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WAR ON TERRORISM

• The war on terror is not the world’s overriding concern, Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said Friday in Vienna, warning the United States and its allies against pursuing "hidden agendas" as they widen their hunt for suspects. Moussa convened to plan universally accepted anti-terror strategies, cautioned that joining the Western campaign against it was not the top priority in the Middle East. His comments appeared to be indirect criticism of participants from Western countries at the meeting, who depicted the need for worldwide mobilization of resources against terrorism as the main concern of the international community. (AP 141519 Jun 02)

• The European Union will add three Palestinian militant groups, including a military arm of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, to a list of banned terrorist groups next week, EU sources said on Friday in Brussels. They said the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed Fatah youth group that has claimed responsibility for several suicide bombings, would join the list of organisations whose assets must be frozen in all 15 EU member states. EU foreign ministers, meeting in Luxembourg on Monday, will also add the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which claimed responsibility for killing Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi last year, and the smaller Palestine Liberation Front, the sources said. (Reuters 141447 GMT Jun 02)

AFGHANISTAN

• Afghanistan’s grand assembly enters an unscheduled extra day on Monday having failed in almost a week of debate to agree on the make-up of a new government or parliament. President-elect Hamid Karzai has been invited by the head of the Loya Jirga assembly to make a possibly decisive address to delegates about the new government. Sunday’s row was described by some witnesses as the most serious incident since the start of the Loya Jirga. On Saturday, the assembly was ruffled after the United Nations complained to Karzai about the "alarming level of violence" in the north of the country, including armed attacks, robberies and the gang rape of an international aid worker. (Reuters 162247 GMT Jun 02)

NATO

• Finland’s main opposition Centre Party said on Sunday a national referendum should be called if the country’s next government favours joining NATO. "If the (government’s) 2004 security policy report advocates joining a military alliance, a national referendum must be held," the Centre Party said in the platform adopted at its congress in the south-central town of Hameenlinna. The option of joining the military bloc has surfaced more frequently in the past few years in Finland, which had an uneasy relationship with the former Soviet Union. Some leading politicians now say that, given the changing security landscape in Europe and the new Russian Republic, joining NATO would no longer be such a big step. (Reuters 161108 GMT Jun 02)

• Nearly 600 troops from 14 countries are being deployed at a Georgian military base to take part in annual NATO military exercises, officials said Saturday in Tbilisi. The exercise, dubbed Cooperative Best Effort 2002, will take place from June 17-28 at Camp Vaziani outside of Tbilisi as a small unit land exercise. "It is designed to allow exercise participants to exchange light infantry skills in a variety of peace support operations," Col. Serge Labbe, one of the exercise leaders, told reporters. Uzbekistan, which was to take part, pulled out on Saturday because its troops were preparing for another exercise at home, the ITAR-Tass news agency said, citing officials in the Uzbek defense ministry. (AP 151153 Jun 02)

EU

• European Union foreign ministers will probably defy U.S. policy on Monday by supporting closer political and trade ties with Iran, diplomats said in Brussels. The 15 ministers will discuss Iran during day-long talks in Luxembourg. European diplomats said the United States is fairly relaxed about the European Union’s plans for closer ties with Iran, provided that the EU keeps pressuring Tehran on key political concerns. (Reuters 161327 GMT Jun 02)

• The United States urged Yugoslavia on Saturday to improve its cooperation with the UN war crimes tribunal or risk the loss of American support. Pierre-Richard Prosper, the U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes issues, told President Kostunica that Yugoslavia must extradite high ranking suspects in order to meet the criteria for continuing U.S. assistance. He praised past efforts to cooperate, but said more needed to be done. Prosper told legal experts, government officials and human rights activists attending a war crimes conference in the capital, Belgrade, that another fight is looming in the U.S. Congress over future aid. In a statement issued after Prosper’s remarks, Kostunica’s office complained that "no charges have been brought against ranking officials or military commanders on the other sides who undoubtedly had a role in the wars." Meanwhile, Belgrade’s independent B-92 radio station reported that a team of UN prosecutors, along with Serbian police, searched the home of Milosevic’s former security chief, Jovica Stanisic late on Friday. The authorities were looking for documents that could further incriminate the former president or some of his associates also indicted for war crimes. (AP 151437 Jun 02)

• The parliament of Macedonia (sic) on Friday approved new election laws meant to regulate voting procedures and upgrade minority rights. Under two new laws, deputies in the 120-seat Macedonian (sic) parliament will be elected by voters choosing from among parties rather than individual candidates. The legislative changes also divide Macedonia (sic) into six election regions rather than 120. (AP 141906 Jun 02)

• Top U.S. congressional leaders on Sunday applauded a move by President Bush to let the CIA conduct covert operations to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and urged further action if such efforts fail. The covert program, disclosed in The Washington Post, included authorization from Bush to use lethal force to capture Saddam. A source told the newspaper that the CIA covert action should be viewed largely as "preparatory" to a military strike so the agency can identify targets, intensify intelligence gathering on the ground in Iraq, and build relations with alternative future leaders and groups if Saddam is ousted. (Reuters 161737 GMT Jun 02)

• Iraq said on Sunday it wanted all United Nations sanctions against Baghdad lifted before an agreement could be reached on allowing UN weapons inspectors back into the country. President Saddam Hussein chaired a meeting of senior officials to discuss the agenda of a third round of talks this year between Iraq and the United Nations set for July 3 and 4, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported in Baghdad. "The real solution (of the Iraqi-UN issue) lies in the total, comprehensive and final lifting of the sanctions," INA quoted a statement issued after the meeting as saying. (Reuters 161719 GMT Jun 02)

FINAL ITEM