TECHNOLOGY & TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Safeguard Agency to Fade Away: Western nations agreed to scrap the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls, or COCOM, the body established during the Cold War to block the transfer of sophisticated military technology to the former communist bloc. Top civil servants from 17 countries agreed to draw up a framework for a new organization to replace it that could possibly include Russia and China. A new system might respond to concerns voiced by the United States to limit technology exports to Iraq and Libya, Western diplomatic sources have said.