Deutsche Welle English Service News September 10th 2005, 16:00 UTC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD: Germans Battle the Blues ahead of Vote As Germany prepares to go to the polls, there is a clear contrast between the image of the country from abroad and the pessimism that reigns within as many Germans fear their prospects in a globalized world.
To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1706382,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- As part of our coverage of the upcoming elections, DW-WORLD offers you a new service to keep up to date on what's been happening. You can subscribe to our new podcast, which allows you to listen to DW-RADIO features and news reports wherever you want. To find out more, please go to: www.dw-world.de/podcasting-election2005 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Iraqi, US forces retake northern town Thousands of Iraqi and US forces have launched a major attack on the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar to rid it of militant fighters. The Iraqi Defence Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi said more than 140 suspected terrorists had been killed, and nearly 200 wounded. At least five government soldiers died in the operation. According to news reports, the majority of the estimated 20,000 residents have left the town. Iraqi and US officials say that Tal Afar is used as a conduit for equipment and foreign fighters smuggled in from neighbouring Syria to support the insurgency. Egyptian troops deploy at Gaza border Egyptian forces have started deploying along their border with the Gaza Strip. They are to replace Israeli troops, who are in the process of withdrawing from the Palestinian territory. The Israeli army blew up its last military posts in the Gaza Strip on Friday, and are awaiting orders to return to leave. Egyptian and Israeli generals signed the border agreement at the beginning of the month to allow the deployment of 750 Egyptian border guards. It is the first time Egyptian troops will be deployed on the 12-km long border since the Six-Day-War in 1967. Mubarak wins fifth term in Egypt vote Egypt's current President Hosni Mubarak has won the country's first multi-party presidential election. Election officials said Mubarak received more than 88 percent of the vote. Turnout was less than one quarter of registered voters. The country's biggest human rights group estimated that 10 to 15 percent of the votes assigned to Mubarak were fraudulent. But the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights said that this would not affect his election victory. It will be Mubarak's fifth term in office, after ruling for 24 years with emergency powers. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder congratulated the Egyptian President on his win, saying Mubarak had a convincing mandate to continue with his democratic reforms. EU urges increased oil supply The European Union has urged oil-producing countries to boost supplies rapidly to combat soaring fuel bills. After chairing a meeting of EU finance ministers in England, British finance minister Gordon Brown called on the OPEC oil cartel to raise production by half a million barrels a day. He said OPEC's release of an additional 1.5 million barrels a day following hurricane Katrina should be extended for a longer period. The ministers said they also wanted more investment in alternative energy services. Ministers also appealed to the United States and China to use oil more efficiently. Oil prices dropped slightly on Friday to close at $64 a barrel. New Orleans recovers its dead Authorities in the flooded US city of New Orleans have turned their attention from rescuing survivors to recovering the dead. Officials said that until all the corpses were recovered, there was no hurry to remove those who still refused to leave the city despite an evacuation order. More than 300 deaths are confirmed in the Gulf states of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Earlier, much higher totals were predicted. Meanwhile, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency Michael Brown has been recalled to Washington. This follows days of criticism that President George W. Bush and his team had failed to adequately respond to the Katrina disaster. German experts help drain New Orleans A team of German experts has joined efforts to drain flooded New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The specialists are armed with 15 high-power pumps. US officials said last week that it could take up to three months to drain the floodwater from New Orleans. Rebel attacks in Kashmir kill 11 In Indian Kashmir, suspected Islamic rebels have attacked a military convoy, killing at least five soldiers and injuring several others. A banned hard-line militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, claimed responsibility for the strike south of Srinagar. Earlier, six villagers were killed and eight wounded in a separate incident. Suspected militants attacked the families of two policemen with grenades and automatic weapons in Udhampur district. The violence came just days after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that India would cut troop levels in Kashmir if rebel violence and guerrilla incursions from Pakistan ceased. Vaccine plan could save millions A plan to save the lives of millions of poor children has been launched by several European countries. The vaccines scheme worth some 4 billion dollars is aimed at cutting the number of deaths from diseases such as measles, polio and hepatitis B. Britain's finance minister, Chancellor Gordon Brown, said the fund would save the lives of some 5 million children over the next 10 years and another five million after that. Other countries involved include France, Spain and Italy. However critics say the plan would have little impact without US participation. Plan adopted to save ape species Senior officials of two dozen African and Asian nations and wildlife experts meeting in Kinshasa have adopted an action plan to save the world's great apes from extinction. Experts warn that without help gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans could die out within 50 years. The plan aims to tackle poaching and loss of forest by safeguarding 100 ape habitats, particularly with help from local communities. As an initial step, campaigners hope to raise 22 million euros. The environment minister of host Congo, which is home to three species, said much more funding would be needed. In Congo a decade of civil war has decimated ape populations. The World Wide Fund for Nature has called on Malaysia and Ruanda to also join the project. Koizumi leads the way on eve of poll On the eve of elections in Japan, polls are showing Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) with a commanding lead. Koizumi called the snap election to push forward his plan to privatise the national post office. The prime minister says the move would inject new life into Japan's economy and clean up a political culture of patronage. The main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), meanwhile, is promising greater reforms and argues that Koizumi is mistakenly obsessed with the post office, which is in effect the world's biggest bank. Japan Post sits on more than three trillion dollars in assets, with its 25,000 branches used for savings and insurance. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DW-WORLD offers you a special service for the Bundesliga. Get all the action on your mobile device and you'll never miss out on important news. For more information, please visit http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,1595,8733,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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/
