ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 19, 1997 TAG: 9701200144
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
Austrian president steps down
VIENNA, Austria - Chancellor Franz Vranitzky resigned Saturday after a decade in office during which he led Austria into the European Union. Finance Minister Viktor Klima was named to replace him.
There had been speculation for months that the 59-year-old chancellor, one of Europe's longest-serving heads of government, was growing weary of the office. It intensified in October after his Social Democrats turned in their worst election performance since 1918.
But a rash of newspaper speculation Saturday, followed by an urgent session of the party leadership, came as a surprise.
Speaking to reporters, Vranitzky said the party needed younger people, and he chose to leave at a time when there was a crisis neither in the government nor the budget. He said he had no concrete plans.
Klima served as transport minister from 1992-96, and since last January as Vranitzky's finance minister. He already had been dubbed the party's ``crown prince'' in anticipation that he was a likely successor to Vranitzky.
- Associated Press
Plutonium left in checkout haste
HANOI, Vietnam - Three ounces of weapon-grade plutonium left behind by retreating U.S. forces at the end of the Vietnam War are in safe storage and pose no threat to the environment, the government said Saturday.
The U.S. Energy Department disclosed last week that the plutonium was mistakenly left behind in 1975 at the U.S.-built Dalat Nuclear Research Institute in South Vietnam. The plutonium is still at the facility, Foreign Ministry spokesman Tran Quang Hoan said.
- Associated Press
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