PSI EXERCISE ENVISIONS MIDEAST THREAT

LONDON [MENL] -- The Proliferation Security Initiative has concluded anexercise meant to train nations to halt a shipment of weapons of massdestruction to the Persian Gulf. The United States and allies in Asia held an exercise in mid-August in the South China Sea that envisioned a shipment of nerve gas from an unidentified Northeast Asian country that resembled North Korea to a port in the Arabian Gulf. Under the scenario, the United States relayed intelligence to Asian allies of a ship filled with WMD that moved through the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.