Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 16:22:10 
 
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Sept 3, 1996 (Reuter) - Anti-nuclear groups Wednesday urged
the International Atomic Energy Agency to reject or defer new
rules for transporting plutonium by air in casks the groups
said might not survive a crash.  The IAEA, a United Nations
agency, was expected to approve new standards next week
tightening existing rules for carrying radioactive material on
airplanes. The United States has a higher standard for
shipping plutonium by air and has said it would ban
IAEA-approved casks from its airspace but would not block the
new rule. Britain flies plutonium mixed-oxide fuel to
Switzerland and out of Belgium, and Japan was considering
using flights under the new rule. 


Sept 4,1996 (UPI) -- Australia said Wednesday that world
leaders may sign a treaty to ban nuclear weapon tests when the
United Nations opens later this month. Speaking about India's
opposition, Richard Butler, Australia's U.N. ambassador, told
a news conference that ``it is the right of any state to make
up its mind about this treaty.'' ``But that right does not
assert that India has the right to prevent others from having
their view.'' India has threatened to block the treaty, but
Butler urged India to sign it.


Sept 3, 1996 (Reuter) - The 27th South Pacific Forum began
Tuesday in the Marshall Islands and despite the end of French
nuclear testing in the region, nuclear issues again looked set
to dominate the agenda.    Papua New Guinea has said it will
seek from the forum's 16 island states an extension of the
South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty to ban the movement of
nuclear weapons through the region. Another nuclear issue
facing the three-day forum is a plan by the Marshall Islands
to create a nuclear waste dump on atolls contaminated by U.S.
nuclear tests in the 1940s and 1950s. The annual Forum brings
together leaders from Australia, the Cook Islands, the
Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall
Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea,
the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Western Samoa.