Deutsche Welle
English Service News
December 6th 2005, 16:00 UTC
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Today's highlight on DW-WORLD:
Merkel: US Admitted Wrongful Abduction of German
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday that the US
government admitted that a German national had been wrongfully
abducted after CIA officials believed him to be a terror suspect.
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internet address below:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1805029,00.html
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Possibly 119 dead in Tehran plane crash
A military transport plane has crashed into a ten-storey building in
Tehran, Iran. Officials believe all 94 people on board are dead.
State radio said that at least another 25 people in the building
also died. The C-130 plane went down in the Yaftabad district of the
city, near Mehrabad international airport, where it was trying to
make an emergency landing. Firefighters extinguished the flames in
the building, which was heavily damaged. The building is part of a
residential complex for army personnel.
Female bombers kill 36 in Iraq school
In Iraq, two female suicide bombers have struck a police academy in
Baghdad, killing at least 36 people and wounding dozens of others.
It was the deadliest bomb attack in a month. An Internet statement
purporting to speak for al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for
the attack. The bombers walked into a classroom at the Baghdad
Police Academy, detonating explosive vests in the midst of students.
No US forces were at the academy. The last attack of this size was
on November 18, when two suicide bombers killed at least 74 people
in two Shiite mosques in the northeastern town of Khanaqin.
American kidnapped in Iraq
Insurgents in Iraq claim to have kidnapped a US security consultant
and have threatened to kill him, unless Washington frees all Iraqi
prisoners within 48 hours. The Arab television station, Al Jazeera,
broadcast a video from a rebel group calling itself the Islamic Army
in Iraq. It showed a blond man, with his hands tied behind his back,
and what appeared to be a US passport and an Arabic identity card
bearing the name Ronald Schulz. The authenticity of the tape is
being studied. This new incident follows the kidnapping of the
German Susanne Osthoff ten days ago and a French engineer, Bernard
Planche, on Monday.
Saddam says US, Israel want him dead
At his trial in Baghdad, former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has
said the US and Israel want him dead. He said, however, that neither
he nor his supporters fear death. He responded to a woman's
testimony that her prison conditions were poor under his regime by
pointing out the conditions under which he is currently being kept.
The woman had earlier said that prison guards had required her to
strip naked and fed her bread through a tiny slot in her cell door.
She spoke anonymously behind a screen, out of fear for her life.
Other witnesses on Tuesday said Saddam's men had tortured them,
beaten them with pistols and given them electric shocks.
Rice and Merkel meet in Berlin
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has met German Chancellor
Angela Merkel in Berlin. They stressed the co-operation between
their two countries in fighting terrorism. Dealing with the question
of alleged secret CIA prison camps in Eastern Europe, Rice said that
the US did not condone torturing terror suspects. Chancellor Merkel
called this a good base for cooperation between the two countries.
Rice admitted that the US sometimes makes mistakes in its fight
against terrorism, and promised to put them right. One mistake she
pointed to was the case of a German man, Khaled el-Masri, who was
allegedly abducted to Afghanistan and imprisoned there for five
months last year, until the CIA realised it had the wrong man.
Merkel has now asked her foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier,
to report to a parliamentary committee on the Masri affair. Last
year he was serving as Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's intelligence
advisor.
ACLU sues CIA over Masri abduction
The US human rights group, ACLU, has filed a lawsuit against the
country's Central Intelligence Agency. The suit, on behalf of Khaled
al-Masri, a German national, claims he was wrongfully abducted in
Europe and sent to Afghanistan for interrogation. This is the first
lawsuit to challenge the CIA over its handling of detainees in the
war on terror. The suit charges that CIA Director George Tenet and
other officials violated US and universal human rights laws by
authorizing agents to kidnap Masri.
Bombs explode; Spanish airport evacuated
In Spain, a series of at least five small bombs have exploded along
highways around Madrid. No injuries have been reported. Police said
the bombs were planted by members of the Basque separatist group,
ETA. In another incident, a bomb threat in the northern Spanish city
of Santander forced the authorities to evacuate the city's airport.
The threat was phoned in by ETA. Spain's air traffic control
diverted all planes to other cities.
Cameron elected British Tory head
Britain's Conservative Party has elected David Cameron as its new
leader. He beat David Davis by a margin of two to one. Cameron said
he would lead his Tories to power in Britain again with a
"compassionate conservatism." David Davis conceded defeat saying
that Cameron would become the next Prime Minister of Britain.
Cameron promised that more women and minorities would be represented
in the conservative party. He also said the party would look to the
future, rather than romanticising the country's past. There has been
much media focus on Cameron's age; he is only 39 years old, and the
least politically experienced head of a major political party in
Britain in over 150 years.
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