Deutsche Welle English Service News 24.10.2002, 16:00 UTC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD:
Chechnya and Russia: A History of Conflict After fighting in 1994 and 1995, the situation in Chechnya had calmed. But Putin has vowed to tromp the separatist movement, and this has fueled the discontent in Chechyna that led up to this week's Moscow hostage drama. 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_660987_1_A,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Rebels to free no more hostages) About 40 Chechen rebels, who seized a theatre in Moscow have vowed to release no more of the from 500 to 800 hostages they are holding, a Russian negotiator said on Thursday.The rebels released about 150 hostages soon after taking over the theatre on Wednesday evening and freed a handful more on Thursday morning. A woman hostage was shot yesterday, when she tried to escape and her body removed today by police. The rebels are demanding talks with President Putin, who has taken charge of the rescue operations, an end to the war in Chechnya and an immediate withdrawal of fifty-percent of Russian troops in the separatist republic. The hostage-takers said that the theatre had been mined and would be blown up if their demands are not met within 7 days. The hostages are said to include several western foreigners, including Germans. Hunt for US sniper appears to have ended The hunt for the Washington sniper appears to have ended today, with the arrest by Maryland State Police of former U.S. soldier and Afro-American John Allen Muhammad, a Gulf War veteran and his 17-year-old step-son John Lee Malvo. They were arrested while sleeping in a car at a highway rest area near Middleton, Maryland. The FBI said that they were reasonably sure that the two were connected to the sniper series, but that they were not acting with any group or with any organized group of people. Ten people were killed and three wounded by the sniper in the Washington DC area over the past three weeks. No compromise in sight on UN resolution on Iraq There is still no compromise in sight on a new draft resolution on action on Iraq that could possibly win broad agreement among members of the United Nations Security Council. The United States is pushing for a tough resolution on Iraq, and it's a U.S. draft that is the basis for the current discussion. But Russia has rejected the latest version of the U.S. draft resolution and France is also reported to be unfriendly towards U.S arguments. U.S. officials have expressed increased impatience at the pace of the talks, but US. Ambassador John Negroponte has stressed that the negotiations are not over. The Security Council meets again on Friday, and on Monday it will hear from the United Nations' chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix. Germany and Jordan call for UN solution to Iraq question Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and King Abdullah of Jordan are agreed that the current Iraq crisis must be solved through peaceful means. The two leaders met in Berlin on Wednesday. Following their talks, both stressed that the United Nations was the right forum for seeking a solution to the crisis. Chancellor Schroeder said the main focus must remain on getting UN weapons inspectors free and unlimited access to all suspect-sites in Iraq, including the eight presidential palace compounds. Nepal says kills 25 Maoist rebels in gunbattles Nepal said on Thursday that troops shot dead 25 Maoist rebels in separate gunbattles in the west of the revolt-racked nation. The rebels, who want to overthrow the constitutional monarchy in the world's only Hindu kingdom, are yet to respond to an offer by interim Prime Minister Chand for talks aimed at ending the six-year-old revolt that has claimed more than 5,000 lives. King Gyanendra appointed Chand on October 11th after dismissing former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, who had called for a postponement of a general election scheduled for November because of threats by the rebels to disrupt the vote. The rebellion that began in 1996 has seriously hurt the impoverished country's aid-dependent economy, crippled tourism and scared away investors. Becker receives suspended sentence for tax evasion A Munich court has found Germany's former tennis star, Boris Becker, guilty of tax evasion. And it has handed him a two-year suspended sentence and a 300-thousand euro fine. The court found the three-time Wimbledon champion guilty of evading taxes on millions of euros of income between 1991 and 1993. During those years,Mr. Becker was registered as a resident of Monaco, but on Tuesday, he admitted that he spent most of that time in Munich. Prosecutors had called for a three-and-a-half year prison sentence. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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/
