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By LINDSEY TANNER  .c The Associated Press

CHICAGO (AP) - Do India's nuclear explosions this week signal the world is inching closer to nuclear apocalypse?

Scientists who control the ``Doomsday Clock'' will consider the question when they meet in Chicago next month and debate whether to reset the hands of the symbolic clock.

The situation in India has created a sense of urgency for the meeting of the directors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, board chairman Leonard Rieser said Wednesday.

Equally worrisome is the slow pace of arms-control efforts by the United States and Russia, which prompted a decision earlier this year to reconsider the clock's position at the June 4-5 meeting.

The bulletin, a bimonthly journal published at the University of Chicago, created the clock in 1947 to symbolize developments in the nuclear age. It appears on the journal's cover, with midnight representing nuclear annihilation.

A lack of arms-control progress led the directors in 1995 to move the clock forward three minutes - to 14 minutes before midnight - the last time they tinkered with the hands.

The United Nations has since approved the global Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. But it has yet to gain U.S. ratification and is stalled in the Senate in part because of Russia's lag in ratifying the START II arms control pact.

The directors deemed the world closest to nuclear apocalypse in 1953, after the successful U.S. hydrogen bomb test, when the hands were set to two minutes before midnight. Since then, the hands have moved backwards or forwards 12 times. The safest setting was 17 minutes before midnight in 1991, when the United States and Soviet Union signed the START treaty.

AP-NY-05-14-98 0118EDT
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11-09-98
French Plant Emits Radioactive Air
 .c The Associated Press
   PARIS (AP) -- The environmental watchdog group Greenpeace said Monday that the French nuclear reprocessing plant at La Hague was emitting high levels of radioactivity.
  Greenpeace said samples of the air taken at an altitude of 180 feet to about a half-mile showed high levels of the radioactive Kr-85 gas -- multiples of normal airborne readings elsewhere.
  Greenpeace, in a communique, expressed concern that this radioactive air would move around the planet causing contamination over a wider range of the earth. There was no immediate response from French authorities.
  The group used kites to send up its equipment and took the first sample on Nov. 4.
  Spent fuel from the French nuclear power plants, as well as Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Japan are reprocessed at La Hague plant, which is operated by COGEMA, the state nuclear fuel reprocessing company.
  AP-NY-11-09-98 1134EST
   Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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 AP-NY-11-10-98 1507EST
   Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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 WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States is prepared to walk away from a key 1994 nuclear agreement with North Korea unless that country can allay U.S. suspicions that nuclear weapons are being developed at an underground construction site, a senior Clinton administration official said Tuesday.
  The official issued the warning as a U.S. delegation prepared to travel to the North Korean capital of Pyongyang to discuss the issue.
  Briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, the official said North Korea pledged in the 1994 agreement to refrain from developing nuclear weapons.
  He said the collapse of the 1994 agreement could affect a series of diplomatic initiatives with North Korea, including an effort to negotiate a peace treaty on the peninsula and U.S.-North Korean talks on curbing Pyongyang's export of missiles and missile technology.
  The United States also has provided hundreds of tons of food aid to North Korea in response to drought- and flood-induced hunger. But the administration has not conditioned this assistance to other aspects of relations between the two.
  Concerns about North Korean behavior accelerated this past summer after the communist country fired a rocket across Japanese airspace into waters east of Japan.
  North Korea has indicated it will not allow any U.S. inspection of the underground site, calling the U.S. demand ``interventionist.''
  The U.S. official rebutted that charge, citing the pledges North Korea made in 1994 to remain non-nuclear.
  Under that agreement, North Korea promised to replace plutonium-producing nuclear reactors with safer light water reactors financed largely by South Korea and Japan. At the time, the agreement seemed to foreshadow an easing of tensions in northeast Asia that were brought about by suspicions over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.
  The major U.S. contribution to the agreement has been the provision of about 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil to North Korea each year.
  U.S. Ambassador Charles Kartman will lead a delegation of U.S. officials from about a dozen agencies for the talks in Pyongyang, which will begin on Monday and end on Wednesday.
  The official said the United States, based on an accumulation of intelligence data, has serious doubts about whether North Korea is living up to its end of the agreement.
  Spy satellite photographs the United States has shared with South Korea show thousands of workers at the excavation site in a mountainside 25 miles northeast of Yongbyon.
  At a briefing, State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said verbal assurances from North Korea that the facility has no military purpose are not enough.
  ``We need on-site inspections,'' he said.
  A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said, in reference to the U.S. request, that it will not accept any ``interventionist move'' by the United States.
  He said North Korea would insist on compensation if the facility turned out to be unrelated to nuclear weapons development.
  Rubin said the United States does not intend to pay a ``cash bribe'' to determine whether North Korea is living up to commitments to be a non-nuclear state.
  AP-NY-11-10-98 1802EST
   Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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11-11-98
India Official Talks of 6th Nuke Test
  .c The Associated Press
   NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- India was ready to conduct a sixth nuclear test last May, but pulled back at the last minute on scientists' advice, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said today.
  ``We could have conducted the sixth test on May 13,'' Press Trust of India quoted Vajpayee as telling Indian legislators, discussing the five earlier underground explosions that reshaped the global nuclear equation.
  India carried out three tests of different yields on May 11 at a test site in the western Thar desert, and followed up with two more on May 13. India's hostile neighbor Pakistan replied with six tests later that month.
  Vajpayee said the decision to cancel the sixth test was taken in consultation with scientists who said the first five explosions had provided adequate data, PTI reported.
  ``We are not testing for the sake of testing,'' Vajpayee was quoted as saying.
  The tests provoked the United States and several other nations to slap economic sanctions against New Delhi and Islamabad.
  The U.S. sanctions were partly lifted only last week after Washington saw some progress in its separate discussions with the two countries to persuade them to sign the nuclear test ban treaty.
  AP-NY-11-11-98 0842EST
   Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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11-11-98
India, Pakistan Pressured on Nukes
  .c The Associated Press
   HONG KONG (AP) -- The United States is stepping up pressure on India and Pakistan to reduce the threat of nuclear conflict with the subcontinent, a senior U.S. official was quoted as telling the Far Eastern Economic Review.
  The magazine said in a press release Wednesday that Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott said: ``We're under no illusions that either country will alter or constrain their defense programs under duress or simply because we've asked them to.''
  The Clinton administration is urging the two countries to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, tighten export controls on sensitive materials and technologies, and hold talks to resolve their long-standing dispute.
  Washington also wants the countries to halt all production of weapons-grade material and has asked India and Pakistan to adopt constraints on development and deployment of missiles and aircraft capable of carrying weapons of mass destruction, the magazine said.
  ``Unless both India and Pakistan exercise genuine restraint and great care, the delivery systems themselves could become a source of tension and could, by their nature and disposition, increase the incentive to attack first in a crisis,'' Talbott was quoted as saying by the magazine.
  India carried out three nuclear tests on May 11 at a test site in the western Thar desert, and followed up with two more on May 13. Pakistan replied with six tests later that month.
  AP-NY-11-11-98 1157EST
   Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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 WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court rejected competing appeals by state and federal regulators Monday in throwing out a dispute over the nuclear industry's perplexing problem of finding a permanent, safe home for thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste.
  The justices, acting without comment, let stand a ruling that sparked appeals by nuclear power plant operators and states on one side and the federal government on the other.
  More than 40,000 tons of used reactor fuel have piled up at 72 civilian nuclear power plants in 34 states, with the amount continuing to grow, until the federal Department of Energy provides a permanent burial site.
  In a 1982 federal law, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, Congress said the government would find a place to safely store all such waste by Feb. 1, 1998.
  That deadline has long past, and the Department of Energy still is studying the feasibility of building a nuclear fuel burial site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, about 90 miles north of Las Vegas.
  That evaluation is expected to be completed in 2001, government lawyers told the court. If Yucca Mountain is found suitable, presidential approval would be required before construction could start. The site would not be ready to receive any nuclear waste until 2010, the justices were told.
  The nuclear industry has paid the government about $15 billion toward building the storage facility, and continues to pay about $1 billion a year in fees.
  When it became obvious that the 1998 deadline would not be met, Department of Energy officials interpreted the 1982 law to mean that no government collection of nuclear waste need begin until a storage facility is completed.
  That 1993 interpretation was challenged in a federal appeals court by states, state utility commissions and reactor operators. The petitions asked the appeals court to order the government to start collecting nuclear waste and to escrow all fee payments due after the 1998 deadline.
  After several rounds of litigation, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled last year ruled that the government need not begin collecting nuclear waste until it comes up with somewhere to put it permanently and safely. But the appeals court said the Department of Energy can be sued for monetary damages by those entities who had relied on the 1998 deadline.
  By early this autumn, 11 utility companies had filed lawsuits in the Court of Federal Claims seeking damages ranging from $70 million to $1.5 billion.
  The Supreme Court appeal filed in behalf of the states, state agencies and nuclear plant operators said the Department of Energy's ``continued failure'' to live up to the 1982 law and related contract has resulted in a dangerous situation.
  The result is ``nuclear waste sites at 72 different locations throughout the nation next to lakes, rivers and streams, which were never chosen, evaluated or qualified for long-term storage, or permanent disposal,'' the appeal said.
  But the Department of Energy's appeal argued that the appeals court wrongly rejected an ``unavoidable delays'' argument and never should have authorized the possibility of monetary awards.

 AP-NY-11-30-98 1435EST
   Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.

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 WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Clinton told Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday his government must take further steps away from developing nuclear weapons before the United States will lift remaining military sanctions imposed early this decade.
  Clinton had signed a one-year waiver Tuesday of economic sanctions he was forced by law to impose on Pakistan and India after the two rival neighbors conducted nuclear weapons tests in May. A ban on American military sales to Pakistan, in place for several years, remains intact.
  In remarks to reporters before Wednesday's White House talks and lunch with Sharif, Clinton said he would stress his hope to ``end the nuclear competition in South Asia,'' which he called a threat to global stability.
  Afterward, administration aides said it was too early for Clinton to consider a further easing of sanctions.
  ``The president reaffirmed our view that more progress needed to be made on these issues before we'd be in a position to remove all of the sanctions,'' National Security Council official Bruce Riedel said.
  The Clinton administration is pressing Pakistan to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and to move away from further development of a nuclear weapons capability. Karl Inderfurth, the assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs, told reporters Sharif reaffirmed to Clinton that his government intends to adhere to the test ban treaty by September 1999. But he made no new commitments.
  Clinton also presented to Sharif a proposal for ending a long-standing dispute over American-made F-16 fighter jets that Pakistan ordered in 1989 but never received. Pakistan is owed $501 million because of the sanctions, and Inderfurth said Clinton presented ideas for ways in which the money could be repaid.
  Under the F-16 plan, as described by administration officials, New Zealand would lease, and perhaps eventually buy, 28 of the fighters. Some or all the money would be transferred to Pakistan, which was denied possession of the aircraft after Congress passed a law in 1990 that led to a cutoff of all direct American military sales to Pakistan.
  Of the $658 million that Pakistan paid for the F-16s, $157 million was returned, leaving the current $501 million balance, the White House said.
  Inderfurth said the New Zealand government has not given Washington details of a final lease arrangement, but the F-16 deal was expected to include ``approximately $105 million.'' He said Sharif made no commitment to accept the Clinton proposal but was expected to study it.
  ``We are probably closer to finding a just settlement for this than we ever have been,'' Inderfurth said.
  In his remarks prior to the meeting, Clinton praised Sharif for resuming direct talks with India on the Kashmir conflict and said he would consider playing a mediating role over the disputed Himalayan region if both nations were to ask him.
  ``I think this conflict is holding both nations back and diminishing the quality of life of ordinary citizens,'' Clinton said in reference to Kashmir, which India and Pakistan have fought over twice. ``So I would do anything I could to help to resolve it. But the most important thing is that the leaders are discussing it again.''
  Clinton said he hopes to visit India and Pakistan next year, after having canceled a visit this year in response to both nations' nuclear weapons tests.
  In brief remarks to reporters, Sharif said he hoped his visit to the United States would ``remove all the misperceptions which are there in our bilateral relations.''
  Besides the White House meeting with Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and other administration officials, Sharif held separate talks Wednesday with Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin.
  AP-NY-12-02-98 1946EST
   Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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 PEORIA, Ill. (AP) -- State laws have failed to keep up with the threat to drinking water posed by manure runoff from giant livestock farms, says a report released today by two national environmental groups.
  The report prepared by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Clean Water Network cites examples of pollution by manure runoff from cattle, poultry and hog farms.
  ``Today's large livestock operations look more like animal factories than animal farms,'' the report says. ``This trend toward industrial-scale farming has created an enormous increase in the concentration and quantity of manure that is generated at a single site.''
  According to the report, many states don't have a system in place to inspect large-scale livestock farms, have only weak penalties for those who violate the law and allow manure lagoons to be placed near critical water supplies.
  ``It's time we recognized this as an industry and not traditional farming,'' said Bill Emmett, a McLean County farmer. ``Many of the legislators have forgotten what farmers are.''
  Andy Baumert, environmental services director for the National Pork Producers Council, disputed the argument that state and federal regulations were inadequate.
  ``In the last 24 months, all the states with the most hog farming or the most growth in hog farming have seen new legislation or regulation,'' Baumert said. ``Will they ever make these activist groups 100 percent happy? Of course not. They're never going to make producer groups entirely happy, either.''
  According to the report, the number of hog farms has fallen from 600,000 to 157,000 during the last 15 years, while the number of hogs produced has stayed about the same.
 As the number of hogs raised on a single farm has gone up, so has the amount of manure contained in one site. In some instances, manure has contaminated groundwater either by a leak from a storage tank or lagoon, or when rainfall has swept the manure off farm fields where it was spread as fertilizer.
  Some of the information was gathered by environmental activists, like the Illinois Stewardship Alliance and the Iowa Environmental Council. Other details were culled from newspapers and investigations by state and federal agencies.
  For example, the report cites a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of three women in LaGrange County, Ind., who had six miscarriages from 1991 to 1993. The miscarriages were traced to the nitrates in the water from manure produced at a nearby hog farm.
  In all, 30 states are listed in the report as having contaminated drinking water because of large livestock farming: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

 AP-NY-12-03-98 1310EST
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12-04-98
Russia To Launch Old Missiles
.c The Associated Press
 MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia's cash-strapped missile forces have designed a cheap way of getting rid of old nuclear missiles -- launching them.
The Scalpel missiles would be launched without nuclear warheads, and their trajectory would be calculated so that they use up all their fuel and then burn in the atmosphere, the missile force press service said, according to the Interfax news agency.
However, the service life of the missiles has expired, and engineers are no longer sure whether the missiles will accurately follow their programmed path.
Continued storage of the missiles is dangerous and expensive, the missile force said.
AP-NY-12-04-98 1716EST
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 .c The Associated Press

  By H. JOSEF HEBERT

 WASHINGTON (AP) -- Every day, more than six tons of dangerous nuclear waste pile up at power plants around the country -- more than 2,000 tons a year. The spent reactor fuel, highly radioactive for the next 10,000 years, has long
been the nuclear industry's most vexing problem.
  And as it inexorably accumulates, a major dispute has developed over whether the government should remove close to 40,000 tons of used nuclear fuel from 72 power stations and keep it at a central location.
  Utilities say the government should haul away the deadly garbage and are seeking billions of dollars in damages because of federal inaction.
  Now a federal judge has said that in three breach-of-contract cases involving three closed New England reactors, the government is liable for monetary damages for failing to dispose of the reactor waste.
  ``The government made commitments with these utilities, entered into contracts to take the waste and accepted their money. Now the government has welched on the commitment,'' says Jerry Stouck, the attorney representing the three New England plant operators.
  Stouck's clients are asking for $268 million in damages, although the courts must still determine how much the government will pay. Operators of seven other reactors are asking for more than $4 billion in damages, and dozens of other utilities are waiting to file court claims.
  The Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group, claims that if the lawsuits succeed, the government could be liable for as much as $56 billion. Energy Department officials scoff at the figure but acknowledge millions could be at stake.
  ``This is more than simply a promise. This is a binding legal contract,'' says Robert Bishop, general counsel for the Nuclear Energy Institute. Electricity users so far have contributed nearly $15 billion in fees to a federal nuclear waste fund without assurances that the material will be disposed of, the utilities argue.
  Last year, a federal court ruled that the government need not take the waste until it has a safe place to put it, but it also gave a green light for utilities to seek monetary damages from the Energy Department for the breach of contract. The Supreme Court recently let stand that decision, and so far 10 utilities, including the owners of the three closed reactors in Maine,
Massachusetts and Connecticut have done so.
  The squabble over reactor waste -- nearly 40,000 tons already at 72 power plants in 34 states -- also is being fought out in Congress.
  In 1982, Congress assured utilities that the government would find a central storage site for spent reactor fuel and begin accepting the waste by 1998. The deadline passed last January with the waste still at the bottom of cooling pools -- or, in a few cases, dry cask storage -- at reactor sites.
  In each of the last three years, attempts have been made in Congress to build a temporary government storage facility in the Nevada desert, where the government hopes to eventually bury the waste deep beneath Yucca Mountain, 90 miles north of Las Vegas.
  But deep-seeded opposition by Nevadans has stymied the congressional effort each time, with another attempt expected early next year.
  The Clinton administration has argued the waste should remain where it is until a decision is made on a permanent burial site at Yucca Mountain. And the
Nevada project -- which could begin taking waste as early as 2010 if the site is found geologically suitable -- itself has not been given the final go-  ahead.
  The Energy Department is to announce, probably before Christmas, whether it  plans to go ahead with the program.
  A firm decision on whether to use the Nevada location won't be made until 2001, when the president must officially determine if the site is geologically suitable to entomb as much as 80,000 tons of nuclear material that will remain deadly for 10,000 years.
  ``There's no way to keep the waste isolated because it's such a long time,''   argues Auke Piersma, a nuclear energy policy analyst for the environmetal/consumer group Public Citizen. And critics fear a ``mobile Chernobyl'' incident if thousands of tons of nuclear material is shipped by rail and highway across the country to a Nevada disposal site.
  Utility executives argue nuclear materials already are shipped safely and that with time, new technologies will be developed to deal with the waste issue. After all, they note, originally the idea was to reprocess used reactor fuel. But that approach was abandoned by the United States in the 1970s because of concerns about nuclear proliferation.

 AP-NY-12-06-98 1350EST
   Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.

12-14-98
Germany Might Shut Down Nuke Power

 .c The Associated Press
   BONN, Germany (AP) -- Talks between the government and power companies on shutting down Germany's 19 nuclear plants will begin next month, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said today.
 Schroeder spoke after holding preliminary talks with four leading nuclear energy operators on a strategy for scrapping nuclear power. ``All participants are prepared to reach an agreement,'' Schroeder said. No exact date was set
yet.
  The Social Democrats and the environmentalist Greens took power in October calling for an end to nuclear energy in Germany, a major policy reversal for the country.
  If the talks do not produce a deal after one year, the government says it intends to pass legislation setting a timetable on its own.
  Schroeder, who will chair the talks, said he was confident a ``sensible solution'' would be found.
  One aim of the talks will be to avert the threat of huge compensation lawsuits by utilities against the government if nuclear plants are shut down prematurely, government spokesman Uwe-Karsten Heye said.
  The government hasn't revealed its strategy for the talks yet. Many Greens favor a speedy exit over five or 10 years, but Schroeder has said about 20 years would be needed.
  Schroeder said the power executives reiterated in today's talks that the compensation issue ``must be considered.''
  Economics Minister Werner Mueller, a former utility company executive taking part in the energy talks, has ruled out government compensation for shuttered plants.

 AP-NY-12-14-98 1022EST
  Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP
news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise
distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.

12-15-98
India Wants To Keeps Nuclear Plan
  .c The Associated Press
   By ASHOK SHARMA
  NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- India's prime minister said today he would not negotiate away his country's nuclear arsenal in talks with the United States and insisted on India's right to develop ballistic missiles to carry warheads.
  While updating Parliament on his negotiations with the United States over India's nuclear arsenal, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said he was determined to maintain ``a minimum credible deterrent.''
  The negotiations with the United States ``are premised on this basis,'' Vajpayee said.
  The prime minister said India ``will not accept any restraints'' on developing missiles to carry nuclear warheads, which he called ``integral (to) any country's defense preparedness.''
 Vajpayee said work on extending the range of India's nuclear-capable Agni missile was continuing.
  The United States is pushing India in the negotiations to adopt limitations on missile development, as well as sign onto the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and ban production of fissile material.
  The two countries launched negotiations after Washington slapped economic sanctions on New Delhi for its series of nuclear weapons tests in May.
  Neighboring Pakistan, in response to its top regional rival India, conducted its own nuclear tests and it too is now under sanctions.
  Indian opposition members accuse Vajpayee of giving away too much in the talks, which enter their seventh round in January.
  Washington lifted some sanctions this month after India and Pakistan announced a moratorium on further testing and promised to adhere to the test ban treaty by September, as well as to control the production and sale of nuclear materials.
  Aside from the long-range Agni still under development, India also has a force of 20-50 nuclear-capable medium-range Prithvi missiles, according to the London defense journal Jane's Intelligence Review.
  AP-NY-12-15-98 1029EST

  Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press. 

12-15-98
U.S. Settles Nuclear Waste Lawsuit
  .c The Associated Press
   By H. JOSEF HEBERT  Associated Press Writer

 WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Energy Department will provide its critics money for research and expanded access to information about nuclear waste cleanup efforts under a settlement reached with environmentalists.
  The department said it agreed to earmark $6.25 million for citizen groups, including many of its critics, to monitor and finance independent technical studies of the government's nuclear waste management programs.

 The settlement, approved Monday by U.S. District Judge Stanley Sporkin, closed a nine-year lawsuit filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and 38 other environmental organizations.

 The suit alleged that the department acted improperly by not proceeding with a program-wide environmental impact review as part of its waste cleanup effort. Under the settlement, no such assessment will be required.

 Mary Anne Sullivan, the department's general counsel, called the agreement ``excellent news.''
  ``We hope that it paves the road for less contentiousness,'' she said.
  Sullivan said the settlement will avoid a likely trial and further lengthy litigation. The issue revolved around whether the department had complied with promises it made under a previous court agreement over the waste cleanup.
  In return for getting access to more information and money for independent research, the environmental groups abandoned their demands that the government conduct a broad environmental impact review of the waste cleanup program.
  Sullivan said the department does not believe a system-wide environmental impact analysis was needed because the waste cleanup program already is subject to both federal and state reviews on a site-by-site basis.
  ``The environmental regulators are the ultimate decision makers,'' said Sullivan.
  Environmental groups also called the settlement a victory.
  ``We now have the data, the resources and the processes necessary to make DOE's environmental work more accountable to the public,'' said NRDC lawyer David Adelman. He said that was better than demanding the department conduct
program-wide environmental review.
  The department will put a variety of unclassified nuclear waste and cleanup information in a new database that will be available through the Internet,  officials said. While most of the information might be available already through various sources, it now will be more accessible.
  The new data will provide ``the tools the public needs to monitor compliance'' to health and safety standards and the department's commitments for cleanup, said Jay Coghlan of Citizens for Nuclear Safety in Santa Fe, N.M.
  The lawsuit also accused the Energy Department of failing to perform adequate environmental reviews of how it manages the current and future nuclear weapons stockpile. Sporkin dismissed that section of the suit earlier this year on national security grounds.
  But Sporkin had threatened to hold the department in contempt if it did not try to work out a settlement on the waste monitoring issue and give citizen groups greater access to waste data.
  In addition to the NRDC, other plaintiffs included Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and more than 30 grassroots nuclear watchdog groups, many of them located near nuclear weapons facilities.

 AP-NY-12-15-98 1506EST

  Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.

12-15-98
Radioactive Waste Handler Fined
  .c The Associated Press
   SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The owner of Envirocare of Utah, a radioactive waste disposal company, was fined $100,000 on Tuesday but got no jail time in a plea bargain following his admission that he paid off a former state nuclear
regulator.
  Khosrow Senmani had admitted giving $40,000 to Larry F. Anderson, former director of the state's Division of Radiation Control and pleaded guilty in July to a misdemeanor charge of aiding and abetting the filing of a false tax return.
  Semnani said he hopes to negotiate with the U.S. Department of Energy for a return to Envirocare, which operates one of the nation's three low-level radioactive waste facilities at Clive, 65 miles west of Salt Lake City.
  The $40,000 was a small piece of the $600,000 in cash, real estate and valuable coins Semnani claims he paid to Anderson in 1993 out of fear of economic and regulatory reprisal against Envirocare.
  Anderson has said the payments were for a legitimate consulting agreement and that Semnani owes him millions more. Their relationship became public when Anderson sued Semnani more than two years ago.
  Paul Warner, U.S. Attorney for Utah, declined to say if Anderson will be prosecuted.
  AP-NY-12-15-98 1727EST
  Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.

 NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- Even while questioning India's need for nuclear weapons, the United States has taken steps to help New Delhi manage its arsenal, a senior diplomatic source said Thursday.
  The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, opened a window into the ongoing talks on India's defense policy, which followed India's May underground nuclear tests.
  Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee also provided some details on Washington's evolving posture toward India's nuclear capability, in two speeches this week to lawmakers who had complained about secrecy surrounding
the talks.
  According to the Western diplomatic source, officials have given Vajpayee's envoy Jaswant Singh a tour of U.S. facilities that provide direct communication between Washington and Moscow, and he has met with experts on ``command and control'' -- the system that determines the circumstances under which nuclear weapons would be used.
  The source said the United States also has encouraged India to clearly define what it means by what Vajpayee calls a ``minimum, credible nuclear deterrent,'' arguing that openness about its capabilities is the only way to deter perceived enemies.
  After the May tests, Vajpayee said his country needed a deterrent because its uneasy neighbors China and Pakistan were nuclear capable. Pakistan responded to the tests with its own underground explosions, raising fears nuclear war
could one day break out between the neighboring rivals. India and Pakistan have fought three conventional wars since the two independent nations were carved out of the British empire in 1947.
  The United States was outraged by the tests, saying they threatened a growing global commitment to disarmament.
  Vajpayee told his parliament Tuesday that after six rounds of talks since May between Singh and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, the United States had developed ``some understanding of our security concerns and
requirements.''
  A seventh meeting between the two diplomats is scheduled in late January in New Delhi. Singh was recently named foreign minister, raising questions as to whether he would continue direct talks with a lower-ranking U.S. official. Plans for Singh to continue are a sign he and Talbott have developed a relationship considered crucial to the success of the talks.
  It is unclear when the talks will be concluded, as the two sides remain far apart on key issues.
  The United States wants India and Pakistan to sign an international test ban treaty, issue a formal moratorium on production of the fissile materials used to make nuclear weapons and adopt restraints on nuclear-capable missiles and aircraft.
  Vajpayee has never clearly promised to sign the test ban treaty, but said again Tuesday he supports its coming into force by September -- the treaty as it is now written cannot come into force without India's signature. He also said India needs no more test explosions to refine its nuclear capability.
  Vajpayee added in his speech to parliament that India could not unilaterally end fissile material production, but was participating in talks in Geneva aimed at establishing an international ban. He also said India ``will not accept any restraints'' on developing missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Work on India's extended range Agni missile continued, he said.
  India also has a force of 20-50 nuclear-capable medium-range Prithvi missiles, according to the London defense journal Jane's Intelligence Review.
  Washington lifted some anti-nuclear economic sanctions this month after India and Pakistan announced a moratorium on further testing and promised to adhere to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by September, as well to control the
production and sale of nuclear materials.

 AP-NY-12-17-98 0442EST

  Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.

12-18-98
U.S. Energy Dept. says Nevada nuclear site promising
By Patrick Connole

WASHINGTON, Dec 18 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Energy said on Friday that Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert was a ``promising'' site for becoming the nation's permanent nuclear waste repository, pending more research on its safety.

DOE released its first detailed analysis on the potential waste site in a long-awaited viability assessment. The agency said that if it were eventually approved, the site would cost some $19 billion to build and monitor.

``DOE believes that Yucca Mountain remains a promising site for a geologic repository and that work should proceed to support a decision in 2001 on whether to recommend the site to the president for development as a repository,'' the DOE said.

Clinton administration officials, however, said the mainly positive report would not change White House policy against construction of an interim waste site, as some Republicans and the nuclear industry want.

``We are not working on a programme of interim storage. We are committed to finding a long-term solution,'' said acting DOE civilian waste director Lake Barrett.

DOE said costs for building and maintaining a permanent site would be covered mostly by the continued collection of a one-tenth of a cent per kilowatt-hour fee collected from nuclear energy consumers.

Sen. Frank Murkowski, Republican of Alaska and chairman of the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee, called the release of the viability assessment a ``step forward,'' but said nothing was currently being done to move more than 30,000 metric tonnes of waste sitting at reactors across the country.

``I again underscore the necessity of an interim storage facility. DOE has used as its excuse for inaction that the viability assessment has yet to be completed, Today we have received this assessment, and it indicates that Yucca Mountain is a promising site,'' Murkowski said in a statement.

By calling it ``promising,'' the agency rejected pleas from environmental groups to disqualify Yucca Mountain. Those groups have cited research showing that groundwater could be contaminated by radioactive waste during the thousands of years the nuclear fuel would remain highly radioactive.

``We object to the content of the report for its optimistic conclusions...It is time for the DOE to stop the show and disqualify Yucca Mountain,'' said a statement signed by more than 100 environmental and consumer organisations.

For the site to be recommended, the agency said it must still demonstrate that a repository can be designed and built at Yucca Mountain that would protect the public and the environment.

The waste site would become the home for some 70,000 metric tonnes of spent radioactive fuel rods from nuclear power plants, and additional waste from production of nuclear weapons.

Currently, around 38,000 tonnes of spent fuel is being stored at more than 70 commercial nuclear power plants across the country, pending the resolution of a dispute over when the federal government must remove the waste for storage.

A coalition of states and nuclear utilities charge that a 1982 law ordered the DOE to start disposing of spent nuclear fuel no later than Jan. 31, 1998, and say the viability study clears the way for building an interim waste site.

Last month, the Supreme Court let stand a U.S. appeals court ruling that refused to force the DOE to start taking waste, but did allow utilities to seek compensation for costs related to the storage of spent fuel at their facilities.

The DOE said uncertainties remained about key natural processes in the Yucca Mountain region, and over preliminary design plans. The agency said environmental impact assessments would be conducted in the next two years before the final recommendation in 2001.

16:31 12-18-98
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.  All rights reserved.  Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.  Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.  All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

 WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Energy Department concluded today work should proceed in the development of an underground disposal site in Nevada for highly radioactive nuclear waste, though acknowledging some uncertainties remain.
  ``No show stoppers have been identified to date,'' said the interim report on the proposed Yucca Mountain waste facility in the Nevada desert, which has been under study for nearly a dozen years.
  Energy Secretary Bill Richardson cautioned that the report was not a final decision, but an attempt to outline progress to date and to determine what issues remain to be resolved before a final action is made in 2001 on the site's suitability.
  ``Uncertainties still remain,'' said Richardson. ``...We need to continue to study Yucca Mountain'' to determine whether it can be designed to ``protect the health and safety of the public and the environment for thousands of years.''
  The Nevada site, on a desert ridge 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has been studied for 11 years at the cost of $2.2 billion to determine whether its geology can isolate more than 80,000 tons of used reactor fuel for 250,000 years or more.
  Critics, including a number of environmental organizations, recently urged the department to scuttle the project. They cited studies by outside scientists that raise the possibility that radioactive material might seep into groundwater during the many centuries the waste will remain dangerous. Other scientists have raised potential problems with earthquakes and volcanic
activity.
  But the interim report said, while ``uncertainties remain about key natural processes, the preliminary design, and how the site and the design would work together'' these issues can be resolved, and work on the project should proceed.

 AP-NY-12-18-98 1201EST

  Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.

12-22-98
Tennessee Reactor Chosen for Tritium
  .c The Associated Press    By EUN-KYUNG KIM

 WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Tennessee Valley Authority won a multi-billion dollar government contract to produce tritium, a form of hydrogen that boosts the power of nuclear warheads, congressional sources said today.
  The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the Energy Department has selected the TVA's Watts Bar Nuclear Plant for its tritium production. TVA's Sequoyah nuclear plant outside Chattanooga, Tenn., will serve as a backup source, the sources said.
  Tritium has not been produced in the United States since 1988, when the government shut down its last weapons reactor at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C.
  Energy Secretary Bill Richardson was expected to formally announce the decision late today. TVA spokesman Gil Frances said the agency would have no comment until Richardson made his official announcement.
  Among other options that had been considered by the Energy Department was the TVA's unfinished Bellefonte nuclear plant outside Scottsboro, Ala. It also weighed the idea of building a new linear accelerator at the Savannah River Site.
  TVA officials had pushed the Bellefonte option, hoping to obtain federal financial help to complete construction of the plant. But the Energy Department asked TVA earlier this fall to submit a detailed plan for the Watts Barr-Sequoyah option, considered the least expensive of the three proposals.
  The House approved legislation earlier this year that would have blocked the use of a commercial nuclear reactor to product tritium, but the measure failed in the Senate. Supporters of the House-passed measure argued that using a commercial reactor would breach the long-standing separation of commercial and defense uses of nuclear power.

 AP-NY-12-22-98 1218EST

  Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.

 12-23-98
Germans Reach Nuclear Energy Deal
  .c The Associated Press
   BONN, Germany (AP) -- German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his Greens party allies sought Wednesday to smooth over their first major disagreement, agreeing compromise was needed to reach a deal on phasing out nuclear energy.
  The Social Democratic chancellor had publicly rebuked his Green environment minister, Juergen Trittin, on Tuesday for firing the government's two advisory panels on nuclear safety without clearing it first with him.
  Schroeder later told German television that both parties in his government are committed to closing Germany's nuclear power plants, but the question of how has yet to be decided.
  Trittin also stressed the importance of compromise, and said the elimination of nuclear power would happen only with ``a sound and broad consensus.''
  The center-left coalition is to meet Jan. 13 to hammer out a common strategy for talks with the nuclear industry, which begin Jan. 26.
 If a voluntary timetable for shutting down the country's 19 nuclear power plants is not agreed to within a year, the government has pledged to legislate a plan.

 AP-NY-12-23-98 1936EST

  Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press. 

12-23-98
Cambodians Cleaning Up Toxic Waste  .c The Associated Press

  BY CHRIS FONTAINE
 SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia (AP) -- Soldiers began cleaning up 3,000 tons of suspected toxic waste Wednesday, hoping its removal will halt an exodus of frightened residents from this coastal town.
  Initial tests show the waste contains poisonous mercury, but the level of toxicity is not yet known, Environment Minister Mok Mareth said.
  ``It is not very dangerous as long as we can collect it into canisters,'' he said.
  Officials estimate that it will take more than a week for 600 soldiers working in shifts to pack the waste into plastic-lined oil drums. The barrels will be loaded into three shipping containers and left on site for the time being.
  Prime Minister Hun Sen wants the waste sent back to the Taiwanese company that shipped it to Cambodia, Formosa Plastics Corp.
  ``We have to force this company to pay damages,'' Deputy Prime Minister Sar Kheng said as he watched the soldiers work.
  The company says it obtained the proper permits.
  Prince Norodom Ranariddh, president of the Cambodian legislature, alleges the government and port officials took a $3 million bribe to allow the waste into the country.
  Panic has gripped Sihanoukville since the waste was discovered more than a week ago. Thousands have fled, fearful the waste may sicken or kill them.
  The hysteria intensified when a dockworker mysteriously died a few days after he cleaned the hold of the ship that brought the waste.
 A train leaving the town today was filled to capacity, with people perched on the roof and grabbing space in box cars and flat beds normally used for cargo.
 ``I've heard that if it rains the poison will rise out of the waste and kill people,'' said one of those leaving, Chhey Vanny.
  Meanwhile, two human rights workers were charged for allegedly leading an angry mob that ransacked a deputy governor's house over the weekend when a protest over the waste turned into a riot.
 The local group they work for has denied the allegations, and international human rights groups registered concern over their arrest.
 AP-NY-12-23-98 1736EST

  Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.

 AP-NY-12-23-98 0238EST

  Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press. 

12-23-98
Nordic states accuse UK nuclear plant of pollution

COPENHAGEN, Dec 23 (Reuters) - Nordic environment ministers have accused Britain's Sellafield nuclear waste reprocessing plant of discharging radioactive waste into the sea and urged the London government to prevent it.

The ministers made their protest in a letter to British Environment Minister Michael Meacher, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.

Ministers from Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland said Sellafield released large amounts of the metallic element technetium-99 (Tc-99) into the sea.

Tc-99 and other radioactive substances from liquid waste treatment at the plant were transported by ocean currents into the Nordic marine environment, the letter said.

``We urge the UK government to stop discharges of Tc-99 until better abatement techniques can be used,'' the ministers said.

``We are worried that pollution from Sellafield will taint the public perception of Nordic sea food products,'' they added.

There was no immediate comment on the accusations from state-owned British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL), which runs Sellafield.

According to BNFL, a new abatement technique to reduce annual discharges of Tc-99 to five percent of the 1997 level could be implemented in five or six years, the Nordic ministers said.

They recommended storage of liquid waste until proper abatement techniques were available.

15:55 12-23-98

Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.  All rights reserved.  Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.  Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.  All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

  MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia conducted five nuclear tests of a sub-critical level at an Arctic testing range this fall, a top official said Thursday, contradicting previous denials.
  Such tests are not prohibited by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty because the amount of radioactive plutonium used is not enough to create a nuclear explosion. But critics say carrying out even limited tests could encourage other countries to conduct full-scale nuclear tests.
  Deputy Nuclear Energy Minister Lev Ryabev said the tests on the Arctic archipelago of Novaya Zemlya were conducted between Sept. 14 and Dec. 13, the Interfax news agency reported.
   Weapons-grade plutonium and enriched uranium were used during the tests, but ``there was no discharge of nuclear energy,'' Ryabev was quoted as saying by Interfax.
  Western news reports and environmentalists claimed in September that Russia was preparing a sub-critical nuclear test on Novaya Zemlya.
 But Moscow denied the reports in October, after they had already begun, according to Ryabev.
   Gen. Igor Volynkin, who heads a Defense Ministry department overseeing nuclear weapons, said at that time there were no plans for nuclear tests at the Novaya Zemlya range and that Russia only carries out ``various physical modeling experiments'' that do not qualify as nuclear tests.

 AP-NY-12-24-98 1042EST

  Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.
 
 

 PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Initial test results on tons of waste dumped by a Taiwanese firm in Cambodia indicate the mercury level was thousands of times higher than safety standards permit.

 The waste, believed to be compressed industrial ash, was dumped a few miles outside Sihanoukville, 115 miles southwest of Phnom Penh, last month and discovered two weeks ago. Villagers living nearby have complained of exhaustion and diarrhea.

 Environment Minister Mok Mareth said the first of three analyses of the 3,000 tons of waste showed a mercury content of 675 parts per million. Joyce Fu, a member of the environmentalist Green Formosa Front, said by telephone from Taipei that Taiwan regulations called for less than 0.2 parts per million.

 Mok Mareth said he was waiting for two more tests from foreign laboratories before drawing conclusions about the Taiwanese waste.
 ``I think it is toxic but I cannot say for sure today,'' Mok Mareth said.
 The waste was sent by Taiwan's giant Formosa Plastics Corp., and fear over possibly toxic content caused a panicked exodus of residents from the seaport area.

 Hundreds of soldiers wearing protective clothing have been packing the waste into barrels and shipping containers. Sihanoukville's deputy governor, Khim Bo, whose home was ransacked by angry citizens in riots over the waste last
weekend, said the cleanup could take three to four weeks.

 A dock worker died a few days after cleaning the hold of the ship that transported the waste, sparking the riots in normally tranquil Sihanoukville.

 Thousands fled the town, and police said four were killed in traffic accidents on the road to the capital.

 Lee Chin-chun, general manager of Formosa Plastics, said Thursday that his firm's waste had been treated and was not hazardous. He said the company would take the waste back if asked.

 Lee denied Cambodian government reports that $3 million in bribes had been paid to get the shipment past corrupt officials, but acknowledged that the Cambodian agent who handled the transport and disposal received $300,000.

 The Cambodian government has suspended 29 port and customs officials and arrested the president of the local company that helped import the waste.

 Prime Minister Hun Sen has demanded the waste be sent back and the government has announced plans to sue Formosa Plastics.

 A second dump in the area was discovered this week. Mok Mareth said that samples were being taken for analysis from the 800 tons of refuse, described in a May invoice as waste from plastic, oil and steel powder. Newspapers say that the waste resembles video tape and that bags holding it bear Korean
writing.

 AP-NY-12-25-98 1222EST
   Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.

 MOSCOW (AP) -- Radioactive waste dumped by the Soviet Union in Arctic seas is leaking through its containers, causing radiation levels to reach up to 100 times normal in some areas, officials said Friday.

 Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry said radiation levels in waters off the Novaya Zemlya archipelago exceed the norm dozens of times, and in the nearby Stepovoi Gulf by 100 times, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

 Radiation levels in the Barents Sea are also above normal, the ministry said.

 Several containers that the Soviet Union used in Arctic radioactive dumps in the 1960s have become depressurized and toxic waste is leaking out, the ministry said.

 Chemical weapons dumps in the Baltic Sea are also causing contamination with heavy metals and arsenic, the ministry said, citing a study it conducted over the past three years.

 Sediment concentrations of heavy metals in several areas of the Baltic Sea are 10 to 100 times above normal levels, and arsenic levels are also high, the ministry said, according to ITAR-Tass.

 AP-NY-12-25-98 1548EST
   Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.

    Radioactive waste dumped by the Soviet Union in Arctic seas is leaking  through its containers, causing radiation levels to reach up to 100  times normal in some areas, officials said Friday.
    Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry said radiation levels in waters  off the Novaya Zemlya archipelago exceed the norm dozens of times, and in the nearby Stepovoi Gulf by 100 times, the ITAR-Tass news agency  reported.

    Radiation levels in the Barents Sea are also above normal, the  ministry said.
    Several containers that the Soviet Union used in Arctic radioactive dumps in the 1960s have become depressurized and toxic waste is leaking out, the ministry said.
    Chemical weapons dumps in the Baltic Sea are also causing contamination with heavy metals and arsenic, the ministry said, citing a study it conducted over the past three years.

    Sediment concentrations of heavy metals in several areas of the Baltic Sea are 10 to 100 times above normal levels, and arsenic levels are also high, the ministry said, according to ITAR-Tass.
 

12-26-98
China Nuclear Program Founder Dies   .c The Associated Press

  BEIJING (AP) -- Wang Ganchang, the scientist credited with founding China's atomic bomb program, has died, state-run media reported today. He was 90.

 The Xinhua News Agency said Wang died of an unspecified illness on Dec. 10 and was cremated Friday at Beijing's Babaoshan cemetery, the final resting place of many of China's revolutionary heroes.

 A native of eastern Jiangsu province, Wang graduated from the elite Tsinghua University in 1929 and earned a doctorate from Berlin University in 1933. Returning to China the following year, he helped establish China's nuclear research program.

 Wang worked as a research scientist at the University of California at Berkeley after the end of World War II. He returned to China just before the Communists took power in October 1949.

 Working at a government-run academy, Wang oversaw the design and manufacture of China's first atomic bomb.

 A front-page report in today's People's Daily, the newspaper of the Communist Party, lauded Wang as the ``founding father'' of China's nuclear weapons program and noted that President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji, among many others, had sent condolences upon hearing of his illness and death.

 ``Wang Ganchang was an outstanding representative among our nation's scientists. His passing is a great loss to atomic research in our country and the world,'' it said.

 AP-NY-12-26-98 0301EST

  Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press. 

12-27-98
Brazil Rediscovers Nuclear Energy     .c The Associated Press
   By PETER MUELLO

 ANGRA DOS REIS, Brazil (AP) -- Visitors to the Angra 2 nuclear plant stroll by posters of Galileo and Leonardo da Vinci put up as reminders of the age-old struggle between science and skepticism.
  ``The work you do today will be recognized tomorrow,'' the posters proclaim in Portuguese.
  At least that's what the government hopes. So far, the power plant has been a public relations nightmare, delayed for more than a decade by cost overruns and safety concerns.
  Now, Angra 2 is being finished and is scheduled to go into operation in July. For workers, there is a sense of vindication.
  ``This is the energy of the future,'' Jose Eduardo Brayner Costa Mattos, the construction site manager, said while waving a hand at an electricity generator stamped with the date 1988.
  Critics say Brazil is out of step in rediscovering nuclear power. They note that no U.S. utility has ordered a reactor since the late 1970s and that Germany's new government and others in Europe are moving to phase out nuclear
power.
  The gray concrete sphere of Angra 2 on Itaorna Beach, 100 miles west of Rio de Janeiro, seems like a relic from another age.
   ``It will be a problem for generations to come,'' said Roberto Kishinami, executive director in Brazil for the environmental group Greenpeace. ``There's no place to put the waste, and the environmental impact report is vague.''
   Those weren't big concerns in 1975, when President Ernesto Geisel signed an agreement with West Germany's Kraftwerk Union, a subsidiary of Siemens, to build as many as eight, 1,300-megawatt pressurized-water reactors to generate
electricity.
 For Brazil's ruling generals, the deal was part of its ``Big Brazil'' development drive. It also gave them a reactor that could produce fuel for an atomic weapons program, something they didn't get with Angra 1, a 626-megawatt plant then being built by Westinghouse Corp.
 Right away there were problems.
 Angra 2's first foundation was built on crumbling stone instead of bedrock, and almost the entire budget went into sinking additional support columns.
Residents said it was a mistake to build at Itaorna, a Guarani Indian name usually translated as ``rotten rock.''
  Angra 1 didn't inspire much confidence, either. It broke down so often that Brazilians dubbed it ``the lightning bug,'' because it kept going off and on.  In the 1980s, with Angra 2 way behind schedule, Brazil went broke and plunged
into recession. With no money and less need for energy, the plant was not a priority.
  In 1987, a year after the Soviet reactor meltdown at Chernobyl, Ukraine, a Brazilian junk dealer found a lead capsule containing radioactive cesium 137 in the ruins of an abandoned medical clinic and broke it open with a sledgehammer. Brazilians panicked after radiation poisoning killed four people and sickened 103. So Angra 2 was kept in limbo.

 It stayed there until 1994, when a new government economic plan ended hyperinflation. With a strong currency, consumers went on a buying spree -- and suddenly needed more energy for new freezers, air conditioners and microwave ovens. President Itamar Franco gave go-ahead for Angra 2.
  Some 4,500 workers are laboring around the clock to finish the plant. Machinery, vacuum-sealed in special foil and warehoused for a decade, is unwrapped and installed.
  ``It's 94 percent done,'' said Costa Mattos, the site manager.   A ``hot'' test of all systems but without fuel is set for April. The final step is to load the reactor core with 236 zircon alloy rods containing the uranium oxide fuel.
  Greenpeace is campaigning to block the licensing of Angra 2. However, 16 years late and at a cost of some $9 billion, it is expected to go on line in July.

 Over the years, Brazil's priorities have changed. Civilian rule returned in 1985, and the government signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and scrapped the military's secret nuclear weapons program.
  Eletronuclear, the government nuclear company, knows any slip-up at Angra 2 could sink its plans to finish Angra 3, today just a $1 billion hole in the ground.
 ``The design is old, but it has the same upgrades as in Germany. So I would say it is First World,'' said Heini Schroer, a Siemens computer technician from Erlangen, Germany.

 The pressurized-water reactor is the safest reactor made and environment- friendly as well, Costa Mattos said. Angra 2 won't heat the seawater much or emit methane or other ``greenhouse gases,'' and radiation levels will be checked periodically around the countryside, he said.

 For now, the spent reactor fuel rods that remain deadly for thousands of years will be kept in a pool at the plant, but in 20 years the pool will be full. After that, no one is sure will happen.

 AP-NY-12-27-98 1230EST
   Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.

 12-27-98
Russia Deploys New Nuclear Missiles  .c The Associated Press

  xhl(Russia Declares Its Newly Designed Nuclear Missiles Ready for  Combat%xhl)
  MOSCOW (AP) -- The military declared 10 newly designed nuclear missiles ready for combat Sunday in its first deployment of the Topol-M, developed to maintain Russia's position as a global nuclear power.
  The single-warhead Topol-M, whose range has been reported to exceed 6,200 miles, will be the new heart of Russia's missile forces, and 40 are expected to be built by the end of 2000 taking the place of heavier, multiple-warhead  missiles. The missile is designed to be fired from a vehicle, and its mobility  makes it more safe from preemptive strikes than silo-based missiles.
  The 10 Topol-M's were deployed in the Saratov region, about 450 miles southeast of Moscow, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
  The deployment was a major step for Russia's cash-strapped government, which doesn't have enough money to maintain all its armed forces, and decided to concentrate defense spending on developing the missile.
  ``This is a very important event, because even in the difficult financial conditions of 1998 we have managed to find funds for financing this top priority area,'' said Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev, according to ITAR-Tass.
  Russia is facing its worst economic crisis since the Soviet collapse.
  A parliament committee is drafting a bill that would guarantee funding to the strategic missile forces until 2010, regardless of the country's economic situation, the Interfax news agency reported.

 The measure would ensure that Russia maintains nuclear parity with the West, according to Roman Popkovich, chairman of the Defense Committee of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.
  AP-NY-12-27-98 1423EST
   Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.

 WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. agency managing the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile is testing its most critical computers, after Pentagon inspectors discovered nobody had verified whether key systems could withstand year 2000
problems.

 The Defense Special Weapons Agency wasn't alone in certifying computers Y2K safe without independent testing, said the Pentagon's Inspector General's Office, which found only 25 percent of the agency's ``mission critical'' defense computer systems had been tested.

 Navy Capt. Michael Doubleday, a Pentagon spokesman, said Friday that the Defense Department is systematically addressing the Y2K challenge and has conducted more than 200 audits in the past year to ensure officials are conducting proper tests.

 ``We view it as we do any kind of war fighting situation,'' Doubleday said, noting that year 2000 testing has become part of routine Pentagon operations and training.

 Lt. Col. Patrick Sivigny, another Defense Department spokesman, noted that any computer failure by the nuclear stockpile agency wouldn't affect the nation's ability to defend itself. ``This has nothing to do with command and control of nuclear weapons,'' he said.

 The Defense Special Weapons Agency -- which was absorbed into a new Defense Threat Reduction Agency on Oct. 1 -- has managed and tested the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile since 1947. It also verifies arms control treaties and pacts.

 The Pentagon, which operates about 40 percent of computers that the U.S. government considers critical to carrying out the government's mission, has been trying for several years to ensure systems don't crash when the clock turns from 1999 to the year 2000.

 Many computers are programmed to recognize only the last two digits of a year. So when ``00'' pops up on Jan. 1, 2000, it could be interpreted as 1900 -- which could cause turmoil in how data is analyzed or could result in freeze-ups or massive malfunctions.

 The weapons agency, according to an Oct. 30 inspector's general audit, did not complete independent testing of three critical systems before classifying them Y2K compliant as required by a Defense Department management plan. The agency has since tested two of those but still needs to test the third, according to the report.

 On its own, the weapons agency tested the critical Nuclear Management Information System and two of 10 non-critical systems, all classified as Y2K compliant, the audit said.

 The agency agreed with the audit findings, although the agency's acting director, George Ullrich, said in a Sept. 30 letter to the IG's office that agency officials had been unaware that independent testing was needed to verify a system wouldn't crash in the year 2000.

 Instead, agency officials believed ``systems could be `self-certified' with the aid of a checklist,'' Ullrich wrote, noting that Pentagon policy before April 1997 did not require testing.

 The inspector general noted in a June 5 report that only 25 percent of the 430 critical Pentagon computer systems that had been tested before were certified as Y2K complaint.

 As a result, the report warned, ``systems may unexpectedly fail because they were classified as Y2K compliant without adequate basis.''

 AP-NY-11-27-98 1514EST

  Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press. 

12/28/98
INDIAN TOWN TAKES ATOMIC TESTS IN STRIDE
NOT FAR FROM WHERE SEVERAL UNDERGROUND DEVICES WERE EXPLODED IN MAY, VILLAGERS
ENDORSE NUCLEAR ARSENAL

By Uli Schmetzer, Tribune Foreign Correspondent.

KHETOLAI, India
   The dust from the nuclear blasts soared into the sky above the Thar Desert, forming a slim pillar. Then, the villagers say, it gathered in a small cloud that the gods, assisted by the desert winds, kindly pushed toward Pakistan.    That is how many of the 1,500 inhabitants of this village on the edge of the desert, 6 miles from the Pokaran nuclear test site, remember India's
underground nuclear explosions last May 11. Another set of tests was held on May 13  The villagers of Khetolai thus became members of a fairly elite group: civilians who watched nuclear history being made before their eyes.
   The explosions, collectively known as Pokaran II, marked India's admission to the nuclear club and raised global concerns of a nuclear arms race in the developing world.
   The villagers did not know the momentousness of the event they were about to witness. They were warned by Indian soldiers that the ground might tremble, but they were given no special protective gear or medication, nor were any of them evacuated. Their only shield from the effects of the blasts were the shade trees they sat under.    Yet if there is any word to sum up the collective feeling among the people of Khetolai about the explosions, it is pride. The explosions, village elders say, will deter their enemies in Pakistan from launching an attack on India.
   "The bombs will keep Pakistan away from us. The bombs are good for India, and they are good for peace in the world. The Americans have many bombs, why don't they dismantle them first instead of asking India to do so?" said Khetolai's village chief, Nenuram Bishnoi, 67.
   His comments were made recently as the turbaned village elders sat in a circle at the wake for a teacher who died of skin cancer at 58. The teacher, Ram Aaron, had suffered from skin cancer for at least 10 years.
   It is worth noting that India detonated it's first nuclear device, Pokaran I, near Khetolai in 1974.   It is impossible to say whether there is a link between Aaron's death and the nuclear test 24 years ago.
   Just as it is impossible to determine exactly what the villagers witnessed last May. There have been no confirmed reports that radioactive material vented from the underground explosions. Even if gases did escape, they would have been invisible.
   The villagers might have seen only a plume of dust, created by the force of the explosions.
   The village elders insist that no one in the village has become ill since the tests were carried out just a few miles away across the sand dunes. Of course, they said, many villagers complained about itchy skin, and everyone is furious about the zig-zagging fissures and cracks the blasts left on their homes, sturdy structures built with rust-red sandstone blocks.
   Dr. Gregory van der Vink, director of the IRIS consortium in Washington, a university research group on seismology, said, "You might see a puff and equate that with the release of radioactive material, but you cannot make that
assumption.
   "You can get fractures and activity at the surface that don't go down the shock point. So there's going to be ground motion, it's going to kick up dust, there might even be fractures (in the ground), but that doesn't mean that any of this stuff goes down to the depth of burial of the device. And as far as I know, there has been no release of radioactive material."
   Here, on the fringe of the Thar Desert, things are sometimes not what they seem.
   In this feudal part of Rajasthan state, the camel remains a main mode of transport, the maharaja is still "his highness," children are promised in marriage when they are babies, brides are burned for lack of a dowry, and high castes do not drink from the wells of the lower castes.
   Mutual distrust in mainly Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan is stoked daily on both sides of the border by reports of bloody clashes in disputed Kashmir and news of perfidious acts of sabotage and spying.
   As a result, there is suspicion, bordering on paranoia, as to what Pakistan might do -- and strong support for Indian efforts to deter it.
   Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh on Thursday said India had no intention of rolling back its nuclear program despite U.S. pressure. "The May tests are a fact that cannot be disinvented. No question of rolling back any of this
program," he told a news conference.
   The arms race on the Indian subcontinent ratcheted up another notch this week when India and Russia signed a long-term defense cooperation agreement under which India was expected to buy more sophisticated Russian military hardware. Pakistan immediately complained the accord made it necessary to upgrade its weapons with new purchases.
   Nevertheless, the villagers of Khetolai swell with pride as they suggest that the five Indian nuclear tests will surely make Pakistan think twice and will speed the recognition of India as a world power.
   Many simply ignore the fact that Pakistan retaliated with six nuclear tests.
   "The tests are no problem for us," said Sultaran Vishnoi, 68. "If we get sick, we will go to a hospital and the doctors will help us. Yes, we are living near the tests and it could be worse for us. But if we die, we die for the good of all India. We are not worried."
   This is a Vishnoi village, part of a Hindu sect whose members are fervent animists and believe that trees and wildlife are as precious as human life.
   In 1730, a maharaja ordered the Vishnoi's trees felled to build his new palace. The Vishnoi embraced the trunks, and the maharaja's soldiers are said to have massacred 363 men, women and children--all still clinging to their beloved trees.
   "If death comes, we cannot do anything about it," Vishnoi said. "The gods have willed it."
   Contradictions remain baffling in this part of India, a region speckled with opulent feudal fortress-palaces on cliff tops overlooking blatant poverty below.
   Not far from the Pokaran test site, a place bristling with modern technology, the Border Security Forces mounted on camels patrol the 800-mile electrified border fence to keep out Pakistani terrorists and arms smugglers.
   "We are looking for footprints in the desert that can lead us to the terrorists," said border patrol chief Baksish Singh. He explains the arms smugglers toss their loot over the electric fence where it is picked up by infiltrators waiting on the Indian side.
   On the first fateful test day last May, army officers came to Khetolai at 11 a.m.
   "Everyone must leave their houses and sit under the trees, the officer told us," said Gera Devi, a mother of three. "He said, `We are going to test some explosives, so there might be some shaking of the earth. Don't be alarmed.' "
   For nearly five hours, the villagers squatted under the trees off the Pokaran-Jaisalmer Road in a village of 150 stone houses.
   From Khetolai, the track is just 3 miles across the sand to the military security ring around the Pokaran test site. From there, the villagers say, it is only another 3 miles to the shafts leading to the underground pocket where the nuclear devices were buried.
   "The first blast came at 3:45 p.m. The earth trembled and the houses rocked. Then there were two more tremors within an hour. Each time smoke went up straight into the sky. There was a small cloud, but the wind sent the cloud towards Pakistan--and perhaps even to the United States. It didn't come this way at all," said Nenuram, with a mischievous grin.
   The Indian government said it tested three nuclear devices that day and says they were fired simultaneously. Independent seismic readings confirm this.
   After the tests, local politicians came to Khetolai and offered $40 per family in compensation for the blast damage to the houses. The villagers, more worried about their homes than their health, angrily refused the package as "not enough." They said the politicians "did not show their faces again."
   India's Defense Ministry did not reply to questions by the Tribune whether civilians were evacuated or medicated before the May nuclear tests. The ministry also failed to answer allegations by the villagers that they lived only 6 miles from the blast site. An unofficial defense source, however, said no civilians were evacuated or medicated.
   Today, Gera Devi complains her husband and 4-year-old son, Vikram, have suffered strange skin flaking and itchy rashes since the blast. She admits, however, the flaking was common before the explosions.
   "It is true many villagers had itches after the explosions, but then the rains came in September and the itch stopped," Vishnoi said.
   There are no credible studies of how the Pokaran tests have affected health statistics in the region. The independent Nuclear Disarmament group asserts its research based on limited data from Jodhpur, a city 130 miles from Pokaran, found "a possible increase" in the number of bladder, bone, skin and ovarian cancers in Jodhpur in the years after the Pokaran I blast in 1974.
   India's test site is named after the city of Pokaran, 35 miles from the desert test area. Pokaran is an agrarian center of 300,000 people with a red sandstone fort in the center and a colorful fruit and vegetable bazaar in the town square. Uniformed soldiers are everywhere.
   "When the houses trembled in May, we thought the war with Pakistan had started again," said shopkeeper Ran Gri. "People were scared at first, but nothing happened. Now, a lot of people make a fuss to get compensation. They blame headaches and itches and anything else on the tests. They are stupid.
Even if there was compensation, the officials would keep the money."    Attitudes like this enrage more sober Indians, who complain about the cost of maintaining a nuclear arsenal and a foolproof command and control system in a poor nation governed by unstable multiparty coalitions, further hobbled by power blackouts and a communications system prone to breakdowns.
   India's retired naval chief Adm. Ramdas told a nuclear forum this summer in New Delhi that India's claim it had a nuclear control and communications system was "humbug" and that the country was not ready to handle nuclear arms.
   "With no safeguards and no fail-safe mechanism in the command and control system, with people in power who are all gung-ho, before we know it we will have a nuclear war," the admiral said.
   "We have no civil defense system in this country, even for conventional warfare. There are no air raid shelters in this city of Delhi because in this country people are expendable. Even within the armed forces, we do not have any protective clothing against radioactive fallout," Ramdas said.    "So we are talking like babes in the woods who suddenly found a new toy. A
toy that is being used for purely political reasons. Economically it's going to set us back, militarily it has not helped us one bit."
   The situation in Pakistan is not so very different. Both nations have nuclear warheads that could, given the right delivery systems, reach each other's capital within minutes.
   How can either afford it?
   The nuclear arms race cost the United States, by some estimates, more than $5 trillion over the last 50 years. Independent Indian organizations such as the Nuclear Disarmament lobby claim India now spends 78 percent more on
defense than it does on higher education and rural development.
   The group claims the Indian government has increased its defense spending by 14 percent in the 1998-99 budget under the Hindu nationalist government.
   Pakistan, which is even more impoverished than India, is spending an even higher percentage of its budget on defense.

Copyright Chicago Tribune

  MOSCOW (AP) -- Despite severe economic problems, Russia is still strong enough to develop a new nuclear missile if necessary, Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev said in an interview published Tuesday.
  ``The talk about our weakness is an overstatement,'' Sergeyev said in an interview published in the daily Segodnya. ``If we need, we may build a heavy missile.''
  Sergeyev was responding to a question about what the military would do if Russia's parliament does not ratify the START II arms reduction treaty, under which Russia and the United States are to reduce their nuclear forces.
  Sergeyev and other military leaders have strongly supported START II, saying that by the year 2007, the treaty's deadline for halving Russian and U.S. arsenals to 3,000-3,500 warheads each, Russia's aging heavy missiles will have to be decommissioned anyway.
  Sergeyev appeared to reiterate his support for the treaty on Tuesday, but said Moscow can maintain a credible nuclear force and develop new missiles if necessary.
  ``Why should we go back to the past? The number of warheads doesn't determine anything,'' he said.
  Russia and the United States signed START II in 1993, and the U.S. Senate approved it in 1996. The Communist-dominated Russian parliament has delayed ratification, claiming the treaty would damage Russia's security.
  Lawmakers appeared ready to approve the treaty earlier this month, but again delayed ratification until next spring to protest U.S. and British airstrikes against Iraq.
  AP-NY-12-29-98 1004EST
   Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP
news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise
distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press. 

12-30-98
Radioactive Tumbleweeds on Rise               .c The Associated Press

  RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) -- First, radioactive ants, flies and gnats were found at the Hanford nuclear complex, which for years churned out plutonium for nuclear weapons.
  Now a government report says there has been a dramatic increase in the number of radioactive tumbleweeds found blowing around the place.
 The Department of Energy found 20 contaminated tumbleweeds in the first six months of 1998, compared with 11 during all of 1995, an increase likely due to stepped-up efforts to search the area.
  With roots that can stretch 15 feet into the soil looking for water, the weeds suck up contaminated groundwater and spread radioactivity when the top of the plant is blown away by the wind.
  The plants sprout across the 560-square-mile government reservation, which is one of the nation's most heavily contaminated nuclear sites. When they tumble, so does radioactivity.
  The Department of Energy found that Fluor Daniel, the company that manages Hanford for the government, and other contractors spent $1.68 million last year to control vegetation like tumbleweeds, as well as various mice and insects that also spread radioactivity.
  Hanford stopped producing plutonium in the 1980s, but some areas remain highly radioactive. Billions of dollars are being spent to clean up the site along the Columbia River.
 AP-NY-12-30-98 0644EST
   Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.

12-30-98
Leaders Appeal for Chernobyl Aid    .c The Associated Press

  KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and British Prime Minister Tony Blair appealed for donors to help renovate the sarcophagus covering a ruined reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
 Kuchma and Blair sent a joint letter asking for aid to the leaders of Argentina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, New Zealand, Brunei and Qatar, said the Ukrainian leader's foreign policy aide, Volodymyr Ohryzko.
  The sarcophagus was hastily built after the world's worst nuclear disaster in April 1986, when Chernobyl's No. 4 reactor exploded during a test and sent a radioactive cloud over much of Europe.
 Ukrainian officials long have warned of the sarcophagus's deteriorating state and leaky walls. They are particularly concerned about radioactive fuel and tons of radioactive dust inside.
  Ukraine has appealed to world nations to help it make the concrete and steel sarcophagus environmentally safe. Since 1997, about 20 donor nations have pledged $390 million of the estimated $758 million in shelter repair costs.
 AP-NY-12-30-98 0957EST
   Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.

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