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Deutsche Welle English Service News 27th September 2002, 16:00 UTC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD: Germany to Join UN Security Council Germany is expected to be among countries up for election as a non-permanent member to the UN Security Council. Diplomats hope this role may help improve transatlantic relations. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1430_A_644920_1_A,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- US and UK send out envoys to win support for UN resolution on Iraq The United States and the UK have launched a diplomatic drive to try to persuade key UN Security Council members to back a tough new draft UN resolution on Iraq. Senior US and UK envoys are in Paris, and will later go on to Moscow. President Jacques Chirac of France Russia, France and China are among the five permanent members of the Security Council who have veto powers - alongside the US and Britain. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov expressed further doubt over US policy on Iraq. He said there was as yet "no clear proof" that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. But he added that it would be an "unforgivable error" to delay the return of UN weapons inspectors. The draft resolution - sponsored by the US and Britain - is believed to contain clauses that could provide the legal backing for possible military action against Baghdad. Germany welcomes US willingness to resolve differences Germany has welcomed signals from Washington that their bilateral dispute over a possible war in Iraq could be resolved soon. A German Government spokesman said that recent comments from the US administration showed willingness to build on the strong relations between the two countries adding that Berlin would work to bring relations back to normal. A White House spokesman said earlier that the United States would continue to work well with Germany. US Secretary of State Colin Powell said that the damage done to US-German relations by the perceived anti-American election campaign of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was considerable but not permanent. Germany to be voted on to UN Security Council Germany, Spain, Pakistan, Chile and Angola are currently being elected to the U.N. Security Council, none of them facing opposition in their respective geographical regions. Although election for the five is assured, diplomats are speculating that Germany's vote will be a high one in the 190-member U.N. General Assembly because of its criticism of Washington's potential war against Iraq. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder won re-election last week by campaigning against an Iraqi war, saying his country would not join a conflict, thereby angering Washington. Germany, Spain, Pakistan, Chile and Angola will be taking their seats in January, replacing Ireland, Norway, Colombia, Singapore and Mauritius. East Timor wins UN seat The small new Southeast Asian nation of East Timor, the first country to be born in the 21st century, has won a seat at the United Nations, swelling the world body's membership to 191. East Timor, which gained independence on May 20 after breaking away from Indonesia following a bloody conflict, was approved as a new member by the U.N. General Assembly by acclamation. It joins the United Nations just weeks after Switzerland, which was approved on Sept. 10 after the Swiss people voted to seek membership in a March referendum. Hamas commander alive despite Israeli helicopter attack Israel has said a Palestinian militant at the top of its most-wanted list survived a helicopter attack on his car, a strike that wounded civilians and drew international condemnation. A member of Israel's security cabinet, confirmed Palestinian reports that Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif was injured but alive after missiles blew up the car on a crowded street in Gaza City on Thursday. Two other members of Hamas, a radical Islamic group that has carried out dozens of suicide bombings in Israel, were killed in the attack. Palestinian hospital officials said 27 people were hurt. Some 12,000 people marched in funeral processions for the two men through the streets of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip. Hamas vowed more bombings, raising the spectre of a sharp rise in violence at a time when Washington wants to keep a lid on Israeli-Palestinian tensions ahead of a possible U.S. military assault on Iraq. Foreigners continue to flee Bouake People continue to try to flee a rebel-held city in Ivory Coast as French troops kept open an escape route and the government prepared for an onslaught on renegade soldiers. West Africa's main powers assured President Laurent Gbagbo they would stand with him. The week-old conflict, in which hundreds have died, has raised fears over cocoa supplies from a country producing 40 percent of the world's crop. Soldiers from former colonial power France deployed on Thursday in Bouake, the biggest city after Abidjan, to open a corridor down which foreigners continue to flee to the capital Yamoussoukro. Milosevic says Srebrenica massacre work of Bosnians and French Former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic has said that the massacre at Srebrenica of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in 1995 was a plot hatched to make the world hate Serbs. Milosevic accused French spies and the Bosnian Muslim Government of the time of engineering the killings. Involvement at Srebrenica is one of a list of 61 charges the former Yugoslav president faces in the second stage of his war crimes trial which opened on Thursday, dealing with the 1992-1995 wars in Bosnia and Croatia. Milosevic alleged that the Bosnian Muslim Government and the French Secret Service conceived the plan surrounding Srebrenica in July 1995. Just days later the town, which had been a designated UN safe haven, was abandoned by Dutch troops and over-run by Bosnian Serb forces. Milosevic denied the involvement of Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his general, Ratko Mladic, both of whom are indicted alongside him over Srebrenica. Boat capsizes off Senegal, at least 41 dead Hundreds of people are feared drowned after a Senegalese passenger ferry capsized off the coast of Gambia in a violent storm. At least 41 people bodies have already been recovered and more than 30 survivors are said to have been pulled from the water. It is unclear how many passengers were on the ferry, but officials say the figure could be close to 800. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. 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