After four weeks of negotiations delegates from 178 countries yesterday signed an agreement to renew indefinitely

After four weeks of negotiations, delegates from 178 countries yesterday signed an agreement to renew indefinitely the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which forbids the spread of nuclear weapons. The document was signed at United Nations headquarters in New York. For 25 years the NPT has been the linchpin of nuclear disarmament efforts and is the only internationally accepted document to enshrine as its goal the eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons. Douglas Hurd, the Foreign Secretary, welcomed the agreement as "a victory for common sense". Robin Cook, the Labour foreign-affairs spokesman, called on the British government to act on its pledge to pursue nuclear disarmament.In Kiev, where President Bill Clinton stopped off following his summit meeting in Moscow with President Boris Yeltsin, the UN decision to extend the NPT was hailed by the US President as "a critical step" in making the world safer and more secure.A jarring note was sounded by one nuclear-club member, France, which made clear it would probably have to carry out more nuclear weapons tests to maintain a credible deterrent until it develops simulation techniques.There was no immediate reaction to the NPT accord from President Yeltsin, who has been preoccupied with his summit with Mr Clinton this week.Tension at the conference between the five declared nuclear- weapons states - Britain, France, the United States, Russia and China - and the non-nuclear nations, was largely defused by compromise proposals tabled by South Africa that led to the adoption of separate documents reaffirming and strengthening the main commitments expressed by the NPT.There was spontaneous applause in the General Assembly chamber as the conference chairman, Yayantha Dhanapala, ambassador of Sri Lanka, dropped his gavel, announcing that the decisions to prolong the treaty and to approve the appended declarations were adopted without a vote.Though there was little doubt that a formal show of hands would have produced the simple majority required to prolong the treaty, it was feared as many as 20 non-aligned states, unconvinced that the nuclear powers were moving quickly enough towards disarmament, would oppose extension. The main thoroughfare in the Central district is Queens Road; the biggest park on Hong Kong island is Victoria Park, which is presided over by a statue of a stern-looking Queen Victoria.As for the royal clubs, they have been avidly courting prominent Peking- connected personalities to become members but, until now, have been reluctant to be shorn of their distinctive royal connection.It seems unlikely, however, that they will go so far as to replace the word "royal" with the name "people's", which is favoured in China.

It is debatable whether that holds true today but the 110-year- old Jockey Club clearly feels it has little hope of influence while the word "royal" remains part of its name.The new humility of these three pillars of the colonial establishment highlights the immense task faced by China if it wishes to rid Hong Kong of names with colonial overtones. The Royal Hong Kong Police, for example, will have to do something about its name and its insistence on using the colony's original seal as its emblem.Practically every road on Hong Kong island is named after some colonial functionary.In an orgy of self-indulgence the British authorities seemed unable to allow a single governor to leave the colony without bestowing his name on a stretch of land.Reminders of British sovereigns also abound. However, Republicans say that separate spending to help the dismantling of Soviet-era nuclear weapons in the hands of Russia and Ukraine would not be affected.Under the House plan, the US Information Agency would simply disappear. The Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the Agency for International Development, through which most US foreign aid is channelled, would be merged into the State Department Spending on the Peace Corps would also be curtailed.. For years Hong Kong's grandest clubs vied with each other to secure the royal seal of approval, but now they can hardly wait to rid themselves of the royal connection.

With just over a year to go before the Union Flag is finally lowered in Hong Kong, the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club, the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club and the Royal Hong Kong Golf Club have decided to drop the "royal" in their names before the handover to China. It used to be said that the three most powerful institutions in Hong Kong were the Jockey Club, the Hongkong Bank and the Governor, in that order. But such considerations will not lessen the zeal of the budget-cutters, only too aware that foreign aid is among the least popular items of federal spending.In their blueprint to balance the federal budget within seven years, approved by the Budget Committee yesterday, House Republicans want to slash funding for the State Department, which includes aid, from $18.9bn to only $10.7bn by 2002.That implies a draconian cut in aid programmes, in which states of the former Soviet Union - notably Russia and Ukraine - are the biggest recipients after Israel and Egypt. For the rest, it was a shrill chorus of Republican denunciations of Mr Clinton's failure to defend US interests - from Senator Mitch McConnell of the Foreign Relations Committee, who called the trip "an embarrassment", to the influential conservative columnist William Safire, who accused the President of being duped by the Russians over Iran and Chechnya, and having "humiliated the American people". Most ominous was the warning by Bob Dole, the Senate majority leader and frontrunner for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination, that the Senate would now carry out a basic "reassessment" of policy towards Russia, and that aid programmes would inevitably be "reviewed".In fact Washington's direct bilateral aid is the pittance of $260m (£167m) for the 1996 fiscal year, far less than what Moscow could earn from selling its contested nuclear equipment to Tehran, and much of it directed to nuclear power station security, crime fighting and other fields from which the US stands to gain. As the post-mortems piled up, scarcely a good word was to be heard for the meeting, beyond the odd assertion that at least the two countries were talking to each other. Despite the fighting in Chechnya, Mr Clinton said he would support "some modifications" in so-called "flank restrictions" that govern the amount of weaponry Russia can station in the Caucasus.Ms Kobrinskaya said: "This is the first expression of understanding for Russia's position at such a high level and provides a good background for future negotiation.". The meagre results of President Bill Clinton's Moscow summit, predictably panned by his political opponents here, will give further ammunition to Republicans in their efforts to slash US aid to Russia, part of a concerted assault on all non-military US spending abroad.

The terms of the treaty restrict the number of tanks that Russia can station in the region. A Russian officer said his forces had been ordered to seal the road to the area and armoured personnel carriers were seen thundering south from the bomb-shattered capital of Grozny.In Kiev, it was announced the US will give Ukraine extra assistance to help complete its destruction of nuclear weapons and proceed with converting defence plants to civilian use.The key to Russia's future military role in the Caucasus is its demand for a revision of the CFE treaty, fixing limits on conventional weapons across Europe. The supposed truce, Interfax news agency quoted Russian Lieutenant-General Mikhail Yegorov as saying, "brought no positive results from a military point of view".As Mr Clinton arrived in Kiev yesterday for a less troubled meeting with Ukrainian leaders, Russian troops in Chechnya launched a heavy bombardment of rebel positions in southern Chechnya.Russian forces, using artillery and rockets, started bombarding the village of Serzhen-Yurt and rebel bases in nearby mountains Fires could clearly be seen raging in Serzhen-Yurt. You can't be 100 per cent sure what happened but it shows there are still a few professionals left in our foreign service."On Chechnya there was not even a token concession.

A day after Mr Yeltsin embarrassed a tired-looking Mr Clinton at a joint press conference in the Kremlin by denying that hostilities were continuing in Chechnya, Russia's military commander in the region announced that his troops would "destroy" Chechen rebels as soon as a nominal two-week ceasefire expired at midnight. She insisted the centrifuge issue had been invented to prevent Mr Clinton from leaving Moscow empty-handed "It was very well done. But, after Russian officials made it clear that the deal, worth around $1bn (£620m), was irreversible, the Clinton administration shifted its attention to the issue of gas centrifuge technology."Russia made no real concession at all," Ms Kobrinskaya said. Iranian officials were quoted by Tass as praising Mr Yeltsin for refusing to give in to US demands.In the weeks leading up to the summit, it was the reactor deal that the White House wanted scrapped. He said Russia would press on with a contract that it had signed for the provision of nuclear reactors."The talks between President Yeltsin and President Clinton will not introduce any changes in the existing contract for the construction of the Russian nuclear power station in Iran," Itar-Tass news agency quoted Mr Mikhailov as saying.He said 250 Russian specialists were working on the project in Iran and there was no question of recalling them. But as President Clinton was preparing to leave Moscow yesterday, Russia's Atomic Energy Minister, Viktor Mikhailov, said Moscow had never concluded such a contract.