to generating plant costs which would have been recovered in a 
regulated market) will be recovered over
    a five-year transition period in New Mexico. In Texas, the rate 
settlement allowed El Paso to recover those costs
    through accelerated depreciation over the 10-year period of the 
settlement agreement. 

    In the wholesale market, El Paso successfully renegotiated contracts with 
the Comision Federal de
    Electricidad, the national utility of Mexico, to supply peaking capacity 
in the summer months of 2000 and 2001,
    and with the Rio Grande Electric Cooperative Inc. to supply power to two 
Texas cities over a four-year period.
    Importantly, El Paso Electric also reached a settlement with the cityEarlier this month, Putin announced the formation of a new, national guard, whose commander (a former head bodyguard for Putin) would answer directly to the Kremlin (as opposed to the Ministry of Internal Affairs) and which may be given the right to fire into crowds with live ammunition, Russian lawmakers have suggested. Officially, the National Guard will fight terrorism, weapons trafficking, and organized crime, along with public unrest. Informally, the agency, called Rosgvardia, has been panned as Putin's "praetorian guard."

Following the announcement, activists and news media have published several fresh videos of riot police attached to the new agency running large, anti-protest drills. Last weekend, the Kommersant newspaper reported on the latest police training exercises against "mass riots" in the city of Smolensk by "residents unhappy with the