Israel's Reactor To Be Shut Down

The Associated Press Monday, Dec. 13, 1999; 12:48 p.m. EST

JERUSALEM  Israel nuclear reactor near the Negev Desert town of Dimona will be shut down on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day as a precaution against Y2K malfunctions.

Israel says the Dimona facility is used for research, though it is widely believed that Israel stockpiles nuclear weapons there. Based on photographs taken at the site in 1986 by Israel's nuclear whistleblower, Mordechai Vanunu, experts said at the time that Israel had the world's sixth-largest nuclear arsenal.

The prime minister's office said Monday that Israel's nuclear facilities were checked and found to meet the necessary standards to combat the millennium bug, and that safety systems were working. In addition to Dimona, Israel operates a small nuclear research facility at Nahal Soreg in the center of the country.

-- glowing (@ .), December 13, 1999