The US Senate has rejected the comprehensive test ban treaty in spite of pleas from President Clinton to ratify it or postpone voting on it. It is the first time in many years that the US has refused to ratify a major foreign treaty which it had signed.
The Republican majority ignored the President's pleas and voted last night against ratification by 51 to 48 with one abstention. A two-thirds majority of the 100-member Senate was needed for ratification.
The rejection is a major setback for President Clinton's foreign policy of which the treaty was a major initiative. He was the first leader to sign the treaty in 1996. It has since been signed by 154 countries.
The US rejection will be received with dismay by supporters around the world of the treaty which would ban all nuclear testing in the atmosphere or underground. Britain and France are the only two nuclear powers to have ratified the treaty but many other countries have been delaying ratification while they waited to see what the US would do.
The treaty will come into force when the 44 countries with nuclear capabilities ratify it. Only 25 of them have ratified.
During the debate Democrats warned that a negative vote would send a dangerous signal to countries such as India, Pakistan and North Korea which are developing nuclear weapons. Ratification of the treaty would mean that a world-wide system of monitoring for nuclear tests would be set up.
The US has voluntarily suspended all nuclear testing since 1992 and used computer simulation to test the efficiency of its nuclear arsenal.
Vice-President Al Gore won a crucial endorsement for his struggling presidential campaign when the largest US labour union confederation voted to back his 2000 presidential bid. The AFL-CIO, which has 13 million members, approved Mr Gore over his Democratic challenger, Mr Bill Bradley, at the close of their convention in Los Angeles on Wednesday.