Deutsche Welle
English Service News
August 27th , 2001, 16:00 UTC
Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip on Monday to protest the killing of the leader of the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The militant wing of
the organisation has threatened to take its revenge on Israeli
leaders and civilians. Abu Ali Mustafa was killed when Israeli
helicopter gunships fired missiles through two windows as he sat at
his desk at the Popular Front's headquarters in the West Bank city
of Ramallah. A statement issued by the group's military wing said
the response would be "quick and painful". Palestinian Cabinet
Minister Saeb Erekat said the assasination overstepped all
boundaries. Israel says its policy of tracking-and-killing militants
it accuses of planning attacks against Israelis is a tactic of
self-defence. Israel blames the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine for at least six car bomb attacks in recent weeks.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa accused Israel of engaging
in "mafia politics" after the assassination of a leader of a radical
Palestinian faction on Monday. Meanwhile an official at the U.S.
state department has criticised what it called Israel's continued
policy of targetted killings. But U.S. President George W. Bush has
blamed the Palestinians for deadlock in the Middle East conflict and
said Yasser Arafat could help stop the violence if he gave "a 100
percent effort."
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Monday Israel had
raised tensions in the Middle East to levels not seen for years.
Annan urged the international community to help bring the
parties together for a new round of peace talks, warning that
violence could spill over into the rest of the region if not
controlled. U.N. officials are to liaise with Germany's Foreign
Minister Joschka Fischer to kick-start a new dialogue between Israel
and Palestine, said the UN chief during a visit to Austria.
NATO troops said on Monday they had made good progress on the first
day of "Operation Essential Harvest" in Macedonia, collecting more
than 400 weapons surrendered by ethnic Albanian rebels from the
National Liberation Army (NLA). The Western Alliance plans to
collect 3,300 weapons over the next 30 days. More than 350 assault
rifles, including Kalashnikovs in good condition, were turned in
along with 50 anti-personnel mines, 20 anti-tank mines and a number
of heavy machineguns, anti-tank weapons, rocket-launchers and mortar
bombs, said a NATO military spokesman. A rebel commander said the
NLA were were keeping their side of the peace bargain which twins
rebel disarmament with reforms to improve the rights of the ethnic
Albanian minority. The Macedonian government is due to start
enacting reforms when when parliament meets on Friday.
NATO Secretary-General George Robertson on Monday condemned the
killing of a British soldier in Macedonia and said such violence
would not deter the alliance from carrying out its peace mission.
In a statement, Robertson said he was profoundly saddened by
the death of 20-year-old Ian Collins, who was killed by a chunk
of concrete hurled through the windscreen of his vehicle by a
gang of anti-NATO youths. Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski has
given assurances that the authorities will continue to do their
utmost to ensure the safety of NATO troops on their soil and
take all the necessary measures to avoid a repeat of such
incidents against NATO troops".
Here in Germany, parliamentary faction leaders are meeting with
deputies ahead of Wednesday's crucial vote in the Bundetag, the
lower house of parliament, to decide whether German Bundeswehr
troops should take part in NATO's Operation Essential Harvest. A
number of Social Democrats are against the NATO mission as well as
the Green Party, the junior coalition partner. But there now appears
to be a majority within the opposition Christian Democrats for
German participation in the NATO mission in Mazedonia, despite
earlier demands for a commitment to increase defence spending first.
Three Western diplomats and two relatives of foreign aid workers
held in Afghanistan accused of promoting Christianity have being
allowed to visit the detainees. The eight members of the Christian
aid group Shelter Now International have been held since early
August and were refused consular access on a previous visit by the
diplomats from Germany, Australia and the United States. The Taliban
gave permission for a visit by the International Committee of the
Red Cross on Sunday and authorised the issuing of new visas to the
diplomats.
The Iraqi army said on Monday its air defences had shot down a U.S.
reconnaissance plane while it was flying over southern Iraq. A
Pentagon official in Washington said that an unmanned aircraft has
not returned from a mission over southern Iraq follwoing reports
that contact with the $25 million dollar "Predator" aircraft had
been lost. An Iraqi military spokesman said the aircraft crossed
into Iraq from Kuwait and air defences in the Basra region shot down
the plan. Iraq considers Western sorties over its territory in the
so-called no-fly zones, a form of "armed agression". Last month U.S.
defence officials said the Iraqi military had come close to hitting
a high-altitude U-2 spy plane with a modified Russian-made
anti-aircraft missile in a "no-fly zone" over southern Iraq.
Estonia's parliament, meeting to elect to a new president to lead
the ex-Soviet country into the European Union and NATO, failed to
pick a winner in the first round of voting on Monday. Deputy speaker
Tunne Kelam told parliament a second round would be held on Tuesday.
In Monday's vote, neither former Prime Minister Andres Tarand nor
opposition candidate Peeter Kreitzberg gained the 68 votes necessary
to win the presidential election. Estonia will most likely join the
EU in its next expansion, expected around 2004, and also hopes for
an invitation to join NATO at its summit in Prague next year.
Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic has described his country
as a "semi-Mafioso state" and said fighting organised crime was its
most serious challenge. Speaking at a conference in Austria on
Sunday, Svilanovic said it would take time before the multi-party
alliance which ousted former President Slobodan Milosevic last
October achieved its key goals, which were stable political
institutions and an integrated economy. Yugoslav President Vojislav
Kostunica's party withdrew its ministers from the Serbian government
of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic earlier this month, accusing the
Djindjic government of failing to tackle organised crime and
corruption. Svilanovic said crime and corruption overshadowed all of
Yugoslavia's other problems, including the future of Montenegro and
Kosovo.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is not likely to attend the
U.N. conference on racism opening in South Africa this week because
of language critical of Israel, a senior official said on Monday.
President George W. Bush had said the United States would not go to
the conference in Durban at all if the participants "picked on" or
denigrated Israel. American diplomats are still trying to amend the
language on Israel to make it acceptable in Washington but he was
not hopeful. The racism conference begins on Friday in Durban.
The governments of Australia and Indonesia are prohibiting a
Norwegian freighter with over 400 refugees on board to enter their
national waterways. The freighter rescued 434 mostly Afghan boat
people from a sinking ferry near Indonesia Sunday before being
forced by the refugees to head towards Australia's Christmas Island.
The freighter is currently anchored outside of Australian and
Indonesian waters. Australian Prime Minister John Howard said he
hoped that Australia's tough stand would send a clear signal to
future refugees that Australia was anything but an easy destination.
The second round of talks between the German carmaker Volkswagen and
the engineering union IG Metall has gotten underway in Hanover.
They are aimed at creating 5,000 new jobs at VW at a wage level of
5,000 marks a month. Both sides seem to be in agreement on these
two points but still differ on the length of the future work week.
The carmaker is pushing for a maximum 42-hour week while the union
is demanding no more than a 35-hour work week.
More than a year after a crash near Paris that claimed 113 lives,
the supersonic aircraft Concorde is to be allowed to carry
passengers again. The British newspaper "Sunday Telgraph" reported
that the Civil Aviation Authority would announce this decision on
Monday. The report said that the modifications made to the plane in
the past few months had convinced the authorities that British
Airway's and Air France's Concordes were safe to fly.
Australia said on Monday it would not accept 434 illegal immigrants
from the Middle East who hijacked a Norwegian cargo ship that
rescued them. Australian Prime Minister John Howard said the
incident was a matter for the governments of Indonesia and Norway,
but that Australia would provide humanitarian aid to the refugees.
The ship, the Tampa, is lying off Christmas Island, an Australian
territory close to Indonesia and 1,500 km west of Australia. It
rescued the asylum seekers from their sinking boat in the Indian
Ocean on Sunday. Five then entered the ship's bridge and demanded
the captain change course from Indonesia and take them instead to
Australia.
A car bomb exploded outside Madrid's international airport this
morning, causing major damages but no injuries. The bomb was placed
in a vehicle that was inside a parking garage just across from one
of the airport's terminal buildings. Police, who where tipped off to
the location of the bomb by an anonymous caller, had one hour to
cordone off the area. The Basque separatist group, ETA has already
claimed responsibility for the attack, an attack which follows the
arrest of a number of suspected ETA members last week.
The Japanese conglomerate Toshiba has announced plans to lay off 10
percent of its workforce or 18,000 employees worldwide. The move is
in response to a major slow-down in the electronics sector and
corporate restructuring pressures. NEC and Fujitsu, two of
Toshiba's rivals in the chipmaking business, also plan to slash
thousands of jobs.
Serbian News Network - SNN
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.antic.org/
