EVENTS

SOUTH KOREA TO GET PATRIOT MISSILES Raising the stakes in a dispute over North Korea's refusal to allow complete nuclear inspections, a senior Pentagon official said yesterday the US will send Patriot air defense missiles to South Korea. Frank Wisner, the third-ranking official at the Defense Department, said details of the missile deployment had yet to be decided. He said the move will be made as part of ``sensible, rational defense preparations'' in the event that North Korea would launch a Scud missile attack on South Korea. He said other defensive measures would be considered if the US and its allies seek UN economic sanctions against North Korea. Mr. Wisner said the request had been made by Army Gen. Gary Luck, the commander of US forces in South Korea. Wisner noted that there currently are no air defense missiles in South Korea and that a Patriot deployment had been considered for some time. Defusing Lesotho crisis

South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Botswana agreed in a historic meeting yesterday to launch a joint initiative to resolve the military crisis in Lesotho. The summit in Botswana marked the first face-to-face meeting between South Africa's President Frederik de Klerk and his former enemy, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. It also marked the first joint foreign mission by Mr. de Klerk and African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela. The leaders agreed to set up a joint task force to tackle the Lesotho crisis, in which factional fighting began two weeks ago. A fragile peace has held since Monday. Angolan peace settlement

Angola's warring sides have accepted a plan for the UN to supervise policing during their nation's transition to peace, negotiators at peace talks said yesterday. They said the two sides also agreed that the Angolan government's feared riot police will be disarmed of ``any excessive weaponry.'' The rebel group UNITA had demanded the riot police be disbanded, which the government refused to allow. Pakistan's female police

Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto opened Pakistan's first all-female police station Tuesday, saying it was just the first round in the fight for equal rights for women in Pakistan. Several dozen women were sworn into the force of 85,000 men earlier this month. The prime minister pledged to improve conditions for women when she came to power for a second time in October. She intends to open all-female stations throughout the country and make changes in the legal system. New days at the NYPD

New York's new police commissioner, William Bratton, announced a shakeup and streamlining of the department's top brass Tuesday, and promised that beat police are the next target in his campaign to revitalize the NYPD. A half-dozen top police officials are retiring, including the chief of organized crime control and the chief of personnel. The moves are one of the biggest top-level shakeups in the history of New York's 30,000-member police force, the nation's largest. The department's shakeup comes on the heels of tough managerial times for the department.