English Service News 2nd March, 2002, 16:00 UTC English Service News ----------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD:
Violence Spreads through Gujarat, India Thousands of soldiers have been deployed across India's northwestern state of Gujarat in a bid to quell unrest between Hindus and minority Moslems. Germany joins international community in condemning the violence. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1434_A_465422_1_A,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------- Religious Violence in India Continues: PM Calls for Peace Violence continued to rage in India's western Gujarat state on Saturday as the Prime Minister appealed for peace while sending in more troops to restore calm. Despite the deployment of thousands of heavily armed soldiers to reinforce overstretched police in Gujarat, 35 people were burnt alive in two separate clashes between Hindus and Muslims. The death toll is nearing 300 from four days of violence sparked when a suspected Muslim mob on Wednesday set fire to a train carrying Hindus and killed 58 mostly women and children. On Saturday, at least 27 people were burnt alive in a predominantly Muslim village and eight more were killed when a mob torched a Muslim-owned bakery. Gujarat authorities have rounded up about 1,200 people since the killings began. Israeli Forces Pull Back from Refugee Camp Israel has said its forces withdrew to the outskirts of one of the refugee camps it raided while seeking out Palestinian militants. A military statement said troops had pulled back from inside the camp in Jenin, in the northern West Bank, but were still in strategic positions after seizing explosives and arresting a number of suspects for questioning. An army spokesman said military forces remained inside a second, larger refugee camp at Balata, outside the Palestinian-ruled city of Nablus. At least 20 Palestinians, civilians as well as police and gunmen, and two Israeli soldiers have been killed in fierce fighting since the soldiers, backed by tanks and helicopters, launched the raids early on Thursday. Egyptian President in Washington for Talks on Mideast Situation Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is in Washington to persuade the U.S. to play a more active role in Middle East peacemaking. Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979 and is one of Washington's closest allies in the Arab world. Mubarak is due to meet with President George W. Bush on Tuesday to tell him that the United States cannot step away from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but rather it must use a recent Saudi peace initiative as a means to reinvigorate peace talks. Egypt has welcomed the Saudi proposal for normal relations between Israel and Arab states, provided Israel withdraws to the borders as they stood before the Middle East conflict of 1967. African Leaders Resist Action Against Mugabe but Come up with "Terrorist Action Plan" African Commonwealth leaders have refused Britain's call for the organisation to give Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe an ultimatum to hold free elections or face punitive action. Speaking at the start of a Commonwealth summit in Australia, several African heads of state said it was too soon to talk of action before Zimbabwe's March 9 presidential vote. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has argued for Zimbabwe's immediate suspension from the Commonwealth, accusing Mugabe of orchestrating a campaign of intimidation against political opponents which violates basic democratic values. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth leaders have agreed to expel any member state that aids, finances or harbours terrorists. In the first major announcement of their four-day meeting, the leaders said they had agreed on a "terrorist action plan" under which members would also act to stop abuse of financial systems while freezing and confiscating the assets of terrorists. Bombing in Afghanistan Continues U.S. and allied forces are continuing to mount operations in eastern Afghanistan to eliminate Taliban and al Qaeda fighters there. Local residents said that Afghan troops and U.S. bombers on Saturday attacked hundreds of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters holed up in mountains in east Afghanistan. Although most Taliban fighters and their allies in Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organisation have been defeated in most of the country, some pockets of resistance still exists. Meanwhile, six men arrested in Italy on suspicion of terrorists links allegedly were recorded talking about terror-related activities. Police said installed wire taps in a mosque in Rome recorded the men discussing weapons, terror training camps as well as killing U.S. president Bush. Friday's arrests were part of the crackdown on militants by security forces in Italy, which some believe is the home to the European headquarters of bin Laden's organisation. Shuttle Mission On; Update on Mars NASA has decided to continue the flight of its shuttle Columbia, which was launched on Friday, despite worries about one of its cooling systems. The space craft has seven astronauts on board who will service the orbitting Hubble Space Telescope. Meanwhile, NASA scientists say the "Odyssey", a spacecraft orbitting Mars, has identified significant amounts of hydrogen, suggesting ice near the planet's south pole. Ice, or water, raises the prospect of life forms on Mars. --------------------------------------------------------------- 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/
