Paris, 30/01/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Joint Organisation on Cooperation in Matters of Armaments (OCCAR - French acronym), founded in 1996 by France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom (but the OCCAR Convention was only signed in September 1998), secured legal status on 28 January, enabling it, as a press release from the French Defence Ministry stresses, to sign contracts directly with industry, on behalf of its member states, . This is "an important step for the future of effective...