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 WAR ON TERRORISM

• Secretary of State Colin Powell is moving to shore up international support for the fight against terrorism, as the U.S. administration considers pre-emptive strikes to prevent future attacks. Powell is traveling to Canada on Wednesday to meet with his counterparts from the world’s top industrialized countries. Counter-terrorism is high on the agenda, as are nuclear disarmament, the Middle East, Afghanistan and the ongoing tension between India and Pakistan. (AP 112316 Jun 02)

• The United States is updating and trimming the list of over 200 individuals with alleged ties to Afghanistan’s former Taliban rulers and Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaida terror network who are subject to UN sanctions, a U.S. official said. The U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tuesday that the list needed updating because some people have died or severed their affiliation with institutions linked to terrorists whose assets have also been frozen. The U.S. official said Washington wants to provide as much information as possible to the United Nations about those on the list without jeopardizing sources, methods and individuals. (AP 120212 Jun 02)

• China, in some of its toughest criticism of U.S. foreign policy since September 11, lashed out on Wednesday at President George W. Bush’s new first-strike policy to prevent terror attacks. The new U.S. policy aimed at preventing nuclear, chemical or biological attacks was unjustifiable and hegemonistic, China’s official China Daily said in an editorial. The China Daily said for weaker nations, a first strike policy was sometimes the only resort when their existence was at stake, but the equation changed for strong countries. "Widespread cooperation is the only way to counter well-organised terrorism," it added. (Reuters 120349 GMT Jun 02)

AFGHANISTAN

• Secretary of State Colin Powell praised a tribal assembly that opened in Afghanistan on Tuesday and denied the United States been too involved in its selection of a new president, a process that was mired in confusion as he spoke. Asked about complaints by some delegates that Washington had heavy-handedly backed interim leader Hamid Karzai for president, Powell replied: "I don’t think that’s accurate." "I think we can see the Loya Jirga unfolding before our eyes. It seems to be representative of all the people of Afghanistan. I was reading some fascinating overnight traffic about the open meeting they have, of debate, discussion, disagreement, in the Afghan tradition," Powell added. (Reuters 111837 GMT Jun 02)

• France will pull back its aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and nuclear submarine Saphir from the Arabian Sea after an Afghan Loya Jirga grand tribal assembly, the Defence Ministry said on Tuesday in Paris. Two French frigates will remain in the region and France will keep about 500 soldiers in an international force helping to maintain security in the Afghan capital Kabul for a further six months, the ministry added. (Reuters 111632 GMT Jun 02)

NATO

• Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem expressed support on Tuesday for Ukraine’s decision to seek NATO membership. "We are aware of Ukraine’s new approach to NATO and I guarantee all possible support from Turkey on this issue," Cem said after meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Anatoliy Zlenko in Kiev. (AP 111327 Jun 02)

EU

• Spanish Premier Jose Maria Aznar held talks with his Greek counterpart Costas Simitis in Athens on Tuesday to build support for a European Union force. Aznar, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, is touring European capitals and trying to break the deadlock over a planned Rapid Reaction Force caused by tension between Greece and Turkey. (AP 111737 Jun 02)

• Russia’s Foreign Ministry expressed "surprise" on Tuesday over a U.S. accusation that Russia was continuing to provide Iran and other states of concern with technology that could be used to develop and deliver weapons of mass destruction. Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said that Russia accords "exceptional importance" to nuclear nonproliferation, that it has joined all international organizations devoted to the problem and that it stands for strengthening their commitments. "If there are such facts, we’re prepared to discuss them because it’s in Russia’s national interest not only to uphold the nonproliferation regime but to strengthen it," he added. (AP 111229 Jun 02)

BALKANS

• In what critics denounced as a political coup, a Serbian parliamentary committee, dominated by allies of Prime Minister Djindjic, on Tuesday moved to oust 39 lawmakers, including 21 from the party of Yugoslav President Kostunica. The lawmakers were declared dismissed for alleged rare attendance of assembly sessions, but the move clearly marked a deepening of the power struggle between the country’s two key politicians - Kostunica and Djindjic. A likely result of the attempted political housecleaning operation will be a potentially bruising legal battle. The assembly’s Administrative Committee said the 21 lawmakers from Kostunica’s party and 18 others who also failed to justify their absence from many sessions would be replaced by other members of the ruling coalition. (AP 112159 Jun 02)

• Slobodan Milosevic was "the person in charge" when Serb forces murdered and plundered in the province of Kosovo in 1999, an American diplomat said Tuesday at the former Yugoslav president’s war crimes trial. William Walker was the head of a Kosovo verification mission for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe when atrocities were committed in the disputed province. (AP 111708 Jun 02)

• In a step towards facing up to its bloodstained past, Serbia began its first ever war crimes trial on Tuesday with a soldier in court accused of killing two Kosovo Albanians. However, defendant Ivan Nikolic was cheered as a Serb hero by a crowd of supporters outside the court in Prokuplje, reflecting a widespread nationalist view that Serbs were the victims of the Balkan wars and have nothing to face up to. Many Serbs, including some leaders in Belgrade, see war crimes trials as a pragmatic tactic to keep Western aid flowing. There has been little sign of national soul-searching in Serbia or indeed elsewhere in the Balkans. (Reuters 111323 GMT Jun 02)

 FINAL ITEM