Deutsche Welle English Service News 18.10.2005, 17:00 UTC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD:
Germany's Not So New Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, has been tapped to be Germany's new interior minister, replacing Otto Schily. A controversial figure, Schäuble returns to the position which he held under former Chancellor Helmut Kohl. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1744809,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Angela Merkel is set to become Germany's next chancellor as Christian Union parties and the Social Democrats seem headed for a grand coalition. Read all about the latest developments in the formation of Germany's next government on DW-WORLD'S election site: www.dw-world.de/election05 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Tent shortage in Pakistan quake zone Eleven days after Pakistan's earthquake the UN World Food Programme says half a million survivors in remote villages are still waiting desperately for supplies. On Tuesday helicopters used better weather after weekend rains to rush in supplies around Muzaffarabad in Kashmir. Army bulldozers also cleared some landslides in North West Frontier Province and reached remote Sanghar. Previously only mules had got through. With three million quake survivors homeless, the UN says there's a big shortage of warm tents ahead of winter. Pakistan, itself a big tent manufacturer, says it's importing them from rival India. New Delhi, meanwhile, has said it will allow Kashmiris in its part of the divided region to phone loved ones on the Pakistani side. India cut such links back in 1990 in a bid to stem insurgency. New Bundestag president elected Germany's newly-elected parliament has chosen its new president to chair its sessions. Norbert Lammert of the Christian Democrats was elected unopposed by clear majority of 564 among 614 deputies. The president of the Bundestag, who functions as speaker of parliament, ranks as Germany's second-highest official behind Federal President Horst Koehler. The right to nominate Lammert fell to the conservative CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, because jointly they got the most seats in last month's election. Parliament's sitting ended the term of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's seven-year-old centre-left coalition. It remains in office on a caretaker basis until a grand coalition under chancellor-designate Angela Merkel is finalised. It will comprise her conservatives and Schroeder's Social Democrats. EU foreign ministers hold bird flu talks European Union foreign ministers have held emergency talks in Luxembourg to discuss the threat posed by bird flu. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw of Britain, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, told reporters that every possible precaution was being taken to deal with the virus if it becomes transmissible between humans. This comes as Greece investigates what appears to be its first case of bird flu, on an Aegean island. Tests will determine if it is the potentially deadly H5N1 strain, which has been found in birds in Romania and Turkey. Romania's agriculture minister said a swan had been found to have antibodies to the virus. Iraqi elections officials check ballots Elections officials in Iraq have been combing through ballots cast in Saturday's referendum on the country's draft constitution. They're double-checking the votes, after they determined that the turnout in some districts appeared to be abnormally high. A senior election official said he didn't expect these anomalies to affect the final outcome of the vote. The Independent Electoral Commission said the checks could delay the announcement of the result by a few days. The constitution will be deemed approved unless two-thirds of voters in three or more provinces voted no to the charter. Gunmen say collaborators abducted Palestinian gunmen say they have abducted two men they accuse of collaborating with Israel. Seven masked men belonging to a small, militant group said they had taken the men because security forces had failed to bring suspected collaborators to justice. There has been a rash of kidnappings in Gaza in recent months as gunmen try to get jobs, break relatives out of jail or settle personal scores. Six charged in German match-fixing trial The trial of six suspects in connection with last year's German soccer match-fixing scandal has opened in a court in Berlin. Two former referees, a former player and three Croatian brothers are charged with organised fraud and seeking to rig professional matches for substantial profit. The indictment listed 23 games that prosecutors believe the defendants rigged or attempted to manipulate. If convicted each could face a maximum 10 years in prison. Germany slips notch on anti-graft scale The anti-corruption organisation Transparency International says Germany has not done enough to fight graft, citing recent cases in industry. On Transparency's list of 159 nations, Germany has slipped one place to 16th spot - behind Hong Kong. Highest placed for honesty is Iceland, followed by several other Scandinavian countries, and then New Zealand. Listed worse for corruption are Chad, Bangladesh and Turkmenistan. Russia slumped from 90th to 126th. Transparency's deputy chairman Peter von Blomberg said he was alarmed by a recent scandal at Volkswagen. Experts say only one in twenty cases in industrial or government corruption become public. Transparency wants a national register of suspected firms. Libya rejects call to free nurses The Libyan Foreign Minister has rejected a call by US President George W. Bush for Tripoli to spare the lives of five Bulgarian nurses facing the death penalty. The five nurses and a Palestinian doctor were convicted last year of deliberately infecting children with the AIDS virus at a hospital in northern Libya. Two of the nurses and the doctor initially had confessed to the charges but later claimed that they were tortured into confessing. But in a controversial ruling in June, a Libyan court cleared the police of mistreatment. Experts testified that the children were infected as a result of poor hygiene at the hospital. Pilgrim passenger ship in Suez collision An Egyptian passenger ship carrying over 1,300 Muslim pilgrims collided with a Cypriot commercial vessel in the Gulf of Suez on Monday. One person was killed and 38 others injured. The Egyptian ship, which has since sunk, was en route from the Saudi port of Jeddah. Storm Wilma threatens US Gulf Coast Tropical Storm Wilma has formed in the Caribbean and seems to be strengthening as it heads to the Gulf of Mexico. Forecasters say the storm could turn into a hurricane and hit the US Gulf Coast by the weekend. In Jamaica, heavy rainfall from Wilma's outer bands flooded several low-lying communities, blocked roads with mud and forced at least 100 people into shelters. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. You'll find it all at www.dw-world.de/soccer ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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/
