Deutsche Welle English Service News 23.10.2003, 16:00 UTC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD:
With Zero Growth, Germany To Borrow Billions Just as the German government seeks to expedite passage of one of the most ambitious reform packages in the post-World War II era, it admitted just how badly Europe's largest economy is suffering on Thursday. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1431_A_1012262_1_A,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Madrid Iraq conference - mixed expectations A donors' conference for Iraq has begun in Madrid amid admissions that the goal of 56 billion dollars will not be met, and that four billion of Iraq oil revenues is unaccounted. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan told 80 nations and organisations represented in Madrid that Iraq's reconstruction could not await debate on the issue of sovereignty. So far, just three billion dollars has been pledged beyond the US's 20 billion. Germany and France have pledged only relatively small amounts. At a parallel Madrid conference, firms will seek reconstruction contracts in Iraq. Iran tells U.N. it has no more nuclear secrets Iran has admitted being "discreet" about its nuclear program in the past, but said on Thursday it had no more secrets after giving the United Nations a full declaration of all its nuclear activities. The UN's nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA, said Iran had delivered key documents eight days ahead of a deadline. The IAEA is eager to have details about the origin of uranium enrichment centrifuge parts, which Iran says it bought on the black market. Tehran blames the parts for contaminating two sites where the UN agency found traces of weapons-grade uranium. On Tuesday, a trio of EU foreign ministers got assurances from Tehran that it would suspend its enrichment program, but on Thursday Iran said it would "never abandon nuclear technology." Bush wraps up Asian tour US President George W. Bush has wrapped up the final leg of his Asian tour in Australia where he agreed to a bilateral free trade agreement by the end of the year. During his 20-hour visit, Bush also thanked Australia's parliament for its support during the Iraq war. His visit was not without protest as 2000 anti-war demonstrators took to the streets and some members of parliament refused to stand and applaud him after his address. Blair says Europe must have own defense British Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted on Thursday that Europe must have its own defense capability. But he said the EU had no intention of setting up a rival force to NATO after Washington raised concerns about EU defense plans, including a new military headquarters in Belgium. EU and NATO diplomats have sought to resolve the dispute at meetings in Brussels this week after a U.S. envoy warned that certain EU plans were a significant threat to the future of the 19-member NATO alliance. The United States argues that Europe needs to spend more on military resources, but not on a new European military headquarters, a proposal put forward by France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg, and viewed as treachery in Washington. Britain calls North Korea nuclear arms drive unacceptable British Prime Minister Tony Blair has called for a concerted international effort to persuade North Korea not to build nuclear weapons. Speaking at his monthly press conference in London, Blair said such an arms program was unacceptable, adding that it would be very dangerous for the world, if North Korea got a long-range nuclear weapons capability. The prime minister described North Korea as "a deeply repressive state" where people lived in appalling misery. Palestinians execute two suspected collaborators Gunmen executed two Palestinians at the Tulkarm refugee camp in the West Bank on Thursday after the men confessed to collaborating with Israeli intelligence. Witnesses said members of militant Palestinian factions played a videotape of the confessions to residents of the camp before shooting the suspects in the street. The two men, aged 21 and 25, were kidnapped last week by members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. Militants have killed dozens of their Palestinian brethren accused of helping Israeli forces since the Intifada uprising began in September 2000. Serb police launch hunt for top war crimes fugistive Serbian police have received an anonymous tip on the whereabouts of top war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic, which they are following up, according to Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic. Serbia is under heavy international pressure to arrest the former Bosnian Serb army commander of the 1992-1995 civil war. U.N. war crimes prosecutors also have repeatedly demanded that Serbia arrest Mladic. Along with Radovan Karadzic, who led a breakaway Bosnian Serb republic, Mladic is wanted for the massacre of 8,000 Moslems in the town of Srebrenica. Germany's debt soars - growth at null Public debt in Germany has ballooned to a record level, with new borrowings this year totalling 43.4 billion euros. Finance Minister Hans Eichel also admitted that next year's public deficit would again breach the EU's three-percent limit. This year's new borrowings are virtually double what Eichel had originally planned. He blamed the 43 billion shortfall on declines in tax revenues and extra spending to alleviate unemployment. Earlier, Economics Minister Wolfgang Clement had lowered to government's growth forecast for this year to zero in line with a prognosis delivered yesterday by six of Germany's leading research institutes. UN wins Sakharov Prize for Human Rights The United Nations has been awarded this year's Sakharov Prize for Human Rights by the European Parliament. Besides UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan, the prize is meant to honour the UN special envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and 22 other UN staff members, who died in a bomb attack in Baghdad in August, the EU parliament in Strasbourg said. The award is named after the former Soviet dissident and physicist Andrei Sakharov. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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/
