Deutsche Welle
English Service News
July 30th, 2001, 16:00 UTC
Israeli helicopter gunships have attacked the main Palestinian
police headquarters in Gaza City after two bombings in Jerusalem in
the past 24 hours. At least four Palestinians were hurt in the Gaza
raid. Israeli police blamed the earlier blasts in Jerusalem on
Palestinian militants, who have waged a bombing campaign against
Israel since a Palestinian uprising erupted last September. Although
the bombings caused no casualties, the air assault appeared to
underscore a pledge by Israel to retaliate immediately for any
attack on its citizens. Earlier however, an explosion killed six
activists from Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction
near Jenin in the West Bank. An aide to Arafat accused Israel of
assassinating the men, who Palestinian officials said were on its
most-wanted list.
Macedonian prosecutors have asked local courts to issue arrest
warrants for 11 ethnic Albanian guerrilla leaders, overshadowing
last-ditch peace talks that Western envoys are trying to mediate.
The guerrillas are not involved in the negotiations, which
participants said had edged forward, but a draft peace plan under
discussion is designed to persuade them to end their five-month-old
rebellion and disarm. This would also require an amnesty. President
Boris Trajkovski is chairing the closed-door talks between the
leaders of four mainstream parties,- two Macedonian and two
Albanian,- in a fragile emergency government coalition.
The United Nations special drafting committee has resumed its
discussions on a proposed international plan for enforcing a 30-year
ban on using germs as a weapon of war. Ambassador Tibor Toth of
Hungary, chairman of the Ad Hoc negotiating group, said the plan was
heading for failure because the United States had rejected it as
unworkable. The plan was designed to meet a mandate from the
140-state 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention to produce a
consensus on measures to make the ban enforceable by the end of this
year. Unlike other multilateral arms accords, the biological weapons
ban contains no mechanism to ensure compliance.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has said the United States
would like to resume military ties with Indonesia following the
appointment of a new government but is mindful of human rights
concerns. Most Western countries suspended military cooperation with
Jakarta in the wake of the bloodshed that swept East Timor in 1999
when the region voted to break free from Indonesia. Military ties
between the U.S. and Indonesian militaries are restricted to
humanitarian and disaster relief exercises, ruling out arms sales to
Jakarta.Powell's comments in Australia, where he winds up his first
Asian tour, came on the heels of the latest shift in power in
Indonesia where President Megawati Sukarnoputri, with the backing of
the army, took over from ousted Abdurrahman Wahid.
The worst typhoon to hit Taiwan this year has roared across the
island, killing at least 35 people in floods, mud and rock slides
and leaving more than 100 missing, many believed to be buried alive.
Typhoon Toraji has left Taiwan ans is heading north-northwest
towards China. Toraji, named after a flower in North Korea, is
weakening, but the Central Weather Bureau has warned residents in
northern Taiwan of more rain.
More dykes have breached on Poland's Vistula river as a flood surge
rolled downstream, but no new casualties were reported after
flooding in the south killed up to 10 people last week. Although the
weather had turned fine, flood defences,- soaked by the highest
river levels in four years,- collapsed in some places on the
Vistula, inundating settlements earlier evacuated by emergency
services. The Vistula, which runs north through Poland to the Baltic
sea, was due to crest in Warsaw early on Tuesday but not expected to
pose a serious flood threat to the capital.
Georg Boomgaarden, the German governments special representative to
Latin America has demanded the immediate release of three Germans
who were kidnapped ten days ago in a remote area of southern
Columbia. There has been no official contact with FARC rebels,
however local newspapers have reported that indirect contact via a
third party has been established. Local meadia also indicated the
rebels were demanding a stop to the aerial spraying of chemicals on
coca and poppy fields. Meanwhile, in Yemen, the German Foreign
Ministry is hopeful of a quick resolution to the kidnapping of a 58
year German diplomat. Army units have arrested members of the Al
A'amas tribe and surrounded a suspect hideout. The motive for the
abduction appears to be a land dispute.
Argentina's opposition-dominated Senate has approved a key austerity
bill seen as crucial to allaying fears of a debt default and helping
the Argentine economy clamber out of crisis. Senators passed all the
key clauses of the bill to end deficit spending for the rest of the
year, including unpopular state salary and pension cuts of up to 13
percent. International markets from Madrid to London rallied on the
back of the bill's long-awaited approval.
Serbian News Network - SNN
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http://www.antic.org/
