President Clinton, conceding the nuclear standoff between India and Pakistan is at red-alert status, abruptly cut short a two-day political trip to huddle with advisers on what the State Department called a "deteriorated" condition in South Asia. Yesterday India announced a whopping increase in its military and missile budget. The head of Pakistan's missile program said a missile with a range of 1,250 miles would be ready for a test flight within a year. Another missile, with a 435-mile range, could be tested within days. China also added to the crisis when its foreign minister said Beijing could not rule out the possibility of resuming nuclear tests if the danger posed by a nuclear arms race in India and Pakistan worsened. The President's planned trip in September to India and Pakistan is now "under review." While most of the world condemned the nuclear testing, Iran's foreign minister praised Pakistan yesterday, saying it will provide an Islamic offset to Israel's suspected nuclear bombs.

The quake that hit northern Afghanistan Saturday with a preliminary magnitude of 6.9 flattened entire villages, cracked mountains, and unleashed landslides across the rugged, remote region of struggling farmers. Estimates of the dead range from 3,000 to 5,000. Thousands more are missing or homeless. About 45,000 of the area's 70,000 people have no shelter. Landslides cut off roads to the hardest hit areas, where 16 villages were destroyed , blocking aid trucks. In Chaujan, a village near the quake's epicenter, thousands of houses were gone. People wandered, dazed, through the rubble. Among the hardest hit areas was Rustaq, the site of a Feb. 4 earthquake that killed as many as 2,300 people and left another 8,000 homeless. Many residents there were living in tents before this quake, having lost their homes in the February quake.

Billionaire philanthropist George Soros announced a multimillion-dollar program to encourage young lawyers to help the poor. He plans to match money donated by law firms and corporations to fund 70 two-year public interest fellowships for young law school graduates. Among the projects the new lawyers will undertake are aiding battered women, the homeless, Native Americans, and migrant farm works. Soros was born in Hungary, made millions on Wall Street, and now uses his money toward solving urban and social ills.

Since 1990 the Asian population in all 16 Southern states and the District of Columbia has grown faster than any other race. The Asian influx is changing the racial profile which has traditionally been black and white. In some Atlanta area schools, more than 50 languages and dialects are spoken. In Louisiana, an intriguing sound is emerging: Cajun-Vietnamese music. Some Southerners voice concern that immigration - Asian, African and Hispanic - is threatening the Southern identity and turning this distinct region, flush with history, into Anywhere, USA. The South is so inviting to Asians because of its warm climate and the friendliness of Southern hospitality that makes them feel welcomed.

Radioactive material was smeared on protective badges worn by Washington State University researchers on at least two occasions this spring in what appears to be acts of sabotage. Campus police are investigating the incidents. A state inspector said there was no public health and safety danger, but that it was a pretty serious matter. The contamination was discovered April 3 when the company that monitors the university researcher's exposure to radiation reported that about 180 radiation monitors worn by researchers in February were contaminated. Inspectors traced the contamination to 5 badges at a cancer research laboratory, and the other 175 were contaminated during handling. The FBI has been notified.

Students who threaten violence are being suspended and expelled -- and some even arrested -- for fears of copycat crimes after a string of killings by students beginning last year. Because of the violence, school officials in Arkansas and around the country are promptly and severely punishing students who make violent threats. Wednesday, a sophomore at Hope High School was arrested and charged with first degree terroristic threatening after he reportedly said he would kill all he could before he left school because he failed a history class. A national study published in the June 1998 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychology lists warning signs for children prone to violent behavior. How well a young person interacts with family and peers, participates in school activities, and controls his behavior can identify problems much earlier than traditional signs, such as school failure and contact with police.

Spy satellites are likely to be deployed by Britain, France and the United States to curb pirates fishing in the southern seas. Scientists with the Commission for the Conventino of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, which advises governments including Britain's, said the catch from "illegal, unreported and unregulated fisheries" was at about 115,000 tonnes a year. A safe level for a deep long-living species such as the Patagonian toothfish is 20,000 tonnes a year. France and America have been holding private talks about deploying satellites to spot and track the pirates and yesterday a British official said it was considering a similar move.

Palestinian Authority security forces have stepped up training in case of renewed conflict in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, according to senior Israeli military sources. The peace process is in deep crisis, with talks now deadlocked for 15 months.