Military Maneuvers

Panamanian strongman Manuel A. Noriega has asked for Libyan backing against "American military aggression and economic threats," Libyan television said Thursday. The report, monitored in London, said Noriega has spoken to Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi by telephone but did not say when the call was made. The report said: "During the telephone conversation, Gen. Noriega asked the brother leader (Kadafi) for the support of the Great Jamahiriya (Libya) for the Panamanian people . . .

A senior officer of the Japanese navy apologized in person Thursday to the wife of an American pilot whose warplane was accidentally shot down by a Japanese destroyer. Vice Adm. Yasuki Sugiyama, commander of air forces for Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Forces, expressed his regrets to Carol Royster at the U.S. military base in Atsugi, where her husband is stationed. The Japanese vessel Yugiri rescued Lt. Cmdr. William Royster and his bombardier-navigator, Lt.

Lothar Spaeth, the governor of Baden-Wuerttemberg state, called for cuts in NATO training flights after two Canadian jets collided on a training flight, killing one pilot and showering the city of Karlsruhe with flaming debris. "In times of East-West detente, our people can no longer be told that military air maneuvers must continue at their present extent," Spaeth said.

Crowing with pride, Russia's air force chief claimed Wednesday that a group of Russian warplanes buzzed the U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk in the Sea of Japan, taking pictures of the reaction on deck, in an episode that flashed back to the cat-and-mouse games of the Cold War. "For the Americans, our planes were a complete surprise," boasted Gen. Anatoly M. Kornukov, the Russian air force's commander in chief. "In the pictures, you can clearly see the panic on deck."

A U.S. Marine helicopter carrying 37 Marines on maneuvers crashed in an isolated mountain region on South Korea's southeast coast early today, and 22 were killed, U.S. authorities said. Fifteen Marines were injured, some critically, when the Sikorsky Sea Stallion crashed shortly before 7 a.m. south of the industrial port city of Pohang and 250 miles southeast of Seoul, a Marine Corps spokesman said.

A U.S. Navy spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet collided Sunday over the South China Sea, causing the American craft to make an emergency landing in China and the Chinese plane to crash, U.S. and Chinese officials said. The 24 crew members aboard the EP-3 U.S. reconnaissance plane were unhurt, but U.S. defense officials said they have been unable to establish contact with the crew since the craft came to ground on Hainan island, a Chinese province off the country's southern coast.

In another reflection of easing U.S.-Soviet military tensions, the Pentagon announced Tuesday that it is sharply scaling back the annual war game in which NATO allies practice their response to a Warsaw Pact invasion in Europe. Only two years ago, 125,000 allied soldiers took part in the "Return of Forces to Germany" (Reforger) exercise, which is designed to simulate a massive U.S. reinforcement of NATO forces in the event of a non-nuclear war in Western Europe.

Hundreds of Taiwan supporters demonstrated in front of the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles on Wednesday, demanding an immediate end to China's bombing rehearsals near the island nation. Chanting "China, hands off Taiwan!" and "China, Asia's Iraq!"

President Bush's upcoming Thanksgiving Day visit to U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia was branded a provocation Saturday by a ranking Iraqi official. "We consider the American exercises and the American presence in the region and Bush's visit to the region a provocation," Information Minister Latif Jasim told a news conference in Baghdad. The exercises he was referring to are "Imminent Thunder," six days of major military maneuvers by U.S.