Deutsche Welle
English Service News
August 29th, 2001, 16:00 UTC
The German Bundestag has voted in favour of sending Bundeswehr
troops to join NATO's Operation Essential Harvest mission in
Macedonia. A first contingent is expected be join NATO's
4,500-strong force in Macedonia this evening. 497 deputies voted for
German deployment and 130 against the NATO weapons collecting
mission. About 25 coalition deputies from the ruling Social
Democrats and Green Party opposed any German participation as well
as 68 Chrisitian Democrats voting against the resolution. All 37
members of the party of democratic Socialism (PDS) voted against
sending German troops. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder earlier argued
that it was in Germany's national interest that there was stability
in the Balkans region. Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said that
without outside help peace in Macedonia was hardly possible.
Meanwhile NATO Secretary-General George Robertson has arrived in
Macedonia to inspect the alliance's three-day old operation to
collect weapons from ethnic Albanian rebels under a peace plan. A
senior British officer has confirmed that nearly 1,000 of 3,300
weapons had been collected in the first three days of NATO's
mission, including anti-tank mines, anti-tank weapons,
rocket-launchers and mortar bombs. Meanwhile a defence ministry
spokesman said Germany's planned contribution will likely to be 400
and not 500 soldiers as earlier stated.
Israel has agreed to withdraw its troops from the West Bank town of
Beit Jala later on Wednesday under a deal brokered by the European
Union. The troop withdrawal will take place later tonight, said an
Israeli commander for the Bethlehem area. Beit Jala was seized in a
military raid on Tuesday after Palestinian gunmen fired at the
Jewish settlement of Gilo, regarded by Israel as a neighbourhood of
Jerusalem. Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres earlier spoke by
telephone with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. Palestinian
officials said President Yasser Arafat had ordered his security
forces to stop firing at Israeli troops who have taken up positions
in parts of Beit Jala town and in Gilo. Britain and the United
States called for Israel to withdraw from Beit Jala. U.S. State
Department spokesman Richard Boucher added that Palestinians must
stop shooting at Israelis in Gilo and elsewhere.
A leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said
on Wednesday that his group was not planning attacks against the
United States and that remarks attributed to him had been
misinterpreted. Maher al-Taher, PFLP spokesman and politburo member,
said he had told Syrian Vice-President Abdel-Halim Khaddam at a
meeting on Wednesday that he had urged Arabs to hit U.S.
interests by boycotting U.S. goods and imposing an oil embargo
on the United States because of Washington's support for Israel.
Australian soldiers have boarded the Norwegian cargo ship, the Tampa,
which is carrying 434 exhausted asylum-seekers, mainly Afghans, after
it entered Australian territorial waters off Christmas Island.
Prime Minister John Howard said SAS troops had told its captain to
leave for international waters south of Indonesia. Angered by the
move, Norway says it's reporting Australia's refusal to let the ship
dock to U.N. agencies, including the IMO maritime agency. Overnight,
Tampa's crew issued a distress call, saying six people were seriously
ill. Australia denied the ship entry on Monday, demanding that it
head instead to Indonesia. The Tampa had rescued the refugees from a
sinking Indonesian ferry. Some then threatened to jump overboard if
the Tampa turned away from the island. New Zealand's Prime Minister
Helen Clark said her country - in similar circumstances- would not
turn away such a ship and would examine each asylum-seeker's case.
A representative of the International Red Cross has been allowed to
visit eight jailed foreign aid workers in Afghanistan who have been
accused of trying to convert Muslims to Christianity. Western
diplomats in Kabul said Afghanistan's ruling Taliban had agreed to
let them make further consular visits but no date has been set for a
second visit to the jailed foreigners. Four Germans, two
Australians, two Americans and 16 Afghans, all from German-based
Christian relief agency Shelter Now International (SNI), were
arrested more than three weeks ago. They face charges of trying to
convert Afghan Muslims to Christianity, which could carry a death
penalty under the Taliban's purist interpretation of Islam. The fate
of the 16 Afghan aid workers, however, is not known.
Former Bosnian Serb leader Biljana Plavsic has been granted
permission to be released from U.N. detention until her trial at The
Hague war crimes tribunal. Judges ruled that seventy-one year old
Plavsic should be released as soon as possible and allowed to stay
in Serbia until her trial, which is expected to start early next
year. Plavsic, a senior member of the wartime Bosnian Serb
leadership, is charged with genocide, crimes against humanity
and war crimes for her alleged role in the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
She surrendered to The Hague-based U.N. Tribunal for former
Yugoslavia in January and is the only woman in detention there.
In Chechnya a car bomb killed 12 people, including Russian soldiers
in a convoy, on Tuesday night at a village near Grozny, according to
the news agency Interfax.
The attack would rank as the worst in the region since December.
Inferfax said the dead comprised four Russian soldiers, two
pro-Russian officials, and six civilians. The car bomb had exploded
as Russian military trucks and an armoured vehicle passed through
the village's market square. Suspected Chechen rebels then open
fire. On Sunday, three people were killed when a bomb detonated in
at a marketplace in Chechnya's second-largest city of Gudermes.
Leaders from Germany and France will meet on September 5 in Berlin
for further talks aimed at rebuilding relations after the European
Union's tumultuous Nice summit last year, the German government said
on Wednesday. Macedonia and the Middle East will also be discussed
at the meeting, government spokesman Uwe Karsten-Heye told a regular
news conference. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will host French
President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. Berlin
and Paris resolved to hold high level talks every six to eight weeks
after falling out during negotiations for a new EU treaty in Nice
last December. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and his French
opposite number Hubert Vedrine were due to meet later on
Wednesday in Paris to prepare the talks.
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has arrived in South
Africa to lead a conference on racism that starts on Friday in Durban
with attendance by a U.S. delegation still in doubt.
In recent days the USA said State Secretary Colin Powell would not
attend if Arab nations "picked on" Israel in draft resolutions.
Annan said he hoped Washington would change its mind. Tanzania's
foreign minister Jakaya Kikwete said Powell's absence would be
disappointing. On issues such as the slave trade and colonialism,
the USA should face debate instead of boycotting it, Kikwete said.
Some 14,000 participants are expected. U.N. human rights chief Mary
Robinson has told a parallel forum of anti-racism groups in Durban
that all countries should send delegates to the main conference.
A Spanish passenger aircraft has crash landed at Malaga in southern
Spain, killing at least three people, according to initial reports.
Emergency crews found 16 injured survivors among the wreckage. On
board were 44 passengers and crew, arriving from Spain's North
African enclave of Melilla. Civil aviation officials said the
turbo-prop aircraft belonged to Binter, a regional subsidiary of
Spains's Iberia airlines. A survivor said plane's motors failed.
Serbian News Network - SNN
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.antic.org/
