The pact was signed at the Warsaw Palace

England have

The Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies have signed a security pact in the Polish capital, Warsaw, after a three-day conference.

Announcements in Warsaw and Moscow said the Soviet Prime Minister, Marshal Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bulganin, and leaders of seven other countries approved the draft of a new mutual aid agreement called the Warsaw Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation, and Mutual Assistance.

It is designed, among other things, to ensure close integration of military, economic and cultural policy between eight Communist nations.

Signatories to the treaty - the USSR, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania - have agreed to unify their forces under one command although at this stage it is not known who will take this post.

Fear of West German army

Yugoslavia, the only European Communist state not included in the pact, was expelled in 1948 from Cominform, the Communist information agency for refusing to acknowledge Sovietsupremacy.

The treaty, signed at the Warsaw Palace, comes in the wake of news that West Germany has been accepted by western nations into Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) following talks earlier this month in Paris.

In a speech at the beginning of the Warsaw talks, Marshal Bulganin warned that the USA, Britain and France were turning West Germany into "the principal hotbed of the danger of war in Europe" by allowing it to re-arm.

He said allowing West Germany into Nato was "the major obstacle" to reunification of Germany.

Existing bilateral agreements between nations of the Eastern Bloc, he stated, were no longer sufficient to ensure their security and this Warsaw Pact wouldsupersedeall of those.

He added that Nato was also encouraging countries in the Near and Middle East to form military blocs to plan attacks on the Soviet Union and its allies.

In his concluding speech today, Marshal Bulganin emphasised the pact was inspired by the Leninist principle of peaceful co-existence between democratic nations and said they wanted to abide by the United Nations Charter.

However the Times newspaper editorial today points out that unifying the armies of all eight countries will also allow the USSR to base its own troops in member states and "would certainly help to keep the satellites in order".

Nelson Mandela has supported his wife

Her lawyers lodged an appeal against the sentence and Mrs Mandela was freed on bail.

The woman known to her supporters as the "Mother of Africa" was found guilty yesterday.

Passing sentence the judge, Mr Justice Stegmann, called her an "unblushing and unprincipled liar".

He said it was impossible to imagine the kidnaps taking place without Mrs Mandela being a "moving force".

Mrs Mandela's housekeeper and driver were also found guilty of taking part in the kidnapping of the four youths who were suspected of being police informers.

One of the four - 14-year-old Stompie Moeketsi - later died of his injuries.

Earlier this year Winnie Mandela's chief bodyguard, Jerry Richardson, was sentenced to death for the boy's murder.

Fall from grace

Nelson Mandela, 73, has so far vigorously supported his wife's claims of innocence.

But Mrs Mandela's attempt to distance herself from the activities of her bodyguards - known as the "Mandela Football Club" - appear to have failed.

The sentence compounds the fall from grace for the woman who for more than three decades was thefigureheadof the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.

She and her husband spent only four months as a married couple before he was sent to prison where he would spend the next 27 years.

She was harassed by the authorities and sent into internal exile.

In 1985 she returned to Soweto in defiance of the banning order in place against her.

However, her critics said she encouraged violence in the township including the notorious "necklace killings" - putting a tryre around a victim's neck and setting it alight.

By the time her husband was released from jail last year Winnie Mandela was deeply unpopular. 

supremacy:supreme power of authority（霸權，至高）

supersede:to take place of; replace（取代）

figurehead:傀儡領袖