Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996 12:03:51 -0400
 
      18 April 1996 (Reuter) - The Group of Seven summit in
Moscow on Friday and Saturday must agree to kickstart the
talks on the Comprehensive nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the
European Parliament said.

      18 April 1996 (Reuter) - World leaders start talks on
nuclear safety but much of their time will be taken up with
frantic efforts to defuse the Middle East crisis. The two-day
summit will approve plans to close the plant in Ukraine by the
year 2000, a programme  to combat nuclear smuggling and other
cooperation measures on nuclear safety.

      18 April 1996 (Reuter) - The world's main economic
giants are poised to give Ukraine practical help to
decommission the Chernobyl power station, Ukrainian president
Leonid Kuchma said.

      18 April 1996 (Reuter) - The menu at the Kremlin banquet
for world leaders attending this weekend's nuclear summit is a
secret as closely guarded as the nuclear facilities the
leaders will talk about. Yeltsin's press office at first
appeared amazed when asked what would be served.

      18 April 1996 (Reuter) - The European Parliament told
the world's rich nations to stop ducking their
responsibilities and take the lead in funding the vital
nuclear clean up in Russia. Despite the billions of dollars
the G7 has already spent on nuclear safety, the dangers from
the RBMK and VVER 440-230 reactors had increased in the past
decade because they were now even more decrepit and controlled
by personnel who  lacked proper training, Euro-MPs warned.

      18 April 1996 (Reuter) - A report sounding the alarm
about the dangers of nuclear waste in Russia's Arctic north
was published on Thursday, on the eve of a summit in Moscow
and despite earlier Russian attempts to suppress it. Russia 
has arrested on spy charges an environmentalist who helped
Norway's Bellona movement prepare the report on military waste
in the Murmansk region, home to Russia's Northern Fleet and
its seaborne nuclear deterrent.

      18 April 1996 (Reuter) - Suspected anti-nuclear
activists smashed windows at a German electrical utility's
customer service centres and poured acid into the offices
before a controversial nuclear waste transfer, police said.

      17 April 1996 (Reuter) - The former Soviet republic of
Belarus suffered the worst contamination from the Chernobyl
disaster, but its hardline leader will be absent this week
when nations meet in Moscow to discuss its lessons. Downwind
from the Chernobyl plant and just over the border from
Ukraine, Belarus absorbed about 70 percent of radioactive
fallout after the station's fourth reactor exploded and caught
fire on April 26, 1986.

      18 April 1996 (UPI) - British Prime Minister John Major
said the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations is
committed to an agreement under which the West is to partially
fund the closure of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant by 2000. 
"It's now the 10th anniversary of the terrible tragedy of
Chernobyl, " Major  said after talks in Kiev before flying to
Moscow for a G-7 nuclear security summit. "We are fully
committed to the implementation of the memorandum of
understanding that has been signed between Ukraine and the
G-7."

      18 April 1996 (UPI) - Russian officials accelerated
their calls for the creation of a nuclear weapons-free zone in
Central and Eastern Europe, indicating President Boris Yeltsin
may raise the matter with Western leaders during a two-day
nuclear security summit beginning in Moscow.