engineering at University of California, Berkeley.
"And uranium will be flushed out of the system into the
groundwater without accumulating a critical mass.