A prep course for the month-long World Cup soccer tournament, a worldwide pheno

es , '' Perry said . Western defense officials have tried to reassure the Russia

ns they will be accorded all of the importance warranted by their country and it

s special place in Europe . But by insisting that all partners must play by the 

same rules , they are trying to relieve fears among East Europeans that they wil

l again fall under Russian military domination . The Partnership for Peace is a 

kind of junior varsity team for NATO an arrangement that seeks to include East E

uropean states in security discussions but does not give them full membership in

 the alliance . The concept emerged as an alternative to granting former Soviet 

satellites immediate membership in NATO . Some ranking U.S. officials said admit

ting Poland , Hungary and other former Soviet satellites into the alliance would

 offend Russian sensibilities . After expressing some dismay for what they perce

ived as second-class status , 18 states from Eastern Europe and parts of the for

mer Soviet Union have signed up for the Partnership for Peace since NATO heads o

f government launched the project at a summit here last January . NATO countries

 and their eastern partners are planning to conduct joint military exercises thi

s fall in Poland and the Netherlands . Seeking to reassure Moscow that the partn

ership was in no way targeted against them , Perry urged the Russians to climb a

board what he called `` a fast-moving train '' that is rapidly gathering momentu

m . He stressed that NATO is eager to take advantage of Russia 's military power

 through peacekeeping initiatives that he expects will become part of the Partne

rship for Peace program . `` In terms of the number of troops they have , in ter

ms of the quality of troops , training and equipment they have , it would be a r

eal asset to the Partnership for Peace were they to join it , '' Perry said .

 WASHINGTON Most of the people working for the federal government , from Clinton

 appointees to long-time civil servants , are saving for a rainy day , house pur

chase , college or retirement by putting tax-deferred dollars into their thrift 

savings plan . The rapid growth of the plan during its first seven years has mad

e federal and postal workers some of the biggest players in the stock and bond m

arkets . The thrift savings plan , Uncle Sam 's version of the 401 ( k ) plan av

ailable to many private sector workers , could make many steady investors millio

naires by the time they are ready to retire .

 Some high-income employees who joined at the beginning and made maximum contrib

utions to the higher risk stock and bond funds now have accounts worth more than

 $ 100,000 . Higher-income workers who made the maximum contributions to the hig

her risk stock or bond funds now have accounts worth well over $ 100,000 . Sligh

ty more than 1.5 million of 2.6 million eligible employees have invested in the 

stock , bond or Treasury funds . Workers in the new Federal Employees Retirement

 System can contribute up to 10 percent of pay ( to the $ 9,240 limit ) and get 

a matching 5 percent goverment contribution . Those in the old Civil Service Ret

irement System , mostly people hired before 1983 , can contribute 5 percent of s

alary . The savings plan has three funds : The G-fund , made up of short-term ri

sk-free U.S. Treasury securities not available to the general public , returned 

6.06 percent over the 12 month period ending in April . In 1993 it paid 6.14 per

cent . In 1992 , 7.23 percent ; 1991 , 8.15 percent ; 1990 , 8.90 percent and in

 1989 it was 8.81 percent . The C-fund ( invested in a stock index fund that tra

cks all of the stocks in the S&P 500 Index ) paid 5.33 percent over the past 12 

months ; 10.13 percent last year , 7.70 percent in 1992 ; 30.77 percent in 1991 

; lost 3.15 percent in 1990 and paid 31.03 percent in 1989 . The F-fund paid .74

 percent over the most recent 12 month period ; 9.52 percent last year ; 7.20 pe

rcent in 1992 ; 15.75 percent in 1991 ; 8.00 percent in 1990 and 13.89 percent i

n 1989 . Workers can contibute a percentage of pay or a dollar amount . In the n

ew book `` Your Thrift Savings Plan , '' author James Sullivan says , `` If you 

designate a percentage of pay deduction the dollar amount you contribute to the 

TSP each pay period will automatically increase when your pay increases . For ex

ample if you are currently earning $ 1,000 per pay period and designate 5 percen

t .. . your deductions will be $ 50 per pay period . If your pay increases to $ 

1,060 per pay period your TSP deduction will automatically adjust to $ 53 every 

pay period . Similarly , if you change job locations and fall under a different 

locality pay schedule , your TSP contributions automatically increase or decreas

e to reflect your new pay . '' Designating a dollar amount , however , means a w

orker whose pay increases regularly will still be making contributions to the th

rift savings plan as if he or she had never received a raise . Sullivan 's how-t

o-invest book costs $ 14.95 plus $ 2 shipping and handling and can be obtained c

/o Federal Employees News Digest , P.O. . Box 98123 , Washington , D.C. 20090-81

23 . Or phone orders at ( 703 ) 648-9551 . JERUSALEM Israel sealed off the West 

Bank town of Jericho Tuesday to give Palestinian police more time to organize th

emselves after two armed Jewish settlers were mistakenly detained by police who 

also temporarily confiscated their weapons . Arafat 's move was seen here as an 

attempt to unilaterally cancel the body of regulations issued since 1967 by Isra

el 's military occupation authorities , and Israel said his announcement violate

d the Gaza-Jericho self-rule accord . The closing of Jericho , for one day , was

 another sign of the uncertainty and confusion surrounding the deployment over t

he last two weeks of 3,244 Palestinian fighters from Egypt , Iraq , Sudan and Jo

rdan as police in the newly autonomous zones of the Gaza Strip and Jericho . The

 new police , most of whom do not speak English or Hebrew , have had difficulty 

communicating at tense moments of confrontation with Israeli Jews who do not spe

ak Arabic , and there has been confusion over terms of the agreement under which

 they are operating . In a visit to the Gaza Strip Tuesday , Prime Minister Yitz

hak Rabin expressed sympathy for the early start-up problems , saying most of th

e police had not been in the West Bank or Gaza for 27 years and need more time t

o get familiar with the area under their control . Israel and the Palestinian po

lice have been at odds over whether Jewish settlers should be allowed to carry w

eapons in the Jericho self-rule zone . The settlers and the Israeli army say the

 settlers fall under Israel 's jurisdiction and may continue to carry guns . But

 the Palestinian police , who are armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles , have r

epeatedly insisted that the settlers not carry guns when moving about the Jerich

o self-rule zone , away from the Jewish settlements . Except for those working w

ith the Israeli security service , Palestinians are not permitted to carry weapo

ns in the rest of the West Bank , which is still under Israeli military occupati

on , or in Israel . In the latest Jericho incident , two Jews from the nearby se

ttlement of Naama were in a money-changer 's shop in Jericho when they were appr

oached by a Palestinian policeman . One of the settlers , Yair Yosef , told repo

rters the policeman cocked his rifle when the two refused to hand over their sid

earms , so they acceded . The two were taken into custody and later released , a

nd were permitted to recover their weapons at a joint Israeli-Palestinian securi

ty office . The Palestinian police commander later said the incident was a misun

derstanding . The army announced that the town was being sealed off for 24 hours

 barring entry to all outsiders to give the Palestinians more time to explain th

e rules to the rank and file . Arafat , in his announcement , appeared to be see

king to assert his authority in Gaza and Jericho . He issued the notice , dated 

May 20 , from Tunis and signed it as head of the Palestinian Authority and the P

LO 's executive committee . The notice announced reinstatement of `` all the reg

ulations , laws and orders '' that were in effect before the June 1967 war in wh

ich Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip . Arafat said the prewar laws w

ould remain in effect until differing West Bank and Gaza legal systems could be 

merged . Before the Israeli occupation , Jordanian law was applied in the West B

ank and Egyptian law in Gaza . Both also have remnants of British mandate law fr

om the post-World War I era and earlier Turkish law from the period of Ottoman r

ule . Arafat ordered Palestinian civil and religious courts to continue working 

, as well as judges and prosecutors . Palestinians say most of their civil court

s in Gaza have been moribund since the the intifada , the Arab uprising against 

Israeli occupation , began 6 years ago , because they had no authority to enforc

e decisions . Judges and prosecutors remained , however , and the courts were pa

id for by Israel . Arafat 's order appeared aimed at canceling the 1,300 Israeli

 military orders issued during 27 years of occupation , although it did not dire

ctly mention them . The Israeli orders , enforced through a separate system of m

ilitary courts , have long been a hated symbol of the occupation , governing eve

ry aspect of Palestinian life , from auto registration to a web of security rest

rictions .

 WASHINGTON The Department of Energy is warning hundreds of current and former w

orkers at the Rocky Flats nuclear-weapons complex in Colorado that they were exp

osed to higher levels of neutron radiation from 1953 to 1967 than they previousl

y had been told , officials said Tuesday . Medical examinations are being offere

d to the workers and `` dose reconstruction '' research has begun to determine a

ccurate levels of exposure for workers who were either improperly monitored or n

ot monitored at all . Preliminary findings already have shown that neutron-sensi

tive film used in the employees ' radiation-monitoring badges had been read inco

rrectly , resulting in underestimations of exposure , officials said . DOE offic

ials said they are notifying about 140 current Rocky Flats employees and soon wi

ll begin contacting `` a few hundred '' former employees , out of a total of as 

many as 3,000 workers exposed to radiation from 1953 , when the plant became ope

rational , until 1967 , when monitoring procedures were tightened . Mark N . Sil

verman , manager of DOE 's Rocky Flats field office , said the margins of error 

found so far have been modest . In the worst case , he said , a worker 's radiat

ion dose was raised by 1 rem about 20 percent of the annual allowable rate of oc

cupational exposure to ionizing radiation . `` So far , the results are encourag

ing , although that doesn't make the employees feel any better . Understandably 

, some of them are asking , ` How can we trust you at all ? ' ' ' Silverman said

 . He said that although some Rocky Flats workers in the past have blamed their 

cancers and other illnesses on radiation exposure at the plant , none of the wor

kers involved in the current study has reported any symptoms . Officials said th

e survey was prompted by concerns raised by researchers conducting a routine rev

iew of Rocky Flats radiation-dose records for DOE 's office of environment , saf

ety and health . The department said surveys of monitoring practices will be con

ducted at other DOE nuclear sites and made public as part of Energy Secretary Ha

zel R. O' Leary 's campaign of openness about radiation experiments and accident

s from the mid-1940s through the 1970s . Although officials said no illness or o

ther adverse effects have been linked yet to the underestimations of radiation e

xposure at Rocky Flats , current employees are being given the option of being m

oved away from exposure areas until their cumulative doses can be re-evaluated .

 `` We 're not going to be able to change ( a worker 's previous exposure ) . Th

e difference is that he at least will know , '' said Mark Spears , manager of he

alth and safety for the DOE plant 's operating contractor , EG&G Rocky Flats Cor

p. . During the period under review , the facility was operated for the Atomic E

nergy Commission by Dow Chemical Corp. Spears said the dose-reconstruction proce

ss involves interviews with current and former workers , physical examinations a

nd the taking of bio-assay samples to determine neutron-radiation counts in vari

ous parts of the body . In addition , he said , all available records from a wor

ker 's production department during his period of employment are being studied t

o estimate approximate levels of exposure to neutron radiation , which can penet

rate some kinds of shielding normally used to protect workers from other forms o

f radiation . Officials said much of the exposure at Rocky Flats occurred in one

 building used for the chemical processing of plutonium into weapons-grade mater

ial . The plant is no longer producing nuclear weapons . Spears said that a key 

part of the dose-reconstruction procedure has been the retrieval of neutron-sens

itive film strips from a federal records center in Denver , where over 95,000 pi

eces of film used in monitoring radiation are stored . He said a sample of 400 s

trips had been re-evaluated , leading to the discovery last February that monito

ring badges worn by Rocky Flats workers from 1953 to 1967 had been incorrectly `

` read '' in manual inspections by safety technicians . The film strip badges we

re replaced in 1970 with thermoluminescent dosimeters , which are crystal chips 

that can be read by computers and , consequently , are more accurate . David Rus

h , a member of the task force on health risks of nuclear-weapons production of 

the Physicians for Social Responsibility , said that despite the DOE 's openness

 campaign , studies of radiation dosages of plant workers remain `` fragmentary 

'' and outdated . `` Some of the dirtiest plants are the least monitored . There

 are enormous gaps in research , '' said Rush , an epidemiologist at Tufts Unive

rsity . He is the coauthor of a recent book , `` Dead Reckoning , '' that estima

ted that DOE had radiation-dosage data on only 140,000 of the estimated 600,000 

people who have been employed at nuclear-weapons plants .

 JERICHO , West Bank Yasser Arafat , chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organi

zation and head of the Palestinians ' interim government , Tuesday canceled most

 of the military orders issued by Israel over its 27-year occupation of the Gaza

 Strip and this West Bank town . In a move that asserted Palestinian authority i

n the two regions and promised to affect everything from retail sales to taxatio

n and from traffic regulations to street crime , Arafat restored all the laws in

 force prior to the 1967 Middle East War and Israel 's capture of Gaza and the W

est Bank . Although Israeli officials questioned Arafat 's authority in issuing 

so sweeping an order and asserted that he needs their approval for all legislati

ve actions , Palestinians hailed the move as another step in their liberation . 

`` Establishing our own laws is an essential part of our emancipation , '' said 

Saeb Erekat , a political scientist nominated to serve on the interim Palestinia

n Authority . `` Legally , most of the 2,500 military orders issued by the Israe

lis became null and void with their withdrawal last week , and so Arafat re-esta

blished the legal framework for everyday life . '' The Palestinian Authority , w

hich will administer the Gaza Strip and eventually most of the West Bank under t

he autonomy agreement with Israel , will soon be faced with the task of adopting

 a basic law and then extensive civil and criminal codes after elections planned

 for October . Some of the military regulations that have governed life here wer

e preserved as part of the agreements establishing Palestinian self-government a

nd the economic relations between Israel and the Palestinians . But Arafat resto

red 1967 Jordanian law in Jericho and Egyptian in Gaza , both to provide a famil

iar legal framework for the start of Palestinian autonomy and to `` give people 

the sense of being masters in their own home , '' Erekat said . `` It 's better 

to have some legislative gaps than to have Israeli military orders plugging them

 . '' Freij abu Midan , a Gaza lawyer and another member of the Palestinian Auth

ority , described the move as `` the first step toward consolidating our nationa

l authority on the ground in Gaza and Jericho . '' But abu Midan added that `` e

very day will bring scores of new questions , especially to the police , for whi

ch the law will have no immediate answer . We are feeling our way legally as wel

l as politically . '' ( Optional add end ) In other developments , the Israeli m

ilitary commander in the West Bank closed Jericho for 24 hours to all but its 15

,000 residents in cooperation with the new Palestinian police commander , who re

portedly asked for a `` breather '' in order to get a firmer grip on the town an

d to brief his men on regulations governing Israelis traveling through it . Isra

el contends that its agreement with the PLO enables Jewish settlers to carry wea

pons in Palestinian-governed areas of Jericho and the Gaza Strip . Palestinians 

assert that Israelis coming into the autonomous areas may not carry weapons , an

d Palestinian police in Jericho briefly detained five armed settlers Tuesday bef

ore releasing them , reportedly with apologies . Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin , 

visiting the new Israeli positions along the border with Gaza , at once praised 

the cooperation between Palestinian police and his forces in the transfer of the

 region and again warned Arafat that Israel will not turn over administration of

 more of the West Bank until it sees how self-government works in Gaza and Jeric

ho .

 CAPE TOWN , South Africa President Nelson Mandela set forth a moderate domestic

 policy agenda in his first major address to parliament Tuesday , pledging to ad

dress the material wants left by apartheid without resorting to deficit spending

 or permanent tax increases . The address , which amounted to a state-of-the-nat

ion speech , seemed tailored more for corporate boardrooms than the townships wh

ere many of South Africa 's poor blacks live . In many ways , it represented the

 culmination of a shift in Mandela 's African National Congress away from social

ism and to a version of market economics more in tune with South Africa 's prese

nt system . Mandela thus struck a theme of fiscal discipline even as he outlined

 his vision of a `` people-centered society '' where all South Africans will be 

free from hunger , deprivation , ignorance , suppression and fear . He proposed 

reallocating about $ 700 million or roughly 3 percent of the 1994-95 national bu

dget to programs for upgrading housing , electricity , water and sewage systems 

, education and health services for the nation 's mostly black poor . That figur

e is to rise steadily until it reaches more than $ 2.8 billion in the fifth year

 of the new government 's Reconstruction and Development Program . Mandela said 

the money would come from across-the-board cuts in other government departments 

. Even with the increased social spending , he said he expected to reduce the go

vernment 's annual deficit spending , now running at 6.8 percent , and to avoid 

permanent tax hikes . In a briefing for reporters , Finance Minister Derek Keys 

a holdover from the old National Party government acknowledged that some tempora

ry tax increases might be needed . But he said it should be possible to finance 

the domestic agenda through civil service attrition , streamlining of redundant 

apartheid bureaucracies and spending cuts in certain areas , such as defense . W

hen the white minority government lifted the ban on liberation organizations in 

1990 , most of the black leaders who came out of jail or returned from exile wer

e still wedded to a socialist vision of wide-scale wealth redistribution . Over 

the ensuing years , ANC officials won most of the constitutional debates about S

outh Africa 's new political order , but Keys and the white business establishme

nt made them converts to market economics . The ANC 's economic ministers in the

 new coalition government , such as former union leader Jay Naidoo , now say tha

t if they overspend on social programs , they will frighten investors and trigge

r inflation-hobbling their best hope of using an expanding economy to lift the l

ot of the poor . `` I always said we were a bloody conservative organization , '

' ANC spokesman Carl Niehaus quipped , only partly in jest , as he walked out of

 parliament after the speech . The real test , as he and others acknowledge , wi

ll come some years down the road . If the standard of living of the poor has not

 risen , but the political temperature has , can the ANC still remain faithful t

o fiscal discipline ? Mandela 's first major policy speech held no decisive clue

s , but it was notable for some of the things it left out . It made no mention o

f the ANC 's campaign promises to build 1 million new houses and redistribute up

 to 30 percent of all arable land over the next five years . Those two goals con

stituted the symbolic heart of the ANC 's plan to provide `` a better life for a

ll . '' However , experts in both fields say it will be difficult to meet the ta

rgets . The country lacks the resources to build 200,000 housing units a year , 

and the land redistribution program will be slowed by a parallel promise that al

l current landowners must be compensated . Mandela did make specific promises Tu

esday to provide free medical care to all needy children under age 6 and pregnan

t mothers , and free education up to age 16 for needy students . He also said th

at he expects to be able to bring electricity to 350,000 new homes this year , a