Deutsche Welle
English Service News
June 22th , 2001, 16:00 UTC
German leaders have said deep historical wounds remain as Europe
today marks the 60th anniversary of Nazi Germany's attack on the
former Soviet Union.
Hitler's Operation Barbarosa, begun on June the 22nd 1941, opened an
eastern front in World War Two, resulting in up to 40 million deaths.
Russian historians say 27 million were Soviet citizens, including
troops killed and those who died in German internment up until 1945
when the Red Army entered Berlin. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said
Hitler's attack of 1941 was the act of a crazed and criminal regime
but he hoped for closer peaceful links between Berlin and Moscow.
Former Soviet veterans plan ceremonies today in the ex-Soviet
states.
The Jewish Claims Conference in Germany has made the first
compensation payments to former Nazi-era slave and forced labourers.
About 300 victims received the first installment during a symbolic
ceremony in Frankfurt. Ten thousand people will intitially be paid
about 10,000 Marks, the equivalent of $4,370. The representative of
the Jewish Claims Conference in Germany, Karl Brozik, said this
modest sum could, however, in no way put right the suffering endured
by the victims. By the end of July the first compensation payments
will have been paid in other countries. Payments from the ten
billion Mark government foundation were delayed until U.S. lawsuits
were dismissed. Hans-Otto Braeutigam, deputy head of the foundation
administering the compensation funds, said about 1.8 million
applications were now expected. Earlier estimates put the number of
applicants at 1.2 million, which could mean than the amount of
compensation will be have to be reduced, he said.
The Macedonian army has launched attacks on the rebel-held village
of Aracinovo, just 10 kilometres from the capital Skopje, after a
two-week stand-off.
Its dawn assault with helicopters and tanks coincided with a fragile
11-day ceasefire and stalled peace deal talks between Macedonia's
ethnic Albanian and majority slav politicians, despite another visit
to Skopje on Thursday by EU security chief Javier Solana. The rebels
said three people had been killed and ten others wounded. A rebel
commander repeated his threat to shell Skopje and its airport, if
the army pressed its offensive. After Thursday's talks, Solana
sounded optimistic, but Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski said his
government insisted that rebel areas "be liberated". Early this week
NATO offered to oversee a rebel disarmament, if agreed.
The European Union has been trying to revive the deadlocked Middle
East. EU foreign policy Javier Solana chief travelled to Tel Aviv
where he met with Israel's prime minister Ariel Scharon to discuss
ways of cementing the fragile ceasefire agreement with the
Palestinians. A meeting with Palestinian president Yasser Arafat is
also planned later today. Meanwhile an Israeli soldier was killed in
a bomb attack in the Gaza Strip on Friday. The Israeli army
responded by shelling the Palestinian village of Beit Lahia.
The chairman of Bosnia's reformist central government Bozidar Matic
resigned on Friday after the state parliament failed to adopt a new
election law. Matic submitted his resignation to the country's
three-man inter-ethnic presidency. The Bosnian parliament's house of
representatives, which groups deputies from the country's
Muslim-Croat federation and Serb republic, ended a session late on
Thursday without agreement on the law. An acceptable electoral law
is one of the main conditions put forward by the Council of Europe
for the Balkan country to become a member of the organisation.
Matic's government, the first non-nationalist administration
in Bosnia in more than a decade, took over from nationalists
four months ago.
Northern Ireland police and British troops restored calm to a
Belfast flashpoint area on Friday after a second night of rioting by
rival Protestant and Roman Catholic crowds. Police said several
shots were fired at them as they tried to keep petrol bomb and
stone-throwing Protestants and Catholics apart in the Ardoyne area
of north Belfast. No one was hit by the gunfire but up to 20 police
officers were hurt in the violence, orchestrated mainly by loyalists.
The sectarian violence erupted as London and Dublin prepared for
talks at Hillsborough Castle on the outskirts of Belfast on Friday
to revive Norhtern Ireland's Good Friday peace process.
Turkey's Constitutional Court banned the main opposition party on
Friday but stopped short of large-scale expulsions from parliament
that would have triggered by-elections and thrown IMF-backed
financial reforms into doubt. The court ruled that there were
grounds to ban the Virtue Party, which controlled 102 out of 550
seats, as a focus of what it called "Islamist and anti-secular
activities". It expelled two members from parliament and imposed
political bans on five more. The judges reached their verdict by an
8-3 majority.
European Commission President Romano Prodi said on Friday that
Ireland's failure to ratify the Nice Treaty could hold up EU
enlargement. Prodi said it was essential the country vote in
favour of the treaty. The treaty is intended to pave the way for the
entry of 12 applicant countries, including Poland, the Czech
Republic and Hungary. During talks with Prodi, Irish opposition
leader Michael Noonan said it would be undemocratic to simply wait
for an opportunity to put the same question again to the Irish
electorate. In a national referendum 56 percent voted against
ratification of the Nice Treaty, but only a third of the electorate
turned out to vote.
In Germany, a U.S. army truck has collided with a passenger train,
leaving at least three people dead and five seriously injured.
Previous reports had put the toll higher. The accident, at a level
crossing in forest, happened near the Gressenwoehr military training
zone in Bavaria. The train dragged the truck for 200 metres and
caught fire. Police said the dead include the truck's driver and two
passengers. At the time, 26 people were on board the train. A 100
medics and rescue workers, using helicopters, converged on the scene.
Three coaches of a passenger train plunged from a bridge into a
river in the southern Indian state of Kerala on Friday raising fears
of heavy casualties. About 19 bodies have so far been recovered but
rescue services expect the death toll to rise. About 300 people were
travelling in the train. The train was headed to the southern Indian
city of Madras from the southwestern port city of Mangalore.
Two British boys who battered a toddler to death when they were 10
years old are to be freed after serving less than nine years of
their sentence, the government said on Friday. Robert Thompson and
Jon Venables, both now 18, were sent to secure units in 1993 for an
indefinite period after being found guilty of abducting two-year-old
James Bulger and torturing him, beating him to death and dumping his
body on a railway line. Bulger's mother, Denise Fergus, said on
Friday she was "devastated" that her son's killers were now free.
Few crimes in British history have aroused as much revulsion as the
murder of Bulger. The two teenagers will be given new lives and
identities on their release to reduce the risk of revenge attacks.
The legendary blues guitarist and singer John Lee Hooker has died at
his home near San Francisco at the age of 83.
Hooker influenced many of the world's most prominent contemporary
musicians and was admitted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in
1991. Over sixty years he recorded more than 100 albuns. Among his
hits were: "I'm in the Mood", and "Walking the Boogie".
Finally, a set of environmental features by DW Radio's English
Service has won gold at the United Nation's "New York Festivals"
competition.
Produced by John Hay and Irene Quaile-Kersken, the winning "Man and
Environment" reports examined six endangered ecological regions
around the world listed by the World Wildlife Fund. The Australian
network ABC Radio National, its journalist Maria Zijlstra, and
Deutsche Welle freelancers contributed to the joint series. It
illustrates links between wildlife and economic development.
Serbian News Network - SNN
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