Brussels - The 14th Dalai Lama called for "warm-heartedness" and mutual trust Thursday, and rejected claims that he is seeking to separate his homeland of Tibet from China, in a speech that received a standing ovation from the European Parliament in Brussels.

In a 20-minute address interspersed by pearls of wisdom, personal anecdotes, humour and applause, the spiritual and political leader of the Tibetan people also said it was wrong to view worldwide support for his cause as being directed against the Chinese government.

Brussels - Standard Liege striker Milan Jovanivic is linked with a winter break move to a top club such as Real Madrid or Bayern Munich, according to Belgian news reports on Wednesday.

The Het Laatste Nieuws daily said that the German champions Munich were ready to splash out 10 million euros (12.6 million dollars) for the 27-year-old Serbian marksman, who has a contract at Staadard until 2010.

But Munich coach Juergen Klinsmann said on Wednesday that he "knows nothing" about such a plan.

Brussels - NATO needs more forces in Afghanistan if it wants to avoid a stalemate in its five-year-old fight against the Taliban insurgency, the alliance's chief said Wednesday.

And while some progress was being made, most notably with voter registration and with the development of an Afghan police force, "huge challenges" remained, Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said.

De Hoop Scheffer was speaking to reporters after a two-day meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.

Brussels - NATO is willing to discuss how to respond to new security threats with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), of which Russia and the United States are both members, the trans-Atlantic alliance said Wednesday.

However, Russia should refrain from issuing "confrontational statements" and stop being a source of concern for NATO's allies and its partners, for instance by threatening to deploy short range missiles in Kaliningrad, NATO foreign ministers said in a joint statement issued at a meeting in Brussels.

Brussels - The European Union is ready to defend commercial vessels from Somali pirates once NATO's mission expires later this month, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Wednesday.

"We have a responsibility to escort, deter and protect, and it will be done with very robust rules of engagement," Solana said ahead of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels.

Brussels - The European Union's executive was set Wednesday to unveil a plan to strengthen ties with former-Soviet neighbours, such as Ukraine and Georgia, which EU leaders pushed up the political agenda in the wake of the summer's Russian-Georgian war.

The so-called "Eastern Partnership," originally proposed by Poland and Sweden in May, is aimed at strengthening the EU's ties with Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Moldova - and possibly Belarus if Minsk shows itself open to democratic reforms.