Deutsche Welle English Service News Tuesday, May 21st, 2002, 16:00 UTC
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD: Red Alert in Berlin Bush's 19 hour visit to Berlin is expected to be accompanied by 3 days of protests. Both the German peace movement and Berlin's leftwing radicals have found a new scapegoat - the US president. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1432_A_524428_1_A,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Kashmiri Leader Shot Amid border tensions with Pakistan, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has arrived in Kashmir, just minutes after masked gunmen shot dead a moderate Kashmiri separatist leader, Abdul Gani Lone. Also killed was Lone's bodyguard. The news agencies AP and Reuters say Lone was shot in Srinigar at a ceremony attended by 5,000 people. Vajpayee arrived in Kashmir under extreme security. He planned to visit Jammu, where militants attacked an army base last Tuesday, killing 31 people. For a fifth day, massed Indian and Pakistani forces have shelled one another, killing, reportedly, five more people. Pakistan has urged India to attend talks. The USA says deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage would visit the region soon. USA Ends Aid Freeze on Yugoslavia The USA has ended its freeze on 40 million dollars of economic aid to Yugoslavia, saying Belgrade was now cooperating by persuading suspects to surrender to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said he'd signed an approval after a visit in Washington by Serb Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. Also activated were indirect U.S. grants via the IMF and World Bank. Numerous suspects have flown to The Hague since last month when Belgrade passed handover legislation and set suspects a deadline. One of them, Milan Martic, the ex-president of a self-proclaimed Serb republic in Croatia, today pleaded not guilty to four charges before the tribunal. Martic is accused of ordering a rocket attack on Zagreb civilians in 1995. He has claimed the targets were military. A Bosnian Serb suspect, Dusan Knezevic, surrendered last Saturday. Israeli government plunged into crisis A stunning chain of events continues to unfold in Israel after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon fired four of the five cabinet ministers from the Shas party plus five deputy ministers from Shas and two deputy ministers from the United Torah Judaism party after both parties voted down the goverment's budget plan in the Knesset on Monday evening. The firings go into effect in 48 hours leaving room for some haggling. Even without the two parties, Sharon's coalition maintains a technical majority in parliament with 60 of the 120 Knesset members, however, the coalition is now vulnerable to motions of no confidence. Protests in Berlin Ahead of Bush Visit One day before President Bush visits Germany to begin his four-nation European tour, more than 5,000 demonstrators have rallied in Berlin against American policy, overseen by 10,000 police. Protestors from 240 organisations, grouped under the motto "Axis of peace", accused the USA of using its declared war against terrorism in the wake of September the 11th as a pretext to forge a "new world order" by flexing military and economic muscle to secure resources. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer warned protestors not to resort to violence in ways that could burden Europe-U.S. ties. A rally by his Greens party was interrupted by two-dozen demonstrators. They accused the Greens, who're in coalition with Chancellor Schroeder's SPD, of propagating war through solidarity with the USA. No Gap Emerging - Rice U.S. National Security Adviser Condaleezza Rice said the USA did not see protests in Berlin as a sign of a growing trans-Atlantic gap. Europe and the United States were strong partners with shared values, she said. President Bush arrives in Berlin on Wednesday evening. He addresses the German parliament on Thursday before headed to Russia. A 100 youth members of Germany's conservative CDU staged a "thank-you America" counter-rally at Berlin's former Checkpoint Charly. Large Refugee Returns to Afghanistan The UNHCR says more than 660,000 Afghan refugees have returned to Afghanistan since the start of this year, mostly from Pakistan. In March the UNHCR and the Afghan interim government launch a repatriation scheme, providing start-up aid to returnees. Still in Pakistan are some two million Afghan refugees and more than one million in Iran to the west. Iceland storms out of IWC Conference Iceland has walked out of the 48-nation International Whaling Conference in Japan, one day after the annual conference denied the pro-whaling nation full membership in the IWC. Stefan Asmundsson, head of Iceland's delegation said international law had been disregarded in the vote on its membership bid on Monday. The vote is seen as a major setback for pro-whaling nations such as Norway and Japan, which had hoped to take a crucial step towards a simple majority and shift the balance of power in the Commission in favor of those countries wanting to end the worldwide ban on commercial whaling. Anti-whaling nations such as New Zealand, Australia and the United States oppose any whale hunting other than for scientific purposes. Soccer Cup Strike-Free - Hotel Workers The union of Korean hotel workers has promised not to strike during the World Cup soccer finals as threatened from tomorrow by the more militant South Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. It's 600,000 members, spanning taxi drivers, hospital, metal and chemical workers, want their week shortened from 44 hours. The government has warned them not to hamper Cup events. Ten days before the Cup begins in South Korea and Japan, ticket chaos has emerged. Japanese organisers have set soccer's world body FIFA a deadline of Friday to deliver outstanding tickets. The Japanese and Korean committees say they're half-a-million tickets short. Many fans in Seoul had complained of booking errors and even cancellations of paid tickets. Alone in South Korea, 400,000 foreign tourists are expected. New Goethe Institute Head The new president of Germany's amalgamated Goethe-Institute and Inter Nationes, Jutta Limbach, has officially begun work at the organisation's Munich headquarters. She replaces Hilmar Hoffmann. Frau Limbach, the former presiding judge of Germany's constitutional court, told Deutsche Welle that her priorities were to strengthen cultural policy abroad and dialogue with Islamic communuties. This depended, Limbach added, on funding. Bavarian state culture minister Hans Zehetmaier criticised what he called severe budgetary cuts faced by the Goethe Institute since 1994. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said intercultural communication was a deciding factor, especially in the wake of September the 11th. The Geothe Institute has 128 bureaus in 76 countries, plus 16 in Germany. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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/
