MOSCOW HARDENS LINE ON NUCLEAR ISSUES.

Russia’s atomicenergy minister Viktor Mikhailov said that Moscow wouldcancel its deal with the West on the sale of enricheduranium unless the US increased its price from $600 to $800a kilogram, Interfax reported June 26. Possibly anegotiating tactic–Russian and American officials are tomeet on June 28 to discuss the issue–Mikhailov’s statementreflects a general hardening of Russian attitudes on suchquestions. On June 23, Segodnya reported that Russianmilitary experts were pushing for the retention and evenexpansion in the number of tactical nuclear weapons inMoscow’s inventory. And in the same issue of that paper,commentator Pavel Felgengauer said that NATO expansion couldlead to war by forcing Russian generals to plan for asituation where there was no space between them and theWestern alliance. He said that Moscow would oppose any NATOexpansion, and that to have “the Baltic states in NATO issimply unacceptable in any form.”

Incumbency Protects Criminals.