English Service News 1st March, 2002, 16:00 UTC English Service News ----------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD:
Smoking Out the War Criminals in Europe's Backyard After years of disinterest, the war on terror has forced the international community to go after one of the world's most wanted war criminals: former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1433_A_464689_1_A,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------- Police in India Trying to Restore Calm Police and soldiers in India have been dispatched throughout several districts to quell rowdy mobs involved in the country's worst religious violence in a decade. Police fired shots to disperse angry crowds in the town of Rajkot where three days of Hindu-Moslem violence has claimed the lives of at least 200 people. Five people were reportedly killed from the police gunfire. The authorities were also said to be on alert in the state of West Bengal where people were trying to protest the violence in Rajkot. Angry Hindus have killed scores of Muslims in western India in retaliation for a deadly attack by a Moslem mob on a train in which 58 Hindus, many of them women and children, were burned alive. Israel Steps up Raids in Palestinian Areas The Israeli army has stepped up its raids into refugee camps in the West Bank in an attempt to crush terrorism. The latest operations involved Israeli assaults on two refugee camps in the West Bank. Palestinian officials said the raids were intended to sabotage a Saudi peace bid. They also said at least five Palestinians have been killed and 36 wounded in the latest raids. Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, in the meantime, has called on the international community to act quickly to halt the increasing violence before it engulfs the entire region. Meanwhile, a recent opinion poll in the Maariv newspaper showed that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's popularity was declining rapidly. SFOR Troops in Bosnia Continue Man Hunt NATO troops in Bosnia are stepping up their efforts to capture accused war criminal Radovan Karadzic. Witnesses in southeastern Bosnia said helicopters from the NATO-led SFOR peacekeeping force were scouring mountainous and woodland areas in search of the former political leader, but were having little luck finding him. On Thursday, NATO soldiers used explosives to blast their way into buildings in the area of Celebici and found three weapons caches from a compound where they believed Karadzic had been hiding out. SFOR troops said they had received word after Thursday's operation that Karadzic was still in the area. Western officials have said they would step up operations to ensure that Karadzic and his military chief Ratko Mladic were brought to justice for charges of genocide and other atrocities of war which occurred during the Balkan conflict. Suspected Militants Arrested in Italy Italian police have arrested five men and detained a sixth on suspicion of having links to militant groups including Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Friday's arrests included a man taken into custody at Rome's airport after arriving on a flight from Saudi Arabia. His travelling companion was also detained but not formally arrested. The other men were taken into police custody after early morning raids on their Rome apartments. Among them were three Algerians previously described by Italy's secret police as "elements possibly linked to al Qaeda cells". The detentions were the latest in a crackdown by security forces in Italy, which the U.S. State Department believes is home to the European headquarters of bin Laden's organisation. U.S. Relents over Detainees' Protests A brief hunger strike by nearly 200 al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Thursday has prompted U.S. military officials to relent over a ban on wearing turbans during prayers, the Washington Post reported on Friday. The refusal to eat by about 190 prisoners, along with a 45-minute demonstration were the first acts of defiance by the Afghan war detainees, the Post said. The paper said Marine Gen. Michael Lehnert, who heads the prison camp, told the detainees over loudspeakers late on Thursday that he was reversing policy and allowing them to wrap bedsheets around their heads as turbans. Swiss Firm Suspected of Arms Sale to Iraq The Swiss federal prosecutor's office said authorities were investigating a Zurich company suspected of illegally selling machinery to Iraq. The unidentified company allegedly sold drilling equipment used to manufacture artillery barrels in 1999 worth about 1.5 million euros. According to Swiss radio, the probe comes after a German investigation into six firms also suspected of violating international sanctions by selling arms to Baghdad. Karzai Seeks Help to End Afghan Art Smuggling Afghanistan's interim leader Hamid Karzai has urged the United Nations and his country's neighbours to help stop Afghan art smuggling. On his visit to Paris, Karzai said smugglers in Afghanistan were clearing out archaeological sites and even robbing graves to find ancient artefacts to sell on the black market. During Karzai's visit to the Paris headquarters of the U.N.'s cultural agency, Afghan Culture Minister Raheen Makhdoom signed an accord for UNESCO aid to reopen the plundered Kabul Museum and possibly build a new museum to house artworks that Kabul hopes to retrieve. --------------------------------------------------------------- For more information please turn to our internet website at http://dw-world.de/english Here you'll find out what's happening in Germany, Europe and the rest of the world. News and background reports from the fields of current affairs, culture, business and science. And of course the DW website also has information about DW-RADIO and DW-TV programmes: topics, broadcast times and frequencies. You can even listen to all programmes as audio-on-demand. Serbian News Network - SNN [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.antic.org/
