EVENTS

SWITZERLAND REJECTS EUROPEAN UNION

Swiss voters yesterday rejected closer ties with Europe, ending weeks of bitter debate. A majority of the country's 23 cantons voted against the government's plan to join a European free-trade zone on Jan. 1. Opponents of integrating with Europe warned that Switzerland would lose control over its future and its tradition of grass-roots democracy, and would have to open its borders to a flood of immigrants. Bentsen to lead Treasury

Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D) of Texas is President-elect Clinton's choice for treasury secretary, while New York investment banker Roger Altman - a former Carter administration official - will be appointed deputy secretary of the Treasury, several sources say. A formal offer from Mr. Clinton is likely by midweek. John Young, a Republican who recently retired as president of Hewlett-Packard Company, has taken himself out of the running for commerce secretary on conflict-of-interest grounds. Nunn fired two gays

Sen. Sam Nunn (D) of Georgia, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, dismissed two aides a decade ago after learning that they were homosexuals, the New York Times reported yesterday. Gay rights groups now say that disqualifies Mr. Nunn from becoming defense secretary in the Clinton administration. Voting in Slovenia

Slovenes turned out yesterday to vote in the first elections since their tiny country won its brief war of independence against Yugoslav troops last year. President Milan Kucan, a former Communist, was favored to win reelection. Meanwhile, Serbia's Constitutional Court gave Premier Milan Panic the green light Saturday to challenge hard-line President Slobodan Milosevic in elections this month. Fighting in Bosnia

Battles raged yesterday on the fringes of a key Sarajevo neighborhood, as Serb rebels tried to fight off their Muslim-led adversaries and consolidate their hold on the newly taken suburb. Princess Anne to marry

Princess Anne, who was divorced earlier this year, will marry a Royal Navy commander, Buckingham Palace said Saturday. The princess would be the first close relative of a British monarch to divorce and remarry. `Passportgate' spreads to United Kingdom

Labour Party leaders yesterday accused Britain's Conservative government of interfering in the United States election by authorizing checks on whether President-elect Clinton applied for British citizenship to avoid the Vietnam-era draft. The controversy was the latest problem for Prime Minister John Major's government, which was 13 points behind Labour in a poll published yesterday by the Sunday Times. Palestinian delegation gets smaller

Palestinian leaders said yesterday they will send a smaller negotiating team to Washington for the eighth round of the Middle East peace talks, apparently to protest the lack of progress in the 13-month-old process. The move appeared to be a compromise by PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, increasingly hard-pressed to produce some gains from Palestinian participation in the US-sponsored talks.