Deutsche Welle
English Service News
20. 01. 2006, 17:00 UTC
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Week in Germany: The best from German culture, business and
politics in a convenient weekly wrap-up. Read and subscribe at
www.germany.info/twig
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Today's highlight on DW-WORLD:
Foreign Minister Denies German Spies Helped US in Iraq
Under fire over allegations that its spies in Iraq secretly
aided the US invasion that Berlin vocally opposed, the German
government has denied any wrongdoing and resisted calls for
a parliamentary inquriy.
To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the
internet address below:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1863232,00.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Shiite alliance wins but not overall
Final Iraqi election results put the Shiite Islamic alliance of
parties in front with 128 seats but short of an overall majority by
10 seats. Iraq's electoral commission says the Shiites' ally, the
Kurdish alliance won 53 seats. Two main Sunni Arab groups secured 44
and 11 seats respectively. The parties have two days to appeal
before the results are certified. Since Iraq's election five weeks
ago, some Sunni and secular parties had complained of vote-rigging.
But on Thursday international monitors said the election had "no
significant shortcomings". Ahead of Friday's result announcement,
Iraqi security forces had sealed off several Sunni Arab cities such
as Ramadi and Fallujah to deter possible rebel attacks. In Baghdad a
roadside bomb has killed two civilians.
Agents' work flawless, says Steinmeier
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has told Germany's
parliament that intelligence gathering in Baghdad by two German BND
agents during the 2003 US invasion was flawless. Steinmeier said the
agents had stuck to Germany's opposition to the war and avoidance of
combative operations. Rejecting media claims that the agents had
helped the US military identify bombing targets, Steinmeier urged
parliament to rebuff what he called a stage-managed political
scandal and not to proceed to a parliamentary inquiry. That's being
sought by Germany's opposition Greens and liberal Free Democrats,
who want to know what role, if any, the government of former
chancellor Gerhard Schroeder played in the invasion.
Ahmadinejad meets Palestinian militants
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has met with the leaders of 10
radical Palestinian movements including Islamic Jihad and Hamas in
Syria. An official from the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP) told reporters that Ahmadinejad said he "strongly
supports the Palestinian people's struggle". The meeting comes one
day after Islamic Jihad claimed a suicide bomb attack in Tel Aviv
that wounded 19 people. Israel blamed Iran and Syria for supporting
the attack.
US urges UN to increase pressure on Iran
The United States has demanded that the UN Security Council promptly
confront Iran over its nuclear ambitions, while Russia and China
urged caution. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Iran to scrap
its resumption of nuclear-fuel research and return to talks, but
said "if all else fails" the Security Council should take up the
issue and consider imposing sanctions. The board of the
International Atomic Energy Agency is to debate Iran's nuclear
programme at an emergency meeting on February 2. So far no consensus
has emerged on action.
Croatia to seek Serb's extradition from Australia
Zagreb will ask Australia to extradite within a week a former Serb
paramilitary commander it accuses of atrocities committed during
Croatia's war of independence in the early 1990s. Suspect Dragan
Vasiljkovic, who has lived in the Western Australian city of Perth
since December 2004, was detained late Thursday after the Croatian
government made a request for his arrest. Vasiljkovic, who holds
Australian and Serbian passports, has denied any involvement in war
crimes. He was remanded in custody until January 27, when he is due
to reappear in court.
US rejects Osama bin laden truce offer
The United States has dismissed a purported truce offer made on an
audio tape attributed to the al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden. On
the tape, which was aired by the Arab television station Al-Jazeera,
the speaker warns of new attacks on the United States but also
offers the American people a "long-term" truce. White House
spokesman Scott McClellan said the United States does not negotiate
with terrorists. The CIA says it assumes the voice is that of Osama
bin Laden. It would be his first life sign in public since 2004.
Turkey overturns Agca release
The man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981, Mehmet Ali Agca, must
return to jail after Turkey's Supreme Court said on Friday it had
overturned a decision to release him. The Justice Ministry had
appealed against decision to release Agca from prison last week.
Officials say Agca's whereabouts remain unknown, and that a police
manhunt can only begin once prosecutors approve the ruling and issue
an arrest warrant. Agca served 19 years in prison in Italy for
shooting the pope in May 1981, and five and a half years of a
10-year sentence in Turkey for the murder of a journalist in 1979.
Slovak plane crash kills 42
Hungarian police say 42 people died after a Slovak military plane
crashed near the Slovak-Hungarian border. One person survived the
crash and is being treated in hospital. The plane, which was
carrying Slovak KFOR peacekeeping troops, was flying from Kosovo to
Slovakia when it crashed. Hungarian officials said the cause of the
crash was still unknown although media reports said the plane had
caught fire at low altitude.
Strike to save AEG Nuremburg works
Workers at the German household appliance firm AEG in Nuremburg have
begun an indefinite strike to persuade its Swedish parent company
Electrolux to cancel its plan to close the works by late next year.
Electrolux wants to shift manufacture of washing machines and
dishwashers to cheaper sites in Poland and Italy. Nuremberg's mayor
Ulrich Maly told strikers that the public would not tolerate the
loss of 1,700 jobs. The stoppage follows a 96 percent ballot for
strike action among IG Metall union members at AEG and failed talks
last week on redundancy pay and retraining if workers are laid off.
Electrical industry employers claim the strike is illegal. AEG,
Nuremberg's last major industrial site, was founded in 1992. It was
rebuilt after World War Two. Electrolux took it over in 1994.
German union demands 5 percent pay rise
German labour union IG Metall has formally announced it would seek a
five percent increase in wages for its 3.4 million members when
negotiations begin next month. The figure is more than the 1.2
percent the Gesamtmetall employers' group previously said it would
agree to. Leaders of the powerful engineering and metalworking union
also said they would seek more training for members and a new
agreement on bonus pay. Employers have dismissed IG Metall's demands
as excessive and impossible to finance.
Winter chaos hits northern Europe
Heavy snowfalls, high winds and temperatures plunging as low as
minus 30 degrees Celsius wreaked havoc across Northern Europe on
Friday, causing major disruptions in air, road and ferry traffic.
Scandinavian airline SAS cancelled 70 flights in and out of
Copenhagen's international airport. In Norway, more than 26,000
people were temporarily without power after heavy snow brought down
electricity cables. Meanwhile the death toll in Russia's cold snap
topped 70 on Friday, as the freezing temperatures spread through
Europe. Seven people have been hospitalised with frostbite in the
Ukrainian capital Kiev, where daytime temperatures stood around
minus 25 degrees Celsius.
Dutch to defend coastal resorts from sea rise
The Dutch government has agreed on plans to reinforce defences to
protect its coastline from rising sea levels as a result of climate
change. The government said on Friday that it will move extra sand
where necessary to maintain the coastline at 13 beach resorts. The
Netherlands, two thirds of which lies below sea level, has battled
for centuries to win back land from the sea and protect itself
against flooding. Scientists predict climate change could cause sea
levels to rise by almost a meter by the end of the century, bringing
more floods, droughts and storms.
Publicist Carola Stern dies, 80
A prominent German publicist and co-founder of Amnesty
International's German branch Carola Stern has died in Berlin after
a short illness. She was 80. Stern's life was full of changes. After
World War Two she attended an elite college in communist East
Germany. She was recruited by the CIA and fled to West Berlin in
1951. Stern worked in broadcasting, lobbied for ex-chancellor Willy
Brandt's policy of east-west "Ostpolitik" or reconciliation, womens'
causes, and sought compensation for former Nazi era slave labourers.
Whale swims up River Thames to London
A Northern Bottle-nosed whale swam up the River Thames to central
London on Friday, drawing large crowds of sightseers and bringing
traffic to a standstill. Police boats tracked the animal as it moved
gradually upstream. The whale beached in front of London's landmark
Battersea Power Station, but men waded into the river prompting it
to swim off. The British Natural History Museum, which has been
recording strandings since 1913, said that this was the first record
of this species for the Thames.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Receive DW-WORLD headlines and news reports straight on your
desktop as RSS feeds:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1137115,00.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.
