Deutsche Welle
English Service News
31. 08. 2005, 17:00 UTC
2005, 16:00 UTC
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Today's highlight on DW-WORLD:
European Leaders Honor "Solidarnosc"
Leading European politicians, including Germany's president, met in
Poland to honor the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Solidarity
movement.
To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the
internet address below:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1696713,00.html
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More than 700 killed in Baghdad
Iraqi health officials say as many as 1,000 people may have died in
a stampede of Shia pilgrims in northern Baghdad. The incident
happened on a river bridge as about a million Shias marched to a
shrine for a religious festival. Witnesses said panic spread over
rumours of suicide bombers in the crowd. Radical Sunni groups have
often targeted Shias in the past, but Iraqi officials said the
tragedy had nothing to do with sectarian tension. So far, there have
been some 700 confirmed deaths. Earlier, mortar rounds had been
fired into the crowd, killing at least seven people. Iraq's interior
ministry said most of those killed in the stampede were women and
children. Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari has declared three
days of mourning.
Katrina unleashes mayhem in US
Emergency teams in the southern United States are battling to reach
survivors of Hurricane Katrina, the most destructive storm to hit
the country in decades. Hundreds of people are feared dead and the
Louisiana city of New Orleans is badly flooded. An estimated 80
percent of the city is submerged. Amid worsening conditions,
officials plan to evacuate a New Orleans stadium where up to 20,000
people have taken shelter. Hurricane Katrina has left more than a
million people in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama without power,
and many roads in the region are still underwater.
Oil prices ease down again
Oil prices have eased from record highs of above 70 dollars a barrel
after the United States offered to loan crude to replace production
lost when Hurricane Katrina ripped through the Gulf of Mexico. Fears
that Hurricane Katrina may have damaged US oil facilities had caused
the price rise. This followed reports of drifting oil rigs and
flooded refineries in the Gulf of Mexico and along the US coast. The
US Department of Energy has said that at least nine Gulf Coast
refineries have shut down production as a result of the storm.
Israel approves Gaza border handover
The Israeli parliament has approved a deal to hand control of a
buffer zone along the Gaza-Egypt border to Egyptian security forces
after Israel completes its pullout from the territory. The agreement
sanctions the deployment of 750 Egyptian border police on the
Egyptian side of the Gaza frontier to replace Israeli troops who
have been stationed there for 38-years of occupation. It will be
first paramilitary deployment on the border since the 1967 Middle
East war when Israel seized the Gaza Strip, then administered by
Egypt, and the Sinai peninsula.
Lebanon quizzes suspects in Hariri case
In Lebanon, a pro-Syrian former government minister has been
released after questioning by United Nations investigators looking
into the assassination of former prime minister, Rafik Hariri. Four
other senior Lebanese figures detained on Tuesday were questioned by
the UN team before being handed over to the country's justice
system. Lebanon's pro-Syrian president Emile Lahoud has said the
five men remain innocent until proven otherwise. Many Lebanese
suspect Syria was behind the car bombing in Beirut six months ago
that claimed Hariri's life. The murder unleashed a wave of public
pressure, which forced Damascus to withdraw its troops from Lebanon
in April.
Social Democrats hold conference
Germany's governing Social Democrats are holding a party conference
to launch the final and critical phase of their election campaign.
German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's future rides on closing the
SPD's significant lag in the polls. Speaking at a special party
conference in Berlin, Chancellor Schroeder said he was convinced that
they could still win next month's vote. The latest opinion surveys
give the conservative opposition CDU and its Bavarian sister party,
the CSU more than 40 percent of decided voters, with less than 30
percent for Chancellor Schroeder's SPD.
Poland marks 25 years of Solidarity
Foreign leaders have paid tribute to Poland's Solidarity movement at
events to mark the founding of the first free trade union in the
former Soviet bloc. European Commission President Jose Manuel
Barroso said the movement had launched an irreversible process
towards freedom in eastern Europe. German President Horst Koehler
highlighted the role Poland played in the fall of the Iron Curtain
and German reunification. The ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary
took place at the Gdansk shipyard where electrician Lech Walesa led
striking dockers 25 years ago. The mass protest galvanised
opposition to Poland's communist regime in the 1980s. Walesa won the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 and in 1990 he became the first freely
elected president of Poland in 50 years.
Finland find mild strain of bird flu
Finnish officials have said a low-pathogenic strain of bird flu
virus has been found in three seagulls discovered dead, but that the
birds had died of starvation, not the disease itself. Tests have
been carried out to determine the exact strain of the virus the
birds carried. Results of the tests are expected next week. Russia's
agriculture ministry said on Wednesday that the deadly bird flu
epidemic was present in 47 villages, while another 80 villages were
being kept under observation.
Pakistan police officer fired over rape
Authorities in Pakistan have suspended a police chief accused of
ordering the rape of a married woman who was seeking the release of
her detained husband. Faisalabad police chief Khalid Abdullah was
removed from his post after Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz ordered an
inquiry into allegations against his department. Abdullah has denied
any wrongdoing, accusing the woman of lying. Hundreds of women are
raped in Pakistan every year but only a fraction of the cases are
reported.
German jobless rate drops slightly
The number of people looking for a job in Germany dropped slightly
in the past month. According to statistics released by the Federal
Labour Agency in Nuremberg, more than 4.7 million people were
officially out of work in August. That's 44,000 less than in July
but about 380,000 more than in the same period one year ago. This
translates to a national unemployment rate of 11.4 percent. Labour
Agency officials said much of the increase compared to last year was
due to changes in who is counted among the unemployed. The job data
is the last to be released prior to next month's federal election.
Germany's consistently high unemployment has been a key issue in the
election campaign.
Indian PM to meet Kashmiri separatists
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has invited Kashmir's main
separatist alliance, the Hurriyat Conference, for peace talks. The
negotiations, aimed at resuming a dialogue stalled for a year, are
scheduled to be held next week ahead of a meeting between Singh and
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. The two leaders are expected
to meet in New York on September 14 to push forward a peace process
in a bid to resolve the decades-old dispute over the Himalayan
region of Kashmir. According to official estimates, more than 45,000
people have been killed in Indian Kashmir since separatists launched
a revolt against New Delhi's rule in 1989.
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