Amendment conference Underway at U.N.

UNITED NATIONS-Preliminaries willbegin May29-June8fora Conference to Amend the Partial Test Ban Treaty. Supporters are pleased that it is not a "preparatory committee" but a "Meeting of the Parties"- i.e. it can hold a general debate and make dccisions. They are also glad that it begins before the August Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The officials will be Ambassador Edmond Jayasinghe of Sri Lanka, and Sohrab Kheradi, now Secretary of the First Committee. Multilateral disarmament negotiations are stalled in other fora, and participants expect this new conference to require several sessions. However, since the Non-Proliferation Treaty will probably not continue past 1995 unless a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has been concluded, the Amendment Conference will have its real impact then.

The U.S. Congress is already moving toward supporting the Amendment Conference, prompted by House Majority leader George Mitchell and Foreign Affairs Chairman, Senator Claiborne Pelt, who favor it. Canada, on the other hand, continues to seem a "satellite" of the U.S. administration, which rejects a Test Ban Treaty. U

EASTERN EUROPEAN NATIONS' DEBT LOADS VARY WIDELY

COUNTRY POPULATION TOTAL FOREIGN DEBT PER CAPITA FOREIGN DEBT

Romania 23.2 million $2.2 billion $95

Czechoslovakia 15.6 million $6.1 billion $391

Bulgaria 9 million $7.1 billion $789

Poland 38.2 million $38.5 billion $1008

East Germany 16.6 million $19.5 billion $1175

Hungary 10.6 million $18.0 billion $1698

Source: Christian Science Monitor, 2 March 1990. Thanks to Disarmament Campaigns.