[Does this utilize depleted uranium? It's "capable of penetrating any type of armor...."]

September 4 8:25 AM ET
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/990902/az_raytheo_1.html

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India Saturday test-fired its domestically developed anti-tank guided missile, Nag (cobra), off the coast of the eastern state of Orissa, a Defense Ministry spokesman said.

``It was test-fired early this morning. It was a routine test,'' the spokesman told Reuters.

The test was carried out at India's interim test range at Chandipur-on-Sea.

Details of the test-flight of the missile, which has a range of 2.5 miles, were not immediately available.

Nag has been developed as part of an integrated guided missile development program involving five missiles that involve different distances and terrains.

Nag, an all-weather missile capable of penetrating any type of armor....

---

Updated 4:35 AM ET September 5, 1999
http://news.excite.com/news/u/990905/04/international-missile

NEW DELHI, India, Sept. 5 (UPI) India has test-fired its indigenously built anti-tank guided missile Nag, or Cobra, off the eastern coast.

Newspaper reports today say that the missile, with a range of 2.5 miles each, was launched on the range at Chandipur-on-sea in Orissa state.

Nag, an all-weather third-generation heat-seeking missile capable of penetrating any type of armor, was first test-fired in July last year.

India's integrated missile program also includes the intermediate- range Agni, or Fire, ballistic missile, the short-range surface-to-air Trishul, or Trident, the surface-to-surface Prithvi, or Earth, and the surface-to-air Akash, or Sky.

---

By Nick Hordern, Australia Financial Review, September 2, 1999
http://www.afr.com.au:80/content/990902/world/world5.html

India appears to be on a defence shopping spree, including going for bargain basement Russian equipment, after its mini-war with Pakistan in the Kargil region of the disputed territory of Kashmir.

Since the Kargil conflict ended in early July, there have been reports that Delhi is considering the purchase of military equipment from a range of European countries and Russia, traditionally the major source of India's defence imports.

India's defence spending declined with the end of the Cold War, and much of its military equipment is obsolete. The outgoing Bharatiya Janata Party Government of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, facing elections on September 5, has been criticised for a lack of military preparedness and equipment during the Kargil crisis. And the shock of the conflict appears to have helped override fiscal objections to large-scale defence purchases.

On Tuesday it was reported that Delhi and Moscow were close to concluding a deal for the sale of the Admiral Gorshkov, a Soviet-era Kiev class vessel which carries helicopters and vertical take off and landing aircraft (like British Aerospace's Harrier) on its flight deck. Protracted negotiations appear to have resulted in a deal whereby the Indians will pay not for the hull, but for the modernisation of the vessel, built in the 1970s, so that it can carry advanced conventional fighters such as the naval variant of Russia's MiG 29.

India's sole aircraft carrier, the Viraat, is the veteran ex-British carrier Hermes, sold to India after the Falklands war. When, during the Kargil crisis, the Indian Navy was deployed into the Arabian Sea, the ageing Viraat was left behind in dry dock undergoing repairs.

Russian military equipment is regarded as providing advanced capability at a low cost compared to European and US products. The MiG 29 is already flown by the airforces of India and Malaysia, and in recent weeks Bangladesh said it would purchase the aircraft. The Gorshkov deal could lead to an Indian purchase of 66 more MiG 29s, according to the American weekly Defence News.

On Sunday it was reported India would buy more Mirage 2000 fighter/attack aircraft from France. Delhi is also shopping for more medium artillery, to augment the Swedish Bofors howitzers which played a crucial role in the Kargil conflict.

But the purchase of foreign military equipment runs counter to India's long-standing policy goal of self-reliance in defence production. For decades India has strived to produce sophisticated equipment like tanks and warplanes by itself, with small success. Kargil seems to have reversed this policy, but only temporarily.

At the height of the Kashmir crisis, an Indian Cabinet committee took time out to approve the indigenous construction of a major defence item an aircraft carrier. If the Gorshkov deal does go through, the Soviet warhorse will be only a stopgap.

---

By Atul Aneja - The Hindu, September 4, 1999
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/1999/09/04/stories/01040007.htm

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 2. India has launched a new phase of military modernisation after the Kargil conflict, which will benefit all the three defence services incrementally.

Hectic negotiations with foreign suppliers are being currently matched by extensive equipment trials. The defence deals for the Army and the Navy may be clinched first.

Apart from Russia, France and Israel - South Africa's profile as a major supplier of military hardware to India has become increasingly prominent now.

The Army has finalised the purchase of the Smerch multi-barrel rocket system. The Russian system can land saturation fire up to 70 km, more than double the reach of the equipment with India now. Launched from 12 tubes mounted on special vehicles, the Smerch can decimate high value targets in the rear of the battlefield, such as command and control centres, fuel dumps and vehicle concentrations. Trials and price negotiations, the penultimate steps before formal induction for Smerch have already been concluded, it is learnt.

With the Kargil conflict showing deficiencies in long range electronic surveillance, India has decided to go in for a few Searcher Mark-II Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) from Israel. These UAVs will be especially helpful for landing accurate fire on enemy gun positions in the battlefield.

The aerial vehicles serve as ``command posts'' in the sky. Besides spotting targets, the UAVs provide the coordinates of their location for landing accurate fire. The UAVs can also serve as relay platforms for extended communication and long range data links.

The need for Searcher Mark-IIs has partly arisen from the experience in the Kargil conflict. India had introduced an earlier variant of the Searcher in the Kargil conflict. While that system performed well at relatively low heights, its performance at very high altitudes was deficient. The Searcher Mark-II, which has a height ceiling of nearly 30,000 feet, overcomes this hurdle.

The inability of the Army to sight targets at long ranges has also driven security planners to scan the Eastern European market for ground-based gun locating radar.

The Army's other surveillance ``wish list'' includes battlefield surveillance radar for keeping a systematic day and night watch on the battle area. The Army is looking for an improvement over Israel's ELM-2140 system.

After much of dilly-dallying, the defence authorities are finalising the purchase of self-propelled guns. These guns which are mounted on tank chassis can land heavy artillery fire and are needed to smoothen the advance of the armoured units.

The G-6 of South Africa is the current front-runner in this category. Its 155 mm gun has been found excellent during trials. Besides, its possible purchase is seen as cost effective because the same vehicle can be used in deserts, plains and mountains. The mounting of the 155 mm gun on it also cuts down ammunition costs as the Bofors guns use the same caliber shells.

The G-6's wheeled characteristics, however, will impose limitations during long-range desert cross-country runs, especially south of Barmer in the Rajasthan sector. India might therefore have to induct a mix of wheeled and tracked self- propelled guns which have a longer endurance.

The Navy, on its part, has already ordered the purchase of four Ka-31 low-level surveillance helicopters. The ship-borne helicopters can travel a radius of 600 km and keep a watch on threats below 10,000 feet. This is helps against hostile planes which fly low to evade radar. The Ka-31 can pick up aircraft at a range of 100 to 150 km.

While the helicopters will fulfil the Navy's long- standing need for comprehensive air surveillance, their large size might impose limitations. These helicopters can operate from aircraft carriers and Khrivak class frigates which the Navy has already ordered from Russia. But it may be difficult to accommodate them on the other vessels with the force.

Complementing the Ka-31, the Navy is likely to acquire from Israel, the Barak ship defence system. This can counter fixed or rotary wing aircraft, sea-skimming missiles, cruise missiles and smart bombs. The Navy is especially on the look-out for a system which can counter sea-skimming missiles of the Exocet type. The impending acquisition by Pakistan of three French Agosta class submarines which can launch AM-39 sea- skimming missiles has added to the urgency for a ship-based anti- missile missile system.

The Kargil conflict has given a push to the IAF's long-standing demand for more equipment. These include 10 additional Mirage- 2000-5 planes and Advanced Jet Trainers (AJTs). The IAF is also pressing for the modernisation of its MiG-29s, Jaguars and MiG- 27s.

---

10:39 p.m. Sep 04, 1999 Eastern
http://www.dogpile.com - search Infoseek

NEW DELHI, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Following are key facts about India, which conducts general elections spread between September 5 and October 3.

POPULATION: 983.44 million. About 75 percent live in rural areas. Registered voters 605 million. Religions: Hindus (82.4 percent), Moslems (11.7 percent), Christians (2.3 percent), Sikhs (2.0 percent), Buddhists (0.8 percent), Jains (0.4 percent).

OFFICIAL LANGUAGE: Hindi. Regional languages are widely used, as well as English. Literacy, which was 52.2 percent (males 64.1 percent, females 39.3 percent) in 1991, is estimated to have risen to 62 percent in 1997. Life expectancy at birth 62.6 years.

SEX RATIO: 927 females per 1,000 males.

AREA: 1.3 million sq miles (3.3 million sq km) stretching from the Himalayas in the north to the Indian Ocean in the south. India shares borders with Pakistan, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Bangladesh.

CAPITAL: New Delhi.

ARMED FORCES:

Total strength -- 1.18 million men plus 528,400 reserves.

Army -- 980,000 men, 3,414 tanks, 4,175 towed artillery.

Air Force -- 140,000 men; 772 combat aircraft, including Jaguars, MiG-21s, MiG-23s, MiG-27s, MiG-29s, Sukhoi Su-30MKs and Mirage-2000s, 32 armed helicopters.

Navy -- 55,000 men, 25 principal surface combat vessels with one aircraft carrier, six destroyers and 18 frigates. It also has 19 corvettes, six missile craft, 19 submarines, nine offshore patrol vessels and 11 inshore patrol vessels. Naval Air Force has 67 combat aircraft, including 17 Sea Harriers and 83 armed helicopters.

ECONOMY: Annual per capita income in 1997 was $370. Some 36 percent live below the poverty line. Agriculture is the main occupation for around 67 percent of the population. There is substantial industry in urban areas, including steel, aircraft, ships, railway rolling stock, passenger and commercial vehicles, textiles, atomic energy, electronics and gem cutting. There has been a significant surge recently in industries like computer software and pharmceuticals.

LABOUR FORCE: 314 million, with 36.8 million registered at government employment bureaux for jobs. Around 27.5 million people directly employed in the public and private sectors.

ANNUAL GDP GROWTH RATE: 6.0 percent in 1998/99 compared with 5.0 percent in 1997/98 (April-March), 7.5 percent in 1996/97.

CURRENCY: Rupee ($1 - 43.5 rupees)

MAIN EXPORTS: Gems, jewellery, ready-made garments, cotton yarn and fabrics, handicrafts, cereals, marine products, transport equipment. Fast-growing exports include computer software and other services.

MAIN IMPORTS: Crude oil, petroleum products, chemicals, machinery, electrical machinery, fertilisers, iron, steel, pearls, precious and semi-precious stones. Total external debt: $95.72 billion at end-March 1999 compared with $93.91 billion at end-March 1998.

MODERN HISTORY: India won independence from Britain in 1947 in a welter of sectarian bloodshed as the subcontinent was partitioned into predominantly Hindu India and Moslem Pakistan. India has fought three wars with Pakistan.

The neighbours stood on the brink of their fourth war in May 1999 after India conducted an offensive to dislodge what it said were Pakistani-backed militants from the heights of north Kashmir. Pakistan maintained they were Kashmiri freedom fighters.

In 1962, India fought a short border war with China.

India detonated an underground nuclear device in 1974. It carried out five underground nuclear tests in May 1998, after which it announced its intentions to build a nuclear arsenal.

India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru died in 1964. Two years later his daughter Indira Gandhi became prime minister.

Indira Gandhi imposed a 1975-77 State of Emergency during which hundreds of thousands of political opponents were imprisoned and the press was censored. She was defeated in elections in 1977, but returned to power in 1980.

She was assassinated by Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984, in retaliation for her decision to send troops into the Golden Temple, the Sikh religion's holiest shrine.

Indira Gandhi was succeded by her son Rajiv Gandhi, who pledged to modernise India's economy, but achieved little in concrete terms although he set the tone for later reforms.

He lost power in a November 1989 election. Two centre-left governments followed, but fell in quick succession, plagued by internal divisions. Fresh elections were called for May 1991.

Rajiv Gandhi was killed by a woman suicide bomber on May 21, 1991, while campaigning in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

P.V. Narasimha Rao, who introduced sweeping economic reforms after he became prime minister in 1991, led the Congress party to its worst-ever electoral defeat in 1996 elections.

The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party won the largest number of seats in parliament's lower house in 1996, but did not gain a majority and ruled for only 12 days.

The United Front coalition government that took over was toppled in April 1997 and replaced by another coalition supported by the Congress party.

Congress withdrew its support in November 1997 after the United Front rejected its demand to drop a regional ally.

A minority coalition government led by the BJP's Atal Behari Vajpayee was sworn in on March 19, 1998.

But 13 months later, a key ally pulled out of the coalition, forcing the BJP to face a confidence vote on April 17, 1999 which it lost by one vote.

Opposition parties failed to form an alternative government. Parliament was dissolved on April 26 and elections were called.

India has a two-chamber parliamentary system of government. The head of state is an indirectly elected president with mainly ceremonial powers. India's 26 states elect their own assemblies, but New Delhi has the power to impose federal rule.

SOURCES: Indian Government, Planning Ministry, Finance Ministry, 1991 Census, United Nations Development Programme, Election Commission (1998), International Institute of Strategic Studies - Military Balance 1997/98, World Bank (1997).

---

By Kesava Menon, September 04, 1999, The Hindu
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/1999/09/04/stories/03040001.htm

MANAMA (Bahrain), SEPT. 3. The Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Mr. Brajesh Mishra, has met with the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr. Ehud Barak. Few details about their meeting are available and sources in Tel Aviv merely said that the meeting yesterday was part of an ongoing diplomatic dialogue.

Mr. Barak is said to be much interested in boosting relations with India and is exploring the possibilities of visiting India next year after a new government is installed.

While the U.S. Secretary of State, Ms. Madeleine Albright, is also in the region there is no information on whether or not Mr. Mishra will meet her. Ms. Albright's West Asia tour is connected mainly with the negotiations between Israelis and the Arabs.

After the Pokhran-II tests non-official, but credible, Israeli sources had said that Israel had acted as one of the channels of communication between India and the United States. In the absence of precise details, however, it is uncertain whether there is any greater significance to the fact that Mr. Mishra and Ms. Albright are in the same place at the same time.

The dialogue between India and Israel touches on strategic, political and economic issues. Currently, both India and Israel are deeply perturbed by the spread of fundamentalist terrorism but, contrary to the impression sought to be created by Pakistani spin doctors, this is not a specifically anti-Muslim coordination since Turkey and Egypt (to name just two Muslim majority countries) are also vexed by the same issue and engaged with other parties similarly affected. Israel is also one of the countries very much involved in trying to promote the ``concert of democracies''.

Recently, the Arab League had stated in a report that India and Israel were cooperating in the missile field. The Ministry of External Affairs has denied this allegation and the rationale and posture adopted by India and Israel on nuclear matters are quite different. It is also highly unlikely that the Israelis would defy the U.S. administration's wishes on this issue even if India is steadily climbing up the list of countries with which Israel wants a strategic partnership.

-----------

By Amir Zia Associated Press Writer Monday, September 6, 1999; 6:23 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990906/V000725-090699-idx.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- In a salute to its armed forces, Pakistan displayed its latest weapons Monday, along with the wreckage of an Indian aircraft shot down earlier this summer during a bitter border dispute with its enemy and neighbor.

Pakistan's Defense Day is celebrated annually to mark the 1965 war with India -- a 17-day war Pakistan says was successful because neither side lost any territory.

This year the government declared the day a national holiday, which some saw as an attempt to boost the army's morale after this summer's violent border dispute with India. The dispute ended with Pakistan ordering Islamic militants to withdraw from the Indian-controlled sector of the Kashmir region.

India says the intruders were Pakistani soldiers disguised as militants. Pakistan denies the charge.

Some within the Pakistani military and the religious right considered the withdrawal a loss for Pakistan.

Newspaper editorials also have criticized the army and its handling of the Kargil dispute, which the international community had feared might escalate into an all-out war between the neighbors, both of which possess nuclear weapons.

Army spokesman Brig. Rashid Quereshi said that there are some within the lower ranks of the army who believe Pakistan gave up a military advantage by agreeing to the withdrawal.

``Militarily, the Kargil fighting was an example of how a small force can hold on to its positions and inflict huge losses on the enemy,'' said Army spokesman Brig. Rashid Quereshi.

``Our forces showed unbelievable courage. Nowhere along the Line of Control were Pakistani positions overrun despite two months of Indian attacks,'' he said. ``But, one has to look at the larger picture which young officers and soldiers find difficult to understand.''

The weapons and wreckage were exhibited at military stadiums in neighboring Rawalpindi, outside the federal capital of Islamabad.

Pakistan and India have fought three wars since the Asian subcontinent gained its independence from Britain in 1947. Two of the wars have been over the disputed Kashmir state, divided between the two countries by the departing British. A third war was over Bangladesh or what was then East Pakistan.

---

By Tahir Ikram, September 7 6:57 AM ET
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19990907/wl/pakistan_nuclear_1.html http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990907/06/international-pakistan-nuclear

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan said Tuesday that worries about more nuclear testing by arch-rival India would make it hard for Islamabad to sign a nuclear test ban treaty soon.

Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmad also said in a lecture on India's recently announced ``nuclear doctrine'' that Islamabad would respond if India conducted more nuclear tests.

``The very possibility that India may conduct further nuclear tests creates doubts in Pakistan regarding the advisability of our early adherence to the CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty),'' Ahmad told an audience that included a large number of diplomats.

``If India does conduct further nuclear tests, this will, once again, oblige Pakistan to respond,'' Ahmad said.

Despite widespread international pressure, India and Pakistan both carried out several nuclear tests in May last year. Both subsequently were hit with international economic sanctions that were partially lifted in December.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told the U.N. General Assembly last year that Islamabad would sign the test ban treaty by September 1999, provided there was no ``coercion and pressure.''

Ahmad said Pakistan's policy toward signing the treaty was unchanged, but added Islamabad felt a ``coercive atmosphere'' still existed and that India's nuclear doctrine and the recent conflict in Kashmir had changed the security situation in South Asia.

New Delhi said last month it would pursue a credible, minimum nuclear deterrence based on planes, ships and mobile land-based missiles.

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir, and in July they ended two months of fighting in the Kargil sector of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Ahmad said India's preparations for additional nuclear tests were continuing and if New Delhi does conduct new tests, the CTBT would be completely subverted.

``The first priority of the world must be, therefore, to press India -- and not Pakistan -- to sign and ratify the CTBT and to reverse the preparations it has made for further nuclear tests,'' Ahmad said.

Ahmad also said India's much greater conventional forces made Pakistan even more reliant on a nuclear deterrence.

``The growing imbalance in conventional capabilities will accentuate Pakistan's reliance on nuclear deterrence. This will have the consequence of lowering, not raising, the 'threshold' of possible use of nuclear weapons in South Asia. But the choice is not ours to make, it is India's,'' he said.

Ahmad said Pakistan wanted the world to pressure India not conduct more tests or deploy nuclear warheads.

---

By Amir Zia Associated Press Writer Tuesday, September 7, 1999; 3:04 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990907/V000341-090799-idx.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan urged world powers on Tuesday to press India to sign a nuclear test ban treaty, saying that nation's plans to continue nuclear tests makes it impossible for Pakistan to consider the accord.

Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmad warned of more nuclear tests by India and said Pakistan would be forced to respond if such tests were carried out.

``Pakistan can and will find ways and means to maintain a credible nuclear deterrence against India, without the need to match it -- bomb for bomb, missile for missile,'' Ahmad said. ``The nuclearization of South Asia is neither of our making nor of our choice, but it is now a reality that cannot be wished away.''

India unveiled a doctrine last month that said it will pursue a policy of credible nuclear deterrence and will use such weapons only in retaliation. The plan calls for India to arm its army, navy and air force with nuclear weapons.

The policy can be adopted only after a new government assumes office in October following national elections.

Ahmad said world powers like Russia and France, who have agreed to supply India with weapons capable of carrying nuclear warheads, are contributing to the destabilization of South Asia.

India and Pakistan conducted tit-for-tat nuclear test in May 1998, generating international fears of a nuclear conflict between the two South Asian nations, who have fought three wars since their independence from Britain in 1947.

India says it needs a minimum nuclear deterrent to arm itself against possible attacks from its neighbors, Pakistan to the west and China to the north.

-------------

September 6 6:53 AM ET http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/19990906/wl/ukraine_nuclear_1.html http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Ukraine-Nuclear.html http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990906/V000399-090699-idx.html

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - A reactor at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant was restarted over the weekend after plant operators fixed a malfunction in the reactor's electric transformer, officials said Monday.

Reactor No. 3 had its output reduced Friday and was shut down Saturday to stops leaks of lubricants from the transformer, the state nuclear energy company Energoatom said.

The reactor was restarted late Saturday and its output was brought to full capacity Monday, Energoatom said.

Zaporizhia, Europe's largest nuclear power facility, is 390 miles southeast of the capital, Kiev.

Ukraine has five nuclear power plants, which account for nearly half of the former Soviet republic's electricity needs.

-----------

Updated 6:40 AM ET September 7, 1999,By Andrei Shukshin
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990907/06/international-russia-dagestan

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Boris Yeltsin blamed "careless" generals Tuesday for allowing a devastating car bomb attack on a Russian military apartment block and the loss of an entire district of Dagestan to Islamic rebels.

Russia's FSB domestic security service said it had detained a man suspected of involvement in the blast in the town of Buynaksk in a southern region of Dagestan Saturday. The death toll reached 64 Tuesday. Most were women and children.

Hours after the blast, hundreds of Islamic militants invaded Dagestan from neighboring Chechnya and seized several villages. Russian forces, facing their toughest security challenge since the disastrous 1994-96 Chechnya war, have so far failed to repel the incursion or tackle another rebel stronghold.

"How did we lose a whole district in Dagestan? Why are there more terrorist acts in military compounds than in other places?" a furious Yeltsin thundered before a morning meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

"This can only be explained by the carelessness of the military," he said in televised comments.

A meeting of top security officials summoned by Yeltsin to discuss the crisis in the volatile North Caucasus, which he sees as a threat to Russia's territorial integrity, was delayed Tuesday.

The meeting, scheduled for 0800 GMT, was postponed until 1200 GMT and Interfax news agency said Yeltsin might himself chair it, a sign of the gravity of the crisis. Yeltsin used a previous such meeting in 1997 to sack the then defense minister.

An FSB statement said security forces were hunting two more suspected bombers described as adherents of a puritan Wahhabi branch of Islam which Russian authorities accuse of plotting to establish Islamic rule in Dagestan.

The car bomb destroyed a five-story building at a military complex in Buynaksk. There were 25 children and 22 women among the 64 dead in the blast.

The statement also said the FSB had identified the owner of a truck which was found loaded with explosives in another part of Buynaksk Saturday.

Islamic gunmen from the neighboring breakaway region of Chechnya invaded Dagestan for the second time in just over a month Sunday, two hours after the bomb attack.

Interior Ministry officials estimate that around 1,000 Muslim rebels have crossed into the Novolaksk region of western Dagestan on Russia's southern rim and seized six villages.

A Defense Ministry spokesman said Tuesday Russian troops, backed by local police and volunteers had stalled a rebel march on the regional center Khasavyurt, which Dagestani officials say the rebels want to proclaim their capital.

Some 13 people were killed in two days of fighting.

Itar-Tass news agency quoted Dagestan officials as saying 2,000 refugees had fled the war zone.

The new attack came after Russia beat off a previous incursion into another region of west Dagestan last month.

Both assaults are presumed to have been led by experienced commanders such as Shamil Basayev, who helped mastermind Russia's defeat in the Chechnya war.

The Defense Ministry spokesman said the rebels were quickly fortifying positions in and around the villages they control while the federal forces were rushing reinforcements and heavy armor to the area and regrouping the troops already in place.

"Helicopter gunships and warplanes are meanwhile pounding the rebel positions," he said.

Another group of rebels, surrounded by Russian forces in central Dagestan, Tuesday rejected an ultimatum to lay down arms and the military resumed bombarding their mountain positions with warplanes and multiple rocket launchers, he said.

---

Updated 2:40 PM ET September 6, 1999, By Brian Killen
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990906/14/international-probes-russia

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Boris Yeltsin's spokesman said Monday that corruption allegations against the Kremlin violated the rights of those accused and resembled a 20th-century version of the Spanish Inquisition.

"A fundamental principle of law such as the presumption of innocence was distorted," Interfax news agency quoted Dmitry Yakushkin as saying of the allegations involving a Swiss engineering company.

Yakushkin, reiterating comments made over the weekend to RTR television, said Yeltsin did not intend to respond publicly to the allegations which Russian officials have linked to U.S. and Russian election campaigns.

"A man should not have to go out on the square to publicly declare that he is not guilty of anything," Yakushkin was quoted as saying. "There is no need to revive the methods of the Inquisition at the end of the 20th century."

Yakushkin declined to comment to Reuters.

Yeltsin has made no direct public comment on the allegations swirling around himself, his family and his administration, although some of his political opponents have urged him to rebuff the charges decisively or to sue those making them.

Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, who has developed warm personal ties with the Kremlin leader, leapt to his defense.

"I know Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin pretty well, and my personal conclusion is that Boris Nikolayevich himself could not do anything like that. I am sure of that," a clearly emotional Kuchma told a news conference in Kiev.

The Kremlin has denied the initial report in Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper that Swiss firm Mabetex paid $1 million into a Budapest bank for the president in 1994, but the scandal has refused to die down.

Corriere della Sera said Mabetex, which won contracts for renovating buildings in Russia, including the Kremlin, also paid credit card bills for Yeltsin and his two daughters.

Mabetex has denied the allegations, which coincided with separate newspaper reports about a U.S.-British investigation into a suspected Russian money-laundering scheme involving billions of dollars through the Bank of New York.

A U.S. congressman visiting Moscow to discuss the money-laundering probe and other issues said the investigation was not an anti-Russian witchhunt.

"There is not the slightest anti-Russian motivation in our investigation," Lantos, a prominent California Democrat, told Ekho Moskvy radio after talks with Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.

U.S. congressional hearings on the money-laundering issue are due to take place in mid-September amid allegations that International Monetary Fund loans to Russia may have been caught up in the suspected scheme.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said last week that future IMF loans should be delayed unless there are safeguards. But the IMF says it has no evidence of IMF cash being involved.

Lantos quoted Ivanov as saying the Russian government planned to send "a very strong working delegation" to the United States to assist law enforcement agencies there.

The Bank of New York says it is cooperating with the investigation. It has not been accused of any crime and no one has been charged with wrongdoing, although two bank employees have been fired and a third suspended.

Alexander Shokhin, a Russian parliamentarian and former debt negotiator, told a news conference that the probe could be a factor in debt talks between Russia and the London Club of creditors which are due to resume on September 15.

Shokhin said creditors were concerned about capital flight from Russia and might use this as an argument in the talks.

"It seems to me that it is the aim of the initiators of this scandal to maintain it until the middle of September...when a Russian delegation is to meet with a delegation from the London Club of creditors," he said.

---

By David Hoffman Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, September 7, 1999; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/07/032l-090799-idx.html

MOSCOW, Sept. 6Russian troops were engaged in fierce combat today against hundreds of Chechen Islamic guerrillas who have seized control of six villages and a town in western Dagestan in the most intense fighting in southern Russia since the end of the war in neighboring Chechnya three years ago.

The Russian military threw tanks, artillery and air power into the conflict after an estimated 2,000 guerrillas entered Dagestan from Chechnya on Sunday in their second and largest cross-border thrust since early last month. Only days after claiming it had chased the Chechens back across the border, the military found itself drawn back into another guerrilla conflict in the region that will not be easy to suppress.

The rebels expanded their hold inside Dagestan today, according to reports from the region, as concern deepened in Moscow. Alexander Shokhin, a member of parliament, said a "full-scale undeclared war is going on" in the region, and President Boris Yeltsin called a meeting of his security council for Tuesday. Yeltsin's spokesman, Dmitri Yakushkin, said tonight that Yeltsin sees the Dagestan situation as a "serious threat to Russia's integrity."

Russian Su-24 light bombers and Su-25 attack planes flew 40 sorties over the region Sunday, in one case bombing the village of Zamai-Yurt on the Chechen side of the border, killing about two dozen people. The Interfax news agency reported that 32 houses were destroyed in the bombing and 100 more damaged. That attack came just hours after a car bomb claimed 56 lives at a five-story housing complex for Russian officers and their families in the Dagestani town of Buinaksk.

The guerrilla incursion was launched in an area where a major roadway crosses from Chechnya into Dagestan, and some of the fighting has spread to the outskirts of Khasavyurt, the second-largest town in the region, where a Russian-Chechen cease-fire was signed in 1996.

Military officials said the Chechens have occupied the villages of Chapayevo, Sushiya, Akhar, Novoluki, Tukhchar, Tamiyakh and the town of Novolakskoye. The Russian military said 14 soldiers were killed in a heavy firefight in Novolakskoye, when a column of troops came to the rescue of a number of local policemen who had been trapped in their headquarters by the Chechens.

Deputy Interior Minister Pyotr Latishev acknowledged in a television interview that the Chechens faced little resistance coming across the border. "There is no border line between Dagestan and Chechnya, no front line or system of border control," he said. "We have some posts along the border where there are roads. . . . The border is hundreds of kilometers long, and it is impossible to have guards every 100 meters."

From 1994 to 1996, Chechnya fought a bloody guerrilla war for independence from Moscow in which tens of thousands of people were killed. In the subsequent cease-fire, the question of Chechnya's political status was put off for five years, but some guerrillas remained armed and vowed to continue their struggle. They have been led in the recent fighting by Chechen militia commander Shamil Basayev, who led a bloody raid on the southern Russian city of Buddennovsk in 1995 in which more than 100 people were killed.

Their target now is Dagestan, where Basayev has said his goal is to create an Islamic republic. The region, a poor, mountainous territory about the size of Austria, is squeezed between the Caspian Sea on the east and Chechnya on the west. It is a patchwork of nationalities and has long been considered a laboratory for students of languages because of its diversity. The fighting has aroused passions among some Dagestani ethnic groups and clans who are arming themselves -- with the approval of the Russian military -- to fight the Chechens. There are also Chechen communities within Dagestan.

Vyacheslav Mikhailov, the Russian minister for federation affairs and nationalities, told the Tass news agency today that the Chechen guerrillas aim "to explode Dagestan at any cost."

The military response to the incursion drew criticism from some Russian legislators. "As prevention is not part of our defense and law-enforcement agencies' responsibilities, we missed the rebels' invasion into Dagestan altogether," said Gennady Seleznov, speaker of the lower house of parliament.

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By CELESTINE BOHLEN, September 6, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/090699russia-scandal.html

MOSCOW -- Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in a television interview aired Sunday evening that Russian law enforcement authorities are cooperating in an investigation of a suspected money laundering scheme involving Russian money at the Bank of New York, but he said that the sums involved were far less than the billions of dollars reported.

"The scope described in the press -- huge billions -- obviously doesn't correspond to reality, but I repeat, the problem exists and we will work on it, without dramatizing it but without ignoring it," he said.

The Russian government has been accused of playing down the significance of an investigation into at least $4.2 billion transferred over the last 18 months to accounts at the Bank of New York in what U.S. investigators have called a scheme involving money illegally taken out of Russia.

Appearing on a news show on ORT, the largest television station, Putin, a former chief of Russia's domestic intelligence service, acknowledged that illegal capital flight out of the depleted economy is a serious problem. But he echoed the view of several top officials that the ongoing investigation involving Bank of New York has become a ''campaign" fueled by election year politics in both the United States and Russia.

While Putin appeared on one television program Sunday night, former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov appeared on a rival show on NTV, an independent television station, where for the first time he accused members of President Boris Yeltsin's inner circle of conspiring to remove him from office in May.

"I think the cause was that some people in the circle close to the president supplied him with wrong information about me and the government," said Primakov, who has returned to politics as head of a coalition that could mount a presidential campaign next year.

As attacks against Yeltsin's small group of advisers gathered steam, Putin dodged and interviewer's question about a scandal that has reached into the Kremlin itself, touching one of Yeltsin's longest-serving aides and members of his own family.

According to several investigators, an ongoing probe into alleged kickbacks paid to Kremlin officials by Mabatex, a Swiss-based company that landed a lucrative Kremlin reconstruction contract, is focusing on suspects including members of the Yeltsin family, in particular the president's two daughters, Yelena Okulova and Tatyana Dyachenko.

An article published in an Italian newspaper on Saturday reported that Pavel Borodin, head of the Kremlin's property management office since 1993, was one of three signatories on a Swiss bank account opened by Mabatex in March 1995. The newspaper also said that Russian investigators believe that two other bank accounts, opened in the names of two of Borodin's deputies, codenamed "Cinderella" and "Tsarina," were put at the disposal of the two Yeltsin daughters.

The Kremlin last week denied that any members of the Yeltsin family held bank accounts abroad.

But these charges have already entered Russia's highly charged political arena, where Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, a Yeltsin foe and, with Primakov, a leader of the newly formed political coalition, openly challenged Yeltsin and his family to come forward with a full accounting of credit card and bank accounts held abroad.

Charges of corruption are expected to fly fast and furious as the struggle for power intensifies with parliamentary elections in December, and presidential elections next summer.

The report in Corriere della Sera, Italy's leading newspaper, largely corroborated a report published in July in Vestiya, a Russian investigative newspaper, that Borodin was one of three names listed on an account at the Gotthard Bank, which showed about $3 million in separate transactions. The other signatories were Borodin's daughter, Yekaterina Siletskaya, and Behgjet Pacolli, president of Mabatex.

Members of the Borodin family were among the 24 names of Russian officials -- many of them connected to Borodin's Kremlin department -- which Swiss prosecutors, at the behest of Russian prosecutors, have circulated among Swiss banks this summer seeking information on secret bank accounts.

Borodin has repeatedly denied having his own Swiss bank account, although he has said that Mabatex paid his expenses for trips to Europe connected to the Kremlin renovation. Pacolli has said that his firm opened a bank account to pay those expenses but that other money -- including $1 million transferred to a Budapest bank in 1995 -- had been sent through the account by mistake.

Putin said on Sunday that the case was still under investigation but suggested that evidence in the press could have been manipulated.

"An account can be opened in your name very easily, and then it is possible to say that you have it," he said. "Then this account may be made bigger and you will be asked: 'Where did you get the money?' These are technologies that are well known."

Some newspapers have reported that credit card bills showing charges made by Yeltsin and his family were found in January during a search of Mabatex offices by Swiss authorities.

Asked if he thought Yeltsin might have ever used a credit card, Putin said with a half-smile, "Not likely."

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By Susan Page, USA TODAY, 9/06/99- Updated 11:29 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsmon11.htm

... Gore argued that U.S. interests compelled the administration to work with the Russians in dismantling communism and controlling Moscow's nuclear arsenal despite concerns about flaws in the country's banking and financial systems. The telephone interview was conducted Sunday as Gore flew on Air Force Two from campaign stops in Detroit and Waterloo, Iowa.

"We have an interest in engaging Russia and stabilizing Russia, to the extent that we can," he said. U.S. interests involve building "transparent" financial systems but also scoring progress on other fronts, he said. "They have 30,000 nuclear weapons. It's important to engage them, to work with them to deactivate nuclear warheads and destroy missile launchers and keep those weapons from falling into the wrong hands."

He defended the administration's record in pushing Moscow to curtail corruption and expressed disappointment that Yeltsin vetoed a bill passed by the Russian legislature that would have combated money laundering. The White House will insist on assurances that International Monetary Fund loans won't be misused before supporting additional loans, he said....

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By William C. Mann Associated Press Writer Sunday, September 5, 1999; 3:12 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990905/V000993-090599-idx.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two senators argued about Russian politics Sunday in an exchange touching on Christmas presents, nuclear weapons, Jeffersonian democracy and a box of chocolates.

It began as a discussion on ``Fox News Sunday'' of corruption in Russia but turned quickly to livelier fare.

Vice President Al Gore, the Clinton administration's point man on dealing with Moscow, has ``been treating our whole approach to Russia as if he were afraid we're going to be dropped from Boris Yeltsin's Christmas list,'' said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

It went unsaid whether Yeltsin, a former Soviet regional Communist boss, makes such a list.

``You know, hindsight is 20/20, but this time (McConnell's is) 20/50,'' responded Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.

He said administration policies have ``gone pretty darn well'' in reducing the nuclear threat against the United States and getting a foothold for small businesses in post-Soviet Russia.

``What success?'' McConnell asked. ``There's been some modest success with dismantling of nuclear weapons, but beyond that, the whole policy with regard to Russia has been a conspicuous failure.''

The problem, he said, is that ``we've tied our star to Boris Yeltsin, who has a 2 percent approval rating in Russia. Two percent! Nobody respects him anymore.''

He described that as ``kind of a Moscow myopia.''

``Mitch,'' Biden said, butting in as moderator Tony Snow tried to change the subject, ``my grandfather used to have an expression: You have to have somebody to beat somebody. ... Who do you have in mind, Mitch?''

McConnell said the United States should not pick anybody, ``but we certainly shouldn't try to prop up somebody who is engaged in corruption, corrupt behavior ... and has no support.''

``We've been dealing with Yeltsin because he's the guy there,'' Biden said. ``The other guys behind him are no box of chocolates.''

``You know, everybody thinks there's a Jeffersonian democrat waiting to pop up everywhere, somewhere, some place in the world,'' Biden said. ``This is going to take a generation.''

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GENERAL ELECTRIC TO BUY KVAERNER UNIT Kvaerner S.A.,

September 8, 1999 World Business Briefings
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/financial/biz-briefs.html

Europe's largest shipbuilder, said yesterday that it had agreed to sell part of its natural gas power plant business to the General Electric Company. Kvaerner is selling businesses that build natural gas turbines and design and maintain natural gas power plants. They have annual sales of about $260 million and employ about 670 people in Norway, Scotland, and elsewhere, the company said. Kvaerner said the financial details of the transaction would not be determined until the sale is completed. G.E. confirmed that its Power Systems division was in talks with Kvaerner as part of G.E.'s plan to expand its power business. (Bloomberg News)

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By Donna Abu-Nasr Associated Press Writer Wednesday, September 8, 1999; 3:23 a.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990908/V000830-090899-idx.html

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) -- Libya put its massive military might on display -- and at the disposal of its African neighbors -- in a jubilant celebration of Moammar Gadhafi's 30 years in power, and of his return to the world stage after years of isolation.

Flanked by more than two dozen African leaders, Gadhafi on Tuesday raised two arms in salute to his troops, pounded a clenched fist on the arm of his gilded chair as the military band played and craned his neck to watch fighter jets piloted by women officers flying low over the Mediterranean coast.

Long-range missiles, warplanes and tanks also passed by for the leaders' approval during a five-hour parade. Thousands of soldiers marched in the parade, the biggest in Tripoli since the United Nations lifted its sanctions in April following Libya's handover for trial in the West of two suspects in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.

The explosion killed 270 people, mostly Americans and Britons.

Gadhafi, dressed in a white naval uniform and a green sash studded with gold medals, had invited the Organization of African Unity to hold a special summit in Libya to coincide with his anniversary celebrations. Even though only about half of the expected 46 African heads of state showed up, their presence gave him the legitimacy he needs to make his first step toward claiming an international role.

Parade commentators said the hardware on display was at the disposal of all the countries in Africa ``to defend them against enemy attacks.''

``Africa, Africa, Africa,'' chanted Libya's Green Revolutionary Guard. ``A flaming, burning fire, Africa.''

The four-day OAU summit, which ends Thursday, was called to discuss reframing the organization's charter and Gadhafi's proposal to unite Africa by promoting economic cooperation and building better transportation links.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Esmat Abdel Meguid, secretary-general of the Arab League, were there as summit observers.

Tuesday's parade culminated a week of festivities marking the 30th anniversary of the coup that brought Gadhafi, then 27, to power. The coastal road leading to the site of the parade in Tripoli was lined with colorful flags of the 53 OAU member states and pictures of their leaders.

Banners proclaimed that ``Africa is for Africans,'' ``The imperialist West is responsible for Africa's backwardness'' and ``Yes to the project of the United States of Africa.''

Token military contingents from 32 African countries began the parade. Thousands of Libyan troops in camouflage or olive drab uniforms followed as French-built Mirage and Russian-made MiG planes swooped in low formations over the sea.