Date: Mon, 6 May 1996 06:48:11 -0400
 
      2 May 1996 (Reuter) - The United Nations nuclear
watchdog agency welcomed North Korea's decision to start
placing potentially lethal nuclear fuel rods into safe storage
but viewed the operation as another lost opportunity. The
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Pyongyang had
refused to allow agency experts to take samples of the 8,000
spent uranium rods, which might have thrown light on the
history of North Korea's suspect nuclear programme.

      2 May 1996 (Reuter) - French infants streamed back into
a school near Paris, after parents lost a new round in a
battle to have it closed due to radioactive leaks linked to
the work of Nobel laureate Marie Curie. The kindergarten was
built in 1969 on a site used by Curie to do pioneering
experiments to extract radium which was later used to treat
cancer via radiotherapy. Curie herself died of radiation
poisoning in 1934.

      2 May 1996 (Reuter) - Five new nuclear power plants came
into operation since 1994 and a mothballed plant in Armenia
came back on stream, bringing the total number around the
world to 438, the United Nations nuclear agency said. Four new
reactors with a combined capacity of 3,290 megawatts of
electricity were connected last year to power grids in India,
South Korea, Britain and Ukraine, the Vienna-based
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said.