Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 11:10:16 
 
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Status: R

     June 18 (Reuter) - Negotiators face a deadline for
completing a CTBT in just 10 days if the accord is to be
opened for signature at the U.N. General Assembly in
September. One of the major stumbling blocks to completing is
an Indian demand to link the CTBT to a pledge by nuclear
states to eliminate nuclear weapons within 10 years. U.S.
officials in Geneva declined to comment on a report in the
Washington Post that the United States will insist the three
nuclear "threshold" states, Israel, India and Pakistan, ratify
the pact before a ban on all nuclear explosions can take
effect.


     June 18 (Reuter) - French Foreign Minister Herve de
Charette said a CTBT would help promote global disarmament.
The French minister voiced optimism that a comprehensive test
ban treaty (CTBT) would soon be concluded. "In regard to the
CTBT, I believe there will be a desirable result," he said.


    June 17 (Reuter) - A U.S.-led consortium and North Korea
have reached agreement on protocols for transportation and
communications as part of a nuclear agreement with Pyongyang.
The talks between the Korean Peninsula Energy Development
Organisation (KEDO) and North Korea began on April 16
following a $4.5 billion deal signed in December 1995 to
provide Pyongyang with two Western-made light water reactors
promised in a 1994 accord in which North Korea froze its own
nuclear programme.


     June 17 (Reuter) - Iraq won a long battle for membership
of the international Conference on Disarmament after promising
not to veto any of the body's decisions for at least two
years. The existing 38 members of the influential
U.N.-sponsored forum agreed by consensus to admit 23 new
members, among them Iraq but also including Syria, Israel,
North Korea and South Africa. The U.S. blocked the CD's
expansion three years ago, arguing that Iraq should not be
allowed to hold veto power on the conference -- which always
operates by consensus -- while it still under U.N. sanctions
for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.


     June 17 (Reuter) - The French Defence Ministry confirmed
that France and the U.S. signed an accord to share nuclear
weapons data earlier on June 4. The Washington Post, which
broke the story, said the accord would draw U.S. and French
nuclear weapons scientists into a much closer alliance. Each
nation could help the other maintain its nuclear arsenal after
the expected CTBT, it said.


     June 17 (Reuter) - Braving sub-zero temperatures, more
than 1,000 residents of the southern Argentine province of
Chubut protested against government plans to build a nuclear
waste dump in Gastre, a remote town in Patagonia. Scientists
who have studied the area have said that geographical
conditions there are not ideally suited for the burial of
highly radioactive waste. But plans to build the dump were
refloated this year in Congress by the ruling Peronist party,
which is pushing for the privatisation of Argentina's three
nuclear reactors.


     June 17 (UPI) -- Several thousand Argentines joined a
convoy in southern Chubut province to protest against the
possibility of installing a nuclear waste dump in the town of
Gastre. The motorized demonstration, dubbed "Caravan for
Life," followed the congressional approval June 5 of rules
governing the setting up of nuclear waste sites in Argentina.
Those rules did not give provinces control over the decision
whether or not to allow such sites, and congressmen
representing the Patagonia region pressed for modifications to
the law.


     June 18 (UPI) -- The U.S. has agreed that a CTBT cannot
enter into force unless Israel, Pakistan and India endorse it,
a policy shift that effectively gives the three undeclared
atomic powers veto over the initiative. The decision, which
threatens to derail decades of negotiations, came in response
to pressure from Russia, China, Britain, France and "most Arab
nations." The previous U.S. position was that the ban could go
into effect if the five known nuclear powers and 40 other
nations endorsed it.