Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 14:51:38 
 
X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.0 -- ListProcessor(tm) by CREN
Status: R

     Aug 4, 1996 (Reuter) - China should be capable of
producing 600 megawatt nuclear power plants by the turn of the 
century in its race to boost the use of nuclear energy,
according to the China National Nuclear Corp. China has
already developed the capability to fully equip 300-megawatt
nuclear reactors. The cost of importing equipment would be
unaffordable in the next century.

     Aug. 6, 1996 (UPI) -- Greenpeace activists protested the
planned passage of a British ship carrying spent nuclear fuel
through the narrow straight separating Puerto Rico and the
Dominican Republic. The ship is owned Pacific Nuclear
Transport Ltd. and is carrying 21 tons of depleted plutonium
from a Japanese power plant to the United Kingdom and France
for reprocessing. The ship, whose cargo was described as
``highly radioactive'' by Greenpeace experts, set sail from
Japan on July 12 and is anchored off the Pacific Coast of
Panama.


     Aug. 6, 1996 (Reuter) - The environmental group
Greenpeace denounced the presence in the Panama Canal of a
British-registered freighter. The vessel was carrying eight
containers, or about 18 tons of radioactive material. It is
carrying irradiated nuclear fuel from Japanese nuclear
reactors and sent to reprocessing plants in France and
Britain.

     Aug. 6, 1996 (UPI) -- Fluor Corp. announced that the
six-company team it is heading has won a $5 billion contract
from the US Department of Energy to manage a former plutonium
production facility in Hanford, Wash., over the next five
years. The Hanford facility was a key part of the country's
national defense program for 45 years, closing in the late
1980s after the end of the Cold War. Fluor currently manages
the environmental restoration contract at DOE's Fernald
project, a 1,050-acre site near Cincinnati, where uranium was
processed for use in nuclear weapons and plutonium production
reactors from 1952 through 1989.


     Aug. 6, 1996 (Reuter) - The US Energy Department also
awarded a $6 billion contract to Westinghouse Electric Corp.
as prime contractor to manage the Savannah River nuclear
facility in South Carolina. Westinghouse was the only bidder
on the work. Westinghouse is to oversee conversion of
high-level nuclear waste into glass for safer storage, as well
as stabilization of other nuclear waste and expansion of
environmental, health and safety requirements.
DOE also said it plans to seek competitive bids for $8 billion
of work at its Oak Ridge, Tenn., laboratory and weapons
complex site, which is currently managed under contracts with
Lockheed Martin Corp. that expire in March 1998.


     Aug. 6, 1996 (Reuter) - Hundreds of people from both
sides of the U.S.-Mexico border protested against a proposed
nuclear-waste dump in southwest Texas. It would take
radioactive waste from nuclear plants, hospitals and
industries and would be situated just outside the small town
of Sierra Blanca, about 16 miles north of the border and 90
miles southeast of El Paso. Most West Texas towns oppose the
dump plans, but officials from Sierra Blanca, a community of
700 residents, favor it. It would receive an estimated $30
million over the next 30 years if the radioactive waste dump
is established. 


     Aug 6, 1996 (Reuter) - Japan marked the anniversary of
the Hiroshima bombing on Tuesday with prayers for the victims
of the world's first nuclear attack 51 years ago and fresh
vows to fight the spread of atomic weaponry. At the start of
the Hiroshima ceremony, Hiraoka dedicated to the cenotaph a
new list of 5,030 names of people who have died from the
after-effects of the bomb in the past year, bringing the total
number of dead to 197,045.


     Aug 6, 1996 (Reuter) - U.S. disarmament officials have 
been pressing China to accept the text of a global treaty
banning nuclear tests, but have reported no progress so far,
Western diplomats said on Tuesday. Western powers hope that if
Beijing endorses the pact, Pakistan will follow, building
pressure on regional rival India not to fulfill its threat of
blocking consensus, they added. Negotiators from the 61 member
states of the Conference on Disarmament resumed talks last
week and still aim to send the text to the U.N. General
Assembly in September for signature.


     Aug. 7 (UPI) -- As negotiations continue for a
comprehensive treaty prohibiting nuclear tests, researchers
reported an effective way to ``sniff out'' secret violators of
such a ban. Scientists at the US Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory have found tiny amounts of radioactive rare gases
are produced by nuclear explosions and seep to the surface.
The sensitivity of the test measurements were comparable to
detecting atoms from a volume the size of a ping pong ball
mixed throughout Lake Michigan, the researchers said.


     Aug. 7, 1996 (Reuter) - Leaking radioactive gas can
expose cheats who conduct nuclear tests contrary to
international agreements, U.S. scientists. Several radioactive
gases, including xenon and argon, could be detected leaking
from a deep underground nuclear test site for weeks afterward.
They are sucked out by low barometric pressure and last for 50
to 80 days. Their highly sensitive test could be used by teams
verifying compliance with test ban treaties.


     Aug. 7, 1996 (Reuter) - The U.S. and China finalized an 
accord Wednesday that would remove Beijing's objections to
signing the CTBT, diplomats said. But they said there was
still no sign that India was ready to accept the draft
currently on the table at the talks. India has indicated it
will block any agreement on the text unless a commitment to
total nuclear disarmament within a given time is included.


     Aug 7, 1996 (Reuter) - A Moscow court has seized the
assets of a big company making Russian nuclear submarines and
will sell the company hospital and maternity home to pay its
debts, Interfax news agency said. Company director Valery
Maslyukov, said the far eastern firm of Zvezda owed its
suppliers more than 36 billion roubles ($7 million) and the
court action had been brought by a water company which was
owed around six billion roubles.


     Aug. 8, 1996 (Reuter) - U.S. Secretary of State
Christopher called in India's ambassador and urged Delhi not
to block the CTBT being negotiated in Geneva. Christopher told
ambassador Naresh Chandra that even if India could not sign
the treaty, it should at least not veto the pact. A
spokesperson said that Christopher appealed to Indian history
by saying that a nuclear test ban had been a goal of such past
leaders as Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Key countries
are insisting that India -- one of three nuclear ``threshold''
states along with Pakistan and Israel -- be among countries
which must ratify the pact before it becames law. 


     Aug. 8, 1996 (Reuter) - South Africa and New Zealand
signed an agreement in Cape Town on disarmament and called for
the total elimination of nuclear weapons, a joint statement
said. ``We reaffirm the strong commitment of South Africa and
New Zealand to achieving a world free of all weapons of mass
destruction,'' the statement said. South Africa describes
itself as the only country in the world to have completely
scrapped a nuclear arsenal.


     Aug 8, 1996 (Reuter) - India warned it could block a
nuclear test ban treaty unless the text were modified. Indian
envoy Arundhati Ghose took the floor to restate strong
objections to the current text, which does not commit major
powers to a timetable for nuclear disarmament. Ghose urged
that India's ratification not be required for the pact to
enter into force -- a provision New Delhi views as infringing
its sovereign right to decide freely. 


     Aug 8, 1996 (Reuter) - Ireland, current holder of the 
European Union presidency, expressed EU support for the
earliest possible transmission by a Conference on Disarmament
of a draft Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to the U.N. General
Assembly.