• SEOUL -- North Korea made clear it would not return to six-party talks on its nuclear programs until President Bush assembled his new team and Washington decided its policy toward Pyongyang.
North Korean and U.S. officials met twice this week in New York but made no progress on restarting the talks, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said, according to the country's official KCNA news agency.
• NEW DELHI -- Russia said India should become a veto-wielding, permanent member of the Security Council if the United Nations' top decision-making body is enlarged to reflect post-Cold War realities.
President Vladimir Putin gave the assurance after Indian newspapers interpreted comments he made on Friday as saying India should not be given veto powers.
• SRINAGAR, India -- A remote-controlled roadside bomb blew up an army patrol car in a pre-dawn attack Sunday in the violence-torn territory of Kashmir, killing an army major and 10 other men, police said.
AFRICA
• ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast -- President Laurent Gbagbo is to propose a constitutional change that might allow opposition leader Alassane Ouattara to run in presidential elections next year, a spokesman said.
Gbagbo agreed to send to parliament the measure, seen as key to the country's peace process, after a request by visiting South African President Thabo Mbeki, the spokesman said.
• HARARE, Zimbabwe -- President Robert Mugabe said his government would not invite "imperialist" nations to monitor Zimbabwe's parliamentary elections scheduled for March, state media reported.
Mugabe has been accused by the opposition and many Western countries of rigging his reelection in 2002 and his party's equally controversial victory in parliamentary balloting four years ago.
THE AMERICAS
• SAN SALVADOR -- Salvadoran police have arrested the mother-in-law of a U.S. Teamster gunned down last month, along with five other suspects, describing the slaying as the result of a family dispute, authorities said.
Gilberto Soto, 49, a U.S. citizen of Salvadoran origin who lived in Cliffside Park, N.J., was fatally shot in the back on Nov. 5 in front of his family's house in Usulutan, 70 miles south of San Salvador. The slaying occurred a week after Soto arrived in the country to meet with labor union leaders and port drivers.
-- From News Services
