Deutsche Welle
English Service News
August 26th, 2001, 16:00 UTC
Israeli warplanes have attacked and destroyed Palestinian security
headquarters in the West Bank and Gaza in retaliation for the
killings of three Israeli soldiers and two Jewish settlers on
Saturday. Buildings were left in ruins and at least three
Palestinians were hurt in the latest strikes. Israel said it held
the Palestinian leadership responsible for the violence over the
weekend, which took the death toll over 700 since the Palestinians
began a revolt against Israeli occupation. Palestinian security
officials, in the meantime, called Israel's air raids an "ugly
aggression" which made the situation even more dangerous. On the
diplomatic front both sides are trying to arrange talks between
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian President
Yasser Arafat under German auspices.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said its
officials were given access to eight foreign aid workers held by
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban on charges of spreading Christianity.
But the head of the ICRC delegation who saw the detainees told
reporters he could not reveal the condition of the six women and two
men who were given medical examinations. The visit was the
detainees' first contact with anyone outside the Taliban since their
arrest in early August. Meanwhile, the Taliban has said they were
nearing the end of their investigation into the alleged charges
against the eight members of the Shelter Now International (SNI)
organization and would allow visits by the relatives and
representatives of the prisoners' governments. Diplomats from
Australia, the U.S. and Germany were expected to arrive in Kabul on
Tuesday.
A motel in northern Macedonia blew up earlier on Sunday in an area
dominated by ethnic Albanian guerrillas. Eye witnesses said two
people were killed in the blast. The motel explosion was the second
in five days blamed on "Albanian terrorists." The latest unrest
comes one day before NATO troops are to begin their mission of
disarming ethnic Albanian rebels. Meanwhile there is still dispute
about the size of the rebels' arsenal. Macedonia's prime minister
said that if NATO's estimate of guerrilla arms was around 3000 as
widely reported, the disarmement mission would be a ludicrous
failure and war would resume after alliance troops left the region.
The Macedonian government estimates that the rebels are holding some
70,000 pieces weaponry.
Doctors in the Ivory Coast said broth contaminated with rat poison
was responsible for the mass poisoning and deaths of at least 26
people, including a 17-month-old girl, in the village of Labokro.
Village officials said the broth-seller was a local woman who is now
being held in protective custody. Paramilitary police said the case
was still being treated as an accident. Sources said they believed
the woman, who for years has prepared the broth for sale in the
local market, had mistaken the rat poison for sugar in the dark
early morning hours. The first cases appeared last Thursday when
people who had drunk the broth began to vomit violently and suffer
severe diarrhoea. It was only after the death of a two-year-old
girl on Thursday evening that the cause was traced back to the broth.
Two of the three people killed in Saturday's marketplace explosion
in rebel Chechnya were carrying a bomb which exploded before they
had time to plant it, according to a local Interior Ministry
official. The third fatality was a 10-year-old boy. His mother was
among the 11 people injured in the blast in the central marketplace
in Gudermes, Chechnya's second town. News sources quoted the
Chechnya prosecutor's office as saying four of those injured were in
a serious condition. Russia is more than 22 months into its second
campaign in a decade to subdue the rebel province, but despite
having nominal control over most of the mountainous territory, its
troops still die almost daily in mine attacks and rebel ambushes.
Taiwan has received the go-ahead from a high-powered government
advisory body to aggressively pursue commercial links with rival
China in a bid to boost the crumbling Taiwanese economy. A
120-member panel of academics, businessmen and politicians
recommended abandoning the former government's policy of caution and
encouraged easing a ban on direct trade and transport links with
China. Officials said a favourable response from China was crucial
for the recommendations to work. China has long urged Taiwan to
scrap the bans on direct trade and transport links, but has insisted
the island first acknowledge Beijing's "one-China" policy before
progress can be made on other initiatives.
U.S. singer and actress Aaliyah has been killed along with seven
other people when a small Cessna passenger plane crashed and burst
into flames shortly after taking off from an island in the Bahamas
bound for Miami. The singer, whose full name was Aaliyah Haughton,
was returning to the United States after completing filming of a
music video in the Abaco islands. R&B sensation Aaliyah sold a
million copies of her debut album "Age Ain't Nothing But a Number"
in 1994 and more recently "Try Again" earned her a Grammy nomination
for best female R&B vocalist. One of her latest projects was to have
been an appearance in a sequel to the cult movie "The Matrix."
Serbian News Network - SNN
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