Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 11:38:03 -0400 9 June 1996 (Reuter) - The United States, alone among the world's five declared nuclear powers, publicly criticised China for staging a nuclear test. Britain and France gave a muted response to Saturday's blast, which drew widespread condemnation, while Russia had made no comment by late on Sunday. China's blast at its Lop Nor test site in northwestern Xinjiang registered 5.7 on the Richter scale. International protests issued after Saturday's blast were almost ritualistic, with no threats of retaliatory action such as trade sanctions, and only minor street demonstrations were reported around the world. He said many governments may have decided on a relatively low-key reaction to avoid making China feel cornered and keep Beijing moving in the right direction on the treaty. --- -- - 9 June 1996 (Reuter) - France gave a muted reaction on Sunday to China's latest test and called for a test ban treaty to be signed this autumn. Separately, police detained and then freed a group of Greenpeace protestors who had chained themselves to the Chinese embassy in Paris. The environmental group Greenpeace said in a statement that police briefly detained a dozen demonstrators who had chained themselves to the gates of the Chinese embassy and hung up a banner reading "No to Chinese Nuclear Tests." --- -- - 9 June 1996 (Reuter) - Italy, the current European Union president, said on Sunday it regretted China's decision to carry out its latest nuclear test. --- -- - 9 June 1996 (Reuter) - A page from a diary posted on the mess hall of the Greenpeace ship reflected concern at what might be in store for the boat as it sailed for Shanghai on a protest voyage on Sunday. Despite anxieties over the kind of reception Greenpeace might have in Shanghai, ship spokesman Xavier Pastor told Reuters "we have a moral obligation to fulfil our role." --- -- - 9 June 1996 (Reuter) - Philippine President Fidel Ramos criticised China on Sunday for carrying out a new nuclear test, saying it undermined efforts to conclude a comprehensive test ban treaty. --- -- - 9 June 1996 (Reuter) - Greenpeace activists, sailing for Shanghai on a protest voyage, appealed to Chinese President Jiang Zemin on Sunday to allow the vessel to enter China for talks on ending Chinese nuclear testing. While in Shanghai, they look forward to meeting Chinese officials "to discuss the serious matter of nuclear disarmament and an immediate end to nuclear testing," said the letter, a copy of which was released to reporters covering the voyage. "We hope the Chinese authorites will understand that this is a peaceful voyage and that they will understand that better than the French did. There's no reason for...any kind of violence.", Xavier Pastor, the ship's chief campaigner, said. --- -- - 9 June 1996 (Reuter) - Greenpeace campaigners asked Chinese President Jiang Zemin on Sunday to allow the environmentalists' ship to enter China for talks with Chinese officials on ending Chinese nuclear testing. "We hope that when we reach Chinese waters around June 12 the reception will be cordial and you will be able to facilitate our arrival," a letter from Greenpeace captain Ulf Brigander and Xavier Pastor, the ship's chief peace campaigner, said. China earlier said it would not allow the ship to enter any Chinese port. --- -- - 9 June 1996 (Reuter) - China's latest underground nuclear explosion fuelled world suspicion of its commitment to join a year-end test ban, but analysts said international ire would not deter Beijing from pressing ahead with one last test. "They are in a rush to collect more data before the CTBT. We observers were expecting more tests," Karniol, Asia/Pacific editor for Jane's Defence Weekly said. One aim of China's tests is miniaturisation, he added. "They want to get a missile to go further and with greater accuracy, but there is only so much space on a missile," he said. "The smaller the payload, the more the fuel and the longer the range, and the more space for guidance systems." --- -- - 9 June 1996 (Reuter) - South Korea on Sunday criticised China's latest nuclear test and urged Beijing to stop any further testing. Korea deeply regrets that China once again conducted a nuclear test "at such a critical time when international efforts to conclude the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty have heightened," a Foreign Ministry statement said. South Korea also called on Beijing to join international efforts "for the early attainment of a nuclear-test-free world," the statement said. --- -- - 9 June 1996 (Reuter) - New Zealand condemned China's latest nuclear blast and urged it to end its test programme immediately. "We deplore the fact that China has decided to flout world opinion and continue testing at the very time the world is almost in reach of a comprehensive test ban treaty to ban all testing for all time," Prime Minister Jim Bolger told Radio New Zealand on Sunday. --- -- - 8 June 1996 (Reuter) - The environmental group Greenpeace and angry residents of the atomic-bomb scarred Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki joined in condemnation of a blast that leaves China as the world's only nuclear power still conducting tests. "We are very disappointed as China had stepped toward an early conclusion of a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. I hope there will be no more tests," Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto told reporters. "I was sorry to learn of China's latest nuclear weapons test," German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel said in a statement. Japan, the only nation to suffer an atomic bombing at Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War two, has agreed to extend 580 billion yen ($5.37 billion) in low-interest loans to China over a three-year period which began in April. --- -- - 8 June 1996 (Reuter) - "Before September this year, China will conduct another nuclear test to ensure the safety of its nuclear weapons," the Chinese Foreign Ministry said. "After that, China will exercise a moratorium on nuclear testing," the ministry said in a statement. China's planned moratorium marked its most public commitment to join the four other declared nuclear powers -- the United States, Russia, Britain and France -- in halting tests. "The estimated body wave had a magnitude of 5.7 and preliminary estimates indicate the yield of the explosion was in the range 20 to 80 kilotonnes. This is in the middle range of explosions," a spokesman for Australia's department of foreign affairs said. --- -- - 8 June 1996 (Reuter) - The five Nordic countries Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland criticised China on Saturday for its latest nuclear test and said it was important that a comprehensive ban on such detonations be agreed as planned. "It is deeply regrettable that China, alone among the nuclear powers, continues to carry out tests and fails to take into account the strong international protests that have been launched against such tests," a statement said. --- -- - 8 June 1996 (Reuter) - Defiant Greenpeace campaigners set sail on Saturday for Shanghai, their determination to hammer home their anti-nuclear message fuelled by a Chinese atomic test earlier in the day. The MV Greenpeace, refurbished after being seized by the French military last year near a French nuclear test site, sailed off into a spectacular Manila Bay sunset around 6 p.m. (1000 GMT). --- -- - 8 June 1996 (Reuter) - French President Jacques Chirac, speaking hours after China conducted a nuclear test, said on Saturday he would soon call for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) to be signed this autumn. In a speech to the IHEDN military school in Paris, Chirac made no mention of the Chinese test and said that the controversial final series of tests conducted by France in the South Pacific had yielded "excellent results." --- -- - 8 June 1996 (Reuter) - Japan on Saturday deplored China's latest nuclear test and urged Beijing not to go ahead with another test before September. But Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto said Japan did not plan at this stage any stronger protest like cutting low interest yen loans. Foreign Minister Yukihiko Ikeda summoned Wu Dawei, China's charge d'affaires to Tokyo, to hear a protest about the test. --- -- - 8 June 1996 (Reuter) - Germany criticised China on Saturday for conducting a nuclear test and renewed its call for a comprehensive ban on such detonations. "I take a personal interest in a really comprehensive ban on all nuclear tests that allows no exceptions," the German minister for Foreign Affais, Kinkel, said. "We therefore will spare no effort to bring the Geneva negotiations to a successful conclusion no later than autumn 1996." --- -- - 8 June 1996 (Reuter) - Australian Prime Minister John Howard said on Saturday the latest Chinese nuclear test was insensitive to world opposition to nuclear testing. Australian seismologists said they recorded the latest Chinese test blast at 12.56 p.m. (0256 GMT) and said it had a magnitude of 5.7 on the Richter scale. Australia's department of foreign affairs said the test was the 44th nuclear explosion at Lop Nor since 1964. --- -- - 8 june 1996 (Reuter) - "The Chinese government announced today that China will exercise a moratorium on nuclear testing after September this year," Xinhua news agency said. "China conducted a nuclear test today and will conduct another one to ensure the safety of its nuclear weapons before September this year," Xinhua said, quoting a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. --- -- - 8 june 1996 (Reuter) - The limited amount of nuclear weapons that China possesses are solely for the purpose of self-defence and do not constitute a threat to any country, Xinhua said quoting a Foreign Ministry statement. China has all along exercised "utmost restraint" in conducting nuclear tests, and the number of tests it has conducted is "extremely limited," the Foreign Ministry said. --- -- - 8 june 1996 (Reuter) -"At about 11.00 a.m. and I felt a tremor that felt like an earthquake," an official in Ruoqiang, a town about 250 km (150 miles) from China's main Lop Nor nuclear test site in the northwestern Xinjiang region, said by telephone. "I could feel it even when I sat down on a sofa," said the official. "It did not last long. Only about half a minute." --- -- - 8 june 1996 (Reuter) - The departure of a Greenpeace anti-nuclear voyage to China was delayed on Saturday because of a maintenance problem aboard the environmental group's vessel. "There is a broken oil seal that has to be replaced in the hydraulics of the crane. It is very vital," Greenpeace captain Ulf Brigander told reporters. --- -- - 7 June 1996 (Reuter) - Russia will provide highly enriched uranium to international scientists conducting research in France under a peacetime nuclear cooperation accord signed on Friday between Paris and Moscow. The accord requires Moscow to contribute 55 kg (121 lb) a year of the enriched uranium, over a nine-year period, to the Max von Laue-Paul Langevin Institute in the French Alpine city of Grenoble. Another 125 kg (275 lb) will go to a research reactor at a French Atomic Energy Commission centre in Saclay. --- -- - 7 June 1996 (Reuter) - Chinese authorities said on Friday they will not allow a Greenpeace anti-nuclear ship bound for Shanghai to enter any Chinese port, but a Greenpeace official said the ship would sail as scheduled. The MV Greenpeace is due to leave Manila on Saturday for Shanghai on a planned "peace voyage" aimed at ending China's nuclear tests. It was expected to arrive early next week. --- -- - 7 June 1996 (Reuter) - China's decision to abandon its demand for "peaceful nuclear explosions" has put greater pressure on India to drop its opposition to a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, defence analysts said on Friday. "India remains now perhaps the only major nuclear weapons capable state that is objecting to the current draft of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). We are in a somewhat difficult predicament," said former Indian foreign secretary Jyotindra Nath Dixit. --- -- - 9 june 1996 (UPI) - About 50 people, including some anti-nuclear activists in Nagasaki, where the United States dropped a nuclear bomb during World War II, staged a sit-in at the Peace Park, criticizing China's 44th nuclear test, which was conducted Saturday. --- -- - 8 june 1996 (UPI) - President Clinton joined with leaders from around the world Saturday and denounced China's latest underground detonation of a nuclear weapon, urging Beijing to halt further tests. - "China has unilaterally and solemnly undertaken not to be the first to nuclear weapons at any at time and under any circumstances," China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. --- -- - 8 June 1996 (UPI) -- China conducted an underground nuclear test Saturday at its remote northwestern test site, Chinese and Australian officials said. Experts said it was China's 44th nuclear test since exploding its first atomic bomb in 1964 and the first of three expected this year. Beijing has accused Western nations of scheming to prevent latecomers to the nuclear club from legitimate development of their own weapons program and maintains its nuclear arsenal is small and poses no threat to other countries.