WORLD IN BRIEF : RUSSIA : Troops Destroy Armored Vehicles

Under the watch of American and other NATO monitors, Russian troops began destroying more than 2,000 armored vehicles to fulfill a treaty reducing non-nuclear arms in Europe. Russia became the second country to start dismantling heavy weapons under the landmark Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. Germany began the same work last Monday. The treaty, signed in 1990, requires NATO and the former Warsaw Pact countries to dismantle nearly 40,000 tanks, armored vehicles, artillery pieces and warplanes in the next 40 months.