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WAR ON TERRORISM

• The future relationship between the United States and Russia depends on whether Moscow stops providing Iran and other "rogue" states with technology that could be used to develop weapons of mass destruction, a senior U.S. State Department official said on Monday. Russia possesses nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the ballistic missiles to deliver them "and over the years has pursued policies that have led, and continue to lead in our judgment, to the proliferation of these weapons," said Undersecretary of State John Bolton. If the United States and Russia work together, he said, they "can have a potentially critical effect on the potential for terrorists to get their hands on chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or ... ballistic missile technology." (AP 110337 Jun 02)

• President Bush made a case on Monday in Washington for pre-emptive strikes against terrorists that seek weapons of mass destruction for use against the United States and other nations, saying "we will oppose the new totalitarians with all our power." In an earlier speech before the group, the International Democrat Union, Vice President Dick Cheney said the United States will not shy away from first strikes when it acts against terrorists. Cheney said a strike-first military policy is necessary because past approaches to world security - Cold War deterrence, summit meetings and treaties - will not work against terrorists who have no single base of operation and "nothing to defend." (AP 110009 Jun 02)

• Moroccan police have arrested three Saudi nationals who were planning suicide operations against American and British warships in the Strait of Gibraltar, key government officials said Monday in Rabat. The three men were arrested last month and claimed to belong to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network, the Moroccan officials said on condition of anonymity. The officials said the suspects planned to sail an inflatable dinghy loaded with explosives from Ceuta and Melilia - Spanish enclaves on Moroccan territory - into the strait to blow up warships stationed there. The plan was similar to one carried out in October 2000, when two suicide bombers in a small dinghy rammed the USS Cole destroyer in a port in Yemen. (AP 102147 Jun 02)

AFGHANISTAN

• A Loya Jirga, or grand assembly, is expected to convene on Tuesday with 1,600 Afghans meeting under a massive tent in Kabul to pick a new government for the next 18 months. The assembly had been expected to begin meeting on Monday but was delayed for 24 hours because of a dispute over the role of the former king, diplomats and Afghan officials said. (Reuters 101153 GMT Jun 02)

NATO

• A measure signed into law on Monday by President Bush endorses an expansion of NATO and authorizes military aid to seven nations that hope to join the alliance. The measure President Bush signed, passed by wide margins in both houses of Congress, authorizes US $55.5 million in military assistance for the seven clearest hopefuls, although it does not specifically call for NATO admission for any of the countries. (AP 102343 Jun 02)

• Jordan’s King Abdullah II opens two days of talks with European Union and NATO officials with a meeting on Tuesday on the Middle East with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. On Tuesday, King Abdullah is also scheduled to visit NATO headquarters for talks on increasing his country’s links with the Western defense alliance. (AP 101320 Jun 02)

• A pair of German navy frigates arrived in the eastern China port of Qingdao on Monday for a weeklong friendly visit, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Xinhua said the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Rheinland-Pfalz are the first German warships to visit China. (AP 101515 Jun 02)

RUSSIA

• President Putin lashed out Monday at suggestions that Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave be shut off from the rest of the country by visa controls when its neighbors become members of the European Union, saying current proposals to solve the problem were "worse than the Cold War." The issue of Kaliningrad dominated the biannual summit of the Council of the Baltic Sea States. "We’ll never agree to a violation of the Russian Federation’s sovereignty," Putin told the meeting of prime ministers from the Baltic countries in his hometown of St.Petersburg. (AP 101650 Jun 02)

• A Russian general denied on Monday that Soviet troops could have left chemical weapons at an Uzbek base now being used by American troops. U.S. military officials said Sunday that traces of nerve agents and mustard gas were found at the Khanabad air base. "It is out of the question that Soviet troops could have left any war gas in Uzbekistan," Col. Gen. Viktor Kholstov, head of Russia’s radiation, chemical and biological defense troops, told the Interfax-Military News Agency. A Defense Ministry spokesman confirmed Kholstov’s statement to Interfax. The Uzbek government has not commented on the U.S. announcement. (AP 101529 Jun 02)

BALKANS

• The European Union’s foreign policy chief pressured Serbian and Montenegrin leaders on Monday to speed up the process of abolishing Yugoslavia and forming a loose union of its two republics. "The commitment of all the leaders is good for a constructive completion of the (new country’s) constitution," Javier Solana said before departing Belgrade. He said that he expected the new union to hold elections by the beginning of next year. (AP 101634 Jun 02)

OTHER NEWS

• Chinese President Jiang Zemin arrived on Monday in the Latvian capital of Riga, the first stop of a six-day tour of the ex-Soviet Baltic republics. President Jiang will spend two days meeting with top government officials, including President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, before traveling to Estonia and Lithuania. He will discuss Latvia’s pending membership in the European Union and NATO, as well as trade issues, Vike-Freiberga’s foreign policy adviser Andrejs Pildegovics added. (AP 101253 Jun 02)

• U.S. officials have met with Iraqi opposition leaders on the best ways to mobilize against President Saddam Hussein and to prepare for the post-Saddam era, the State Department said Monday in Washington. The meetings included the participation of the Iraqi National Congress amid fresh signs of friction between the State Department and that group. Additional meetings will be held in the coming weeks, leading to a larger conference sometime in the summer, Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. (AP 102117 Jun 02)

 FINAL ITEM