U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates held a brief meeting today with his Russian counterpart, Anatoly Serdyukov, on the sidelines of a conference of NATO defense ministers, which ended today in Brussels.

NATO ministers, meeting in Brussels, are discussing the possibility extending a missile defense system the United States wants to deploy in central Europe.

The U.S.-based pro-democracy group Freedom House says in its latest report that the countries of Central Europe have shown a decline in democratic progress -- despite membership in NATO and the European Union.

NATO ministers Thursday considered the impact of Russia's offer to include an Azerbaijani radar base in the missile shield and assessed how the planned U.S. anti-missile bases in Europe could be integrated into the alliance's defenses.

U.S. missile-defense plans for Central Europe and NATO's difficulties in Afghanistan will top the agenda at the alliance's annual meeting of defense ministers, which opens in Brussels on June 14.

A second day of talks in Vienna between Russia and NATO on the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty has failed to reach a breakthrough.

NATO has intercepted some shipments of Iranian weapon to the Taliban in Afghanistan, a senior U.S. diplomat said Wednesday. According to his words, the United States has "irrefutable" evidence that Iran is transferring weapons to Afghanistan, with the knowledge of the Iranian government.

British and U.S. forces in southern Afghanistan have not yet been able to claim success on their key stated objective despite a major NATO offensive against the Taliban.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has expressed caution about a Russian offer to place a joint Russian-U.S. missile-defense installation in Azerbaijan.

A Council of Europe report accuses the CIA of running secret prisons in Poland and Romania for "high-value" terrorist suspects, with the full cooperation of government leaders.

NATO's secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer urges swift ratification of the adapted Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty and stated that Moscow's threat to aim missiles at Europe in response to similar U.S. plans was "unhelpful and anachronistic."

The commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan says the international community is not doing enough to provide troops and a coordinated reconstruction effort to help stabilize the country. American McNeill spoke from Afghanistan with reporters at the Pentagon, and VOA's Al Pessin reports.