Deutsche Welle English Service News 01. 09. 2005, 16:00 UTC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD:
Germany Prepared to Help the US While US emergency teams are working around the clock in the mostly submerged city of New Orleans, the German government, although highly critical of US environmental policies, is offering its help. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1697728,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- It's playtime again! DW-WORLD's "Click Back" monthly review quiz for September is waiting for you and will test your knowledge of stories we've written. If you answer all questions correctly, you can also win a great prize. To play, please go to: http://www.dw-world.de/english ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Hurricane survivors flee New Orleans Tens of thousands of hurricane survivors are fleeing flooded New Orleans as police try to crack down on widespread looting. Mayor Ray Nagin says it'll take three months before residents, including the million who fled ahead of Monday's hurricane, can re-inhabit the city. Officials of neighbouring Louisiana and Mississippi states say Hurricane Katrina's winds and nine-metre surge waves devastated a swathe of buildings along the Mexico Gulf coastline. President George W. Bush said it was one of the worst natural disasters in US history. Convoys of buses are evacuating 20,000 refugees from New Orlean's damaged Superdome stadium to Houston in Texas. Officials say the death toll, already in the hundreds, will rise dramatically. The coastguard says 20 Gulf oil rigs and platforms are missing. Germany and France offer help Germany and France have offered to help to hurricane-hit regions of the southern United States. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said Germany could send equipment to provide temporary accommodation and sterilise water for drinking. The French foreign ministry said it could send relief teams from the French Antilles in the Caribbean. Both France and Germany have set up information hotlines. Mass funerals in Iraq after stampede In Iraq mass funerals have taken place for many of the nearly 1,000 Shiite Muslim pilgrims killed in Wednesday's stampede in Baghdad. Desperate relatives are combing hospitals for missing victims, including children. Bodies are still being pulled from waters under the Aimmah Bridge where panic was sparked by rumours of suicide bombers. Numerous world leaders, including Pope Benedict and the World Council of Churches, have sent Iraqis their condolences. Iraq's new govenment, meanwhile, has said it has carried out its first three executions of convicted murderers since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Many Western governments and rights groups had hoped that post-war Iraq would abolish the death penalty. Beslan remembers school massacre People in the southern Russian town of Beslan are beginning three days of mourning to remember those killed in a school siege one year ago. Over 300 people were killed after Russian forces attacked suspected Chechen rebels who had taken more than 1,000 people hostage in a school in Beslan. Most of those killed were children. The families of those killed have accused authorities of covering-up and hampering investigations. It's still not clear who was responsible for triggering the bloodbath. German prosecutors probe Daimler Prosecutors in the German city of Stuttgart have launched an investigation into allegations of insider trading at carmaker DaimlerChrysler. A spokeswoman for the prosecutors' office said the probe was based on information provided by Germany's financial regulatory body, BaFin. The regulator opened its own probe last month into the circumstances surrounding the sudden departure of CEO Juergen Schrempp in July. BaFin says it has grounds to believe that illegal trading of DaimlerChrysler shares may have taken place just before Schrempp's announcement. Israel, Pakistan hold first-ever talks Unprecedented talks have taken place between Israel and Pakistan in the Turkish city of Istanbul. The meeting between Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and his Pakistani counterpart Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri was the first high-level contact between the two sides who have no diplomatic ties. It's unclear whether this first meeting would lead to establishing formal relations. Albanian PM resigns after election loss Albania's socialist Prime Minister Fatos Nano has resigned after losing parliamentary elections to ex-president Sali Berisha's Democratic Party. The central electoral commission confirmed the Democratic Party and right-wing allies had won 81 seats in the 140-member parliament. The election result was delayed after allegations of fraud led to fresh votes in three constituencies on August 22. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe strongly criticised the poll, which was seen as a crucial test of political maturity in the impoverished mainly Muslim country that broke with communism in 1991. Koehler bows to war dead in Poland In Poland President Alexander Kwasniewski and visiting German President Horst Koehler have laid wreaths in Gdansk. The ceremony was to remember war dead 66 years ago when the-then Nazi Germany invaded Poland, starting World War Two. The two presidents bowed in silence and held hands. On September 1, 1939, a visiting German warship shelled a Polish army munitions depot in Gdansk' harbour. German units attacked the city's post office. The world war claimed 50 million lives, including 6 million Jews in Nazi captivity. British man kidnapped in Afghanistan A British engineer and his Afghan interpreter have been kidnapped when gunmen attacked a convoy in western Afghanistan and killed three police escorts. The Interior Ministry in Baghdad said criminal were responsible although they might have been working for the Taliban. Guerillas from the ousted Taliban regime announced on Wednesday they carried out attack in the western province of Farah and were holding the Briton. The attack took place on the road between the southwestern city of Kandahar and the western city of Herat. EU foreign ministers meet on Turkey European Union foreign ministers have convened in the Welsh city of Newport later for talks on Turkey's EU membership bid. Accession talks are set to begin on Oct. 3. Cyprus has threatened to block Turkey's membership talks in a dispute over diplomatic ties. Ankara refuses to recognise the Greek Cypriot government in the south of the island which represents all of Cyprus in the EU. The European Commission has insisted Turkey opens its ports to all Cypriot vessels, as part of a customs union with all 25 EU member states. China vows to maintain grip on Tibet China has marked the 40th anniversary of Tibet's "autonomy" with a military parade as well as a pledge to maintain stability and its grip on power in the Himalayan region. Critics say there is no real autonomy in Tibet, where Buddhist monks and nuns loyal to the region's exiled god-king, the Dalai Lama, have been jailed and sometimes tortured. Tibet has been ruled by the Communists since the People's Liberation Army (PLA) marched into the region in 1950. Former German official released Here in Germany Holger Pfahls, a senior official in former Chancellor Helmut Kohl's government, has been released from jail just two weeks after he was sentenced for tax evasion and bribery. In a highly publicised trial Pfahls was sentenced to two years and three months in jail for accepting kickbacks in connection with several arms deals in the early 1990s. Due to the time he spent in pretrial detention he was eligible for early release. Under the terms of his release he's not allowed to leave the country and must report to police every week. Lamy takes over as new WTO chief Pascal Lamy has officially taken over as the new head of the World Trade Organisation. He succeeds Thailand's Supachai Panitchpakdi. The 58-year old Lamy, a former European Union trade commissioner, faces a number of difficult tasks including trying to quell trade disputes between the US and China and the EU and China and also attempting to come up with a global trade pact at the upcoming WTO talks in Hong Kong. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Germans will likely head to the polls to elect a new parliament on Sept. 18. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is fighting an uphill battle to remain in office while his conservative challenger, Angela Merkel, has her eyes set on the chancellery. Get all the information about Germany's 2005 election at DW-WORLD. 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