Deutsche Welle English Service News 11. 10. 2005, 17:00 UTC ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Time to play 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD: Grand Coalition a Delicate Balancing Act The chancellor question has been answered -- now, Angela Merkel must build an effective coalition government. She already faces criticism from disgruntled conservatives and Social Democrats over the division of power. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1737942,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Pakistan quake death toll above 20,000 Five children have been pulled out alive by a French rescue team from the wreckage of a school in Balakot, one of the worst quake-hit areas of Pakistan. The spark of hope came as the official death toll rose to about 22,000. Residents of Balakot said hundreds of children were trapped in at least three schools that collapsed in the 7.6 magnitude quake. Officials in Pakistan have admitted that assistance is not reaching the survivors fast enough and many are in desperate need of food, water and shelter. Many of the roads to the hardest hit city of Muzaffarabad remain blocked by landslides, preventing trucks carrying emergency supplies from getting through. Across the border in India more than 1,200 people are known to have died. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh faced protests by villagers at the slow pace of relief work as toured the affected region on Tuesday. Suicide car bombers kills 39 in Iraq At least 30 people have been killed and dozens of others injured after a suicide car bomber detonated his explosive in a crowded market in north-western Iraq. The police chief in the town of Tal Afar said all of the victims appeared to be civilians since no Iraqi security forces or US soldiers were in the area at the time. Meanwhile, another suicide car bomb has gone off at an Iraqi army checkpoint in western Baghdad, killing nine people and wounding a dozen others. Police said most of the victims of that attack were soldiers. Police make first Bali blasts arrest Indonesian police say they have made their first arrest over the October 1 suicide bombings in Bali. Police said the man identified only by the initials HS, was arrested in the East Java town of Jember on Sunday under the country's anti-terrorism laws. He is believed to have shared a house with one of the bombers. Three suicide bombers killed more than 20 people when they strolled into separate restaurants and detonated backpacks laden with explosives. Police said the suspect once worked at Bali's Jimbaran Beach, where two of the bombings took place. SPD discusses strategy for coalition talks The executive of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democratic Party is meeting in Berlin to discuss preparations for formal coalition talks with the Christian Democrats. This comes a day after the two parties reached an agreement to open formal negotiations towards the formation of a grand coalition government. Some Social Democrats have expressed reservations about entering a coalition with CDU leader Angela Merkel as chancellor. Coalition talks are to begin on Monday and they're expected to take three to four weeks to complete. Following last month's vote, in which the CDU won four more seats than the SPD, both Merkel and Schroeder had claimed to have won a mandate to lead the country. EU welcomes coalition accord The decision by Germany's Christian Democrats and Social Democrats to form a grand coalition has been welcomed by the European Union. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barosso said he hoped the coalition would be a stable one. French President Jacques Chirac called Merkel to congratulate her on becoming Germany's next chancellor. He has also invited her to visit him in Paris at her earliest opportunity. British Prime Minister Tony Blair also called Merkel to offer his congratulations. Vukovar trial starts at Hague tribunal The trial of three former Yugoslav People's Army officers charged in connection with the 1991 Vukovar massacre has opened at the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague. More than 200 people died after being removed from a hospital in the eastern Croatian town and taken to a nearby farm where they were shot and buried in a mass grave. Mile Mrksic, Miroslav Radic, and Veselin Sljivancanin are accused of crimes against humanity and of violations of the laws or customs of war. Each has pleaded not guilty. Mrksic and Radic surrendered in 2002. Sljivancanin was arrested by security forces in Belgrade one year later. French FM seeks EU response to bird flu French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy says the European Union needs to harmonise its response to the threat of bird flu. Douste-Blazy told French television that he wanted to see a meeting of EU health and foreign ministers called at short notice to discuss a joint response. This follows the discovery of bird flu in poultry in Turkey and Romania. On Monday, the EU banned imports of live birds and feathers from Turkey. The EU has also sent experts to Romania and Turkey to help with testing samples for bird flu. It's not yet clear whether the virus that has affected birds in Turkey and Romania is the H5N1 strain, which has killed 60 people and millions of birds in Asia in the past two years. Liberians elect new president, parliament Voters in Liberia are going to the polls in presidential and parliamentary elections. The two front-runners among the more than 20 presidential candidates are former World Bank economist Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and former international soccer star George Weah. These are the first elections since Liberia's 14-year-long civil war ended two years ago, after former President Charles Taylor went into exile in Nigeria. The almost 15,000 United Nations peacekeepers stationed in the country are helping provide security for the vote. Kidnapped AU staff in Darfur released All 38 African Union peacekeepers taken hostage by rebels in Sudan's western Darfur region have been released. The abductions came after two AU troops were shot dead in an ambush on the weekend. Those were the first fatalities suffered by the AU peacekeeping force since it was deployed to Darfur last year. AU officials blamed the kidnappings on a breakaway faction of the guerrilla Justice and Equality Movement. The splinter group has denied responsibility. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Bundesliga is in full swing again! Get it all on DW-WORLD.DE: We offer you results, tables and live tickers of the matches. Check out picture galleries of the best players and interactive features such as quizes and betting games where Chinese Bayern Munich fans get a chance to compete against Texan Schalke supporters. 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