BEIJING - China‘s state-run media kept up scathing rhetorical attacks on NATO on Monday, calling the military alliance a tool of U.S. hegemonists and urging greater awareness of the need for defence modernisation.

MANILA - Leftists are marching again and angry churchmen are railing from pulpits as the Philippines awaits one last hurdle in the ratification of a new military accord with the United States, its former colonial ruler.

HELSINKI - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder arrived in Helsinki on Monday for talks on Kosovo with Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, who is preparing to become the West‘s emissary to Belgrade.

BRUSSELS - European Union farm ministers, meeting on Monday for the first time since landmark agriculture reforms were agreed, will examine the EU‘s escalating trade spat with the US hormone-treated beef.

COPENHAGEN - A respected politician from Denmark‘s Radical Liberal party, a junior partner in the centre-left government, has broken ranks with the coalitions unwavering support for NATO air strikes on Yugoslavia.

DAMASCUS - Peace talks between Israel and Syria would continue to be suspended if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is re-elected in voting on Monday.

MECCA - Iran‘s President Mohammad Khatami performed a Moslem pilgrimage early on Monday during a landmark trip to Saudi Arabia paving the way for restoring trust between the two former Gulf rivals.

SUVA, Fiji - Fiji looked set on Monday for its first Indian-dominated government in 12 years after Indian voters got even with Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka for staging a 1987 coup that robbed them of political power.

TOKYO - Japan‘s trade surplus with the world hit a record in the fiscal year that ended in March but economists say government economic stimulus steps could help boost demand for imports and trim the surplus this year.

JAKARTA - Three major opposition parties plan to join forces after the June national election to push aside the party that has ruled Indonesia for the past 30 years.

JOHANNESBURG - Angola‘s UNITA rebel movement said on Monday it shot down a Russian military transport plane last week in the northern province of Lunda Norte and was holding three crew members hostage.

MOSCOW - Russian President Boris Yeltsin will get some indication of support for Sergei Stepashin, his nominee for prime minister, on Monday when powerful regional bosses pass judgment on him in parliament‘s upper house.

WASHINGTON - Two Serb Army soldiers held as prisoners of war by the U.S. military in Germany will be released, perhaps as soon as Monday.

KAMPALA - The United States has suspended its peace corps operation in Uganda over growing concerns for the safety of its 43 volunteers, the U.S. embassy in Kampala said on Monday.

WASHINGTON - The number of serious crimes committed in the United States dropped dramatically in 1998, marking the seventh straight annual decline, the FBI said on Sunday.

MOSCOW - Russia‘s volatile North Caucasus region was jolted on Sunday by explosions that killed five people, the kidnapping of a New Zealand Red Cross worker and unrest threatening a local election.

ADDIS ABABA - Ethiopia bombed the Eritrean Red Sea port of Massawa early on Sunday morning, targeting the city for the first time since the border war between the two countries began a year ago.