Deutsche Welle
English Service News
August 31st, 2001, 16:00 UTC
The Macedonian parliament began to debate reforms on Friday giving
more rights to ethnic Albanians after the start was delayed for more
than six hours by a few hundred Macedonian protesters. The debate
was called to discuss a US and European Union sponsored peace plan,
which was signed earlier this month by all the main political party
leaders. The session will also discuss whether to start the process
of changing the constitution of the former Yugoslav republic, in
line with the peace document. The reforms include greater official
use of the Albanian language, a big rise in the number of Albanians
in the police, and government decentralisation to allow Albanians to
run more of their affairs in many areas. Germany's NATO contingent
rose to 350 overnight with the arrival of troops near Tetovo. They
will be attached to a French division.
In The Hague, a Dutch regional court has rejected an application
from the Yugoslav war crimes suspect Slobodan Milosevic that he be
freed immediately.
The Dutch court ruled that the U.N. Tribunal was the legitimate body
to assess the case against the detained Yugoslav ex-president, who
was spirited to The Hague from Belgrade in June. Last week lawyers
for Milosevic claimed the tribunal was not legally constituted and
therefore it was not entitled to keep him in detention. Milosevic
refuses to recognise the U.N. court. On Thursday, prosecutor Carla
Del Ponto said she would also press genocide counts related to
Bosnia on top of crimes against humanity in Kosovo.
The U.N.'s anti-racism conference has opened in Durban, already
hampered by controversy; ranging from the Middle East crisis to
African calls of compensation for colonial slavery.
Host South African President Thabo Mbeke told delegates that the
world remained divided between rich whites and impoverished blacks.
U.N. Secretary General Koffi Annan said the eight-day meeting could
not afford to fail. The USA and Israel only plan to send low-level
delegations, facing Arab condemnation of Israel's treatment of the
Palestinians. In total 190 nations and organisations will have
representatives in Durban, including dozens of heads of state.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer is due to make a stopover in
Durban on Saturday. Already this week in Durban, there's been a
parallel anti-racism forum of non-governmental organisations.
The end of Israel's reoccupation of part of a Palestinian-ruled West
Bank town appeared on Friday to have set the stage for a possible
new round of Israeli-Palestinian truce talks. In Rome, a source
close to Italy's Foreign Ministry said Palestinian President Yasser
Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres may meet at an
international economic and business conference scheduled for
September 7-9 at Cernobbio, near Milan. Israeli media said the two
men would try to build on diplomatic efforts that led to the
withdrawal on Thursday of Israeli tanks and troops from the West
Bank town of Beit Jala. The pullout, brokered by the European Union,
ended a two-day Israeli incursion into the Palestinian-controlled
town near Jerusalem. Meanwhile European Union foreign policy chief
Javier Solana will visit the Middle East next week for talks with
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Peres and Arafat.
Afghanistan's Taliban leadership has closed the offices of two more
Christian aid agencies. The foreign aid workers of the AIM and SERVE
organisations have been given 72 hours to leave the country. The
Taliban arrested eight foreign aid workers from the German-based
Shelter Now International aid agency last month along with 16
Afghanis who they accuse of trying to convert Muslims to
Christianity. Diplomats from Germany, Australia and the USA are
still waiting for permission to be granted a second visit to the
detained foreign workers. Meanwhile, relatives of the 16 Afghanis
detainees have appealed for help, because their fate of is still
unknown.
More than 430 asylum-seekers remain stranded on the Norwegion ship
"Tampa" off Christmas Island, with Australia still refusing entry and
facing condemnation abroad as it looks for a multi-national solution.
U.N.-administered East Timor has made a conditional offer to accept
the boat people - a move dismissed as unlikely by Australian Foreign
Minister Alexander Downer. New Zealand too made a conditional
offer to accept some. From Durban, U.N. refugees commissioner Mary
Robinson said Australia's refusal was alarming, given its tradition
of immigration. Australian troops boarded the "Tampa" on Wednesday,
when it entered territorial waters. An Australian frigate the Arunta
is due in the area shortly. Canberra argues that the boat people
should return to their last port of call in Indonesia.
Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica criticised Serbian Prime
Minister Zoran Djindjic on Friday for what he called "abusing" the
public appearance of a war crimes suspect. Djindjic on Thursday
denounced the public appearance of a Yugoslav army colonel accused of
atrocities by the U.N. war crimes court. The attendance of Colonel
Veselin Sljivancanin at a presentation of a book about his life in a
northern Serbian town late on Wednesday damaged the country's
image, he said. Djindjic called on the army and Kostunica to act. He
said he expected the president to discuss Sljivancanin's status with
the army, warning that their credibility would otherwise suffer.
Sljivancanin, suspected of atrocities in the 1991 war in Croatia,
told reporters on Wednesday that he had committed no crime and would
not surrender to the U.N. tribunal. U.N. chief war crimes prosecutor
Carla Del Ponte is due to meet Djindjic when she comes to Belgrade
early next week.
Two people were killed and 11 hurt in a car crash involving a Slovak
government delegation near Belgrade on Friday, but Prime Minister
Mikulas Dzurinda escaped unhurt, Yugoslav officials said. Yugoslav
Interior Minister Zoran Zivkovic said neither Dzurinda nor any of
the ministers accompanying him were injured in the accident, but
that they had cut short their two-day official visit to the country,
the Beta news agency said. A Serb police official identified the two
dead as a Yugoslav government driver and a senior Slovak foreign
trade official.
A 42-year-old Turkish woman starved to death on Friday, the 32nd
hunger striker to die in a nationwide leftist protest against prison
reforms, a human rights activist said. Hulya Simsek died in Istanbul
after fasting for 285 days, an official of the Human Rights
Association said. The hunger strike protests began in prisons late
last year in protest at the introduction of new cell-based jails to
replace prisons based on large dormitory wards. Many prisoners
and their families strongly oppose the new jails, saying inmates
there are more vulnerable to official abuse. The Turkish authories
say the new jails meet European Union standards.
Italy said on Friday it wanted a United Nations food summit
scheduled for November in Rome to be moved away from the city and
said Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi would discuss options with the
U.N. next week. The Rome-based Food and Agricultural Organisation
(FAO) is due to host the summit from November 5-9 but Italy is
worried it may attract protests similar to those which struck a
Group of Eight summit in Genoa last month, when one demonstrator
died.
Serbian News Network - SNN
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http://www.antic.org/
