Deutsche Welle
English Service News
November 26 th , 2001, 16:00 UTC
Seven weeks into the air campaign against Afghanistan's Taliban
regime, the U.S. military for the first time has deployed several
hundred regular Marine infantry troops on the ground near the
Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. Various agency reports, quoting the
Pentagon, said up to 1,500 troops and heavy equipment had been
brought into position and that U.S war planes had begun intensive
bombing of front line positions around Kandahar. Afghan Northern
Alliance sources say that Osama bin Laden and Taliban chief Mullah
Mohammed Omar were believed to be in the area. The Northern Alliance
also said on Monday that it had taken full control of the northern
city of Kunduz, but that the prison revolt by foreign Taliban
fighters in Mazar-i-Sharif was not over.
Officials of the ex-Afghan king Zahir Shar, among Afghan faction
delegations arriving in Bonn for a U.N. conference, have urged the
Northern Alliance to share power.
A spokesman for the Rome-based ex-king, who's seen as a compromise
figure, said an international peacekeeping force was also needed in
Afghanistan. The conference is due to start on Tuesday in a secluded
hilltop hotel outside Bonn. U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has
proposed the formation of a provisional two-year Afghan government.
The German Foreign Office says bilateral talks are already under way.
Bundeswehr Transall cargo planes have begun shuttle flights to
Turkey from the U.S. Ramstein airbase in Germany to supply U.S.
forces in Afghanistan. The first plane carried nine tons of
blankets. Ten days ago, Germany's parliament narrowly approved the
mobilization of up to 3,900 German troops for logistical operations.
On Saturday, Green delegates at a party conference in Rostock backed
the mobilization, despite the party's pacifist roots.
The radical Palestinian group Hamas on Monday claimed responsibility
for a suicide bombing at the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel -
just hours before the arrival in the Middle East of two U.S. envoys.
William Burns and retired general Anthony Zinni are first due to
meet Israel government officials in a bid to quell violence and
restart peace talks. At Erez, a 24-year-old Palestinian bomber
killed himself and wounded two Israeli soldiers. Hamas had
threatened reprisals after its military chief Mahmoud Abu Hanoud was
killed in an Israeli helicopter raid on Friday.
Germany's Minister for Research and Technology, Edelgard Bulmahn, on
Monday strongly condemned the first cloning of a human embryo by the
U.S. biotechnology company, Advanced Cell Technology. Ms. Bulmahn
denounced the process as irresponsible and said the German
government supported a worldwide ban on human cloning. The German
Medical Association called the clone experiment a nightmare. U.S.
President George W. Bush criticized the move, saying he supported a
Congressional bill to ban this type of research. In Rome, the
Vatican said the scientists were tampering with human life.
An election to pick a replacement governor is under way on the
majority Moslem southern Philippine island of Mindanao, with troops
on guard and turnout light as many voters avoided polling. The
region's fugitive governor and former guerrilla chief Nur Misuari
was arrested on a Malaysian border island over the weekend after
escaping a governmnent dragnet. His followers staged a revolt on the
neighboring island of Jolo last week which left more than 100 people
dead. Two candidates for governor in Monday's election are a former
MNLF official Parouk Hussein and the banana magnate Akmad Omar. Some
1.2 million residents are eligible to vote, 80 percent of them
Moslem.
Nepal's King Gyanendra is expected to declare a state of emergency
on Monday after Maoist rebels fighting to overthrow the monarchy
attacked military and government buildings and an airport control
tower. Three days of violence, the worst in five years, has so far
claimed at least 130 lives, including 45 members of the security
forces. The latest guerilla offensive was the first to target the
military. Some 2,000 people have died since the insurgency started
in 1996.
Genocide survivors from around the world are gathered in Rwanda for
a conference on mass murder practices, post-genocide life and to
commemorate victims. Rwandans, Armenians, Jews Cambodians and
Bosnians are among those invited to the so-called "Life After Death"
conference in Kigali. An exhibition running parallel to the
conference documents the Rwandan genocide with photographs and a
display of weapons.
Serbian News Network - SNN
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