Chief tells NATO: spend more

The nineteen countries of the NATO alliance have been told they must spend more on defence to guarantee their future security.

The NATO Secretary General, George Robertson, said extra investment had to be made now: he said NATO urgently needed to upgrade its capabilities, so its forces could move quickly. He said the European allies had some two million troops on paper but were barely able to deploy fifty-thousand in the Kosovo crisis. His comments were echoed by the United States defence secretary, William Cohen, who said that NATO members should invest in modernising their forces.

Meanwhile Germany, France, Italy and The Netherlands have placed an eight-and-a-half-billion dollar order for more than three-hundred new European helicopters built by a European consortium.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service