DEUTSCHE WELLE/DW-WORLD.DE Newsletter English Service News March 4th 2006, 16:00 UTC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD:
German Opposition Seems Set to Call for Inquiry Over BND Affair All three German opposition parties are likely to back a parliamentary inquiry about the role played by German intelligence agents in the war against terror and the US-led invasion of Iraq, according to a report. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1923457,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- signandsight.com signandsight.com is the English version of the prize-winning online cultural magazine perlentaucher.de. Providing free access daily reviews of Germany's cultural press, it translates keynote articles and reviews the season's best publications. www.signandsight.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Bush praises Pakistan, Khan arrested US President George W. Bush has praised Pakistan for its role in the war on terror, but says more needs to be done to defeat al-Qaida. Following talks with President Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad, Bush said he was convinced of Musharraf's commitment to fighting terrorism. The two leaders also discussed economic ties between their countries, and democratic reform in Pakistan. Bush's visit has sparked days of protests in Pakistan, including a nationwide strike on Friday. Police have detained leading opposition politicians, including former cricket captain Imran Khan who had planned to lead a protest march in Rawalpindi on Saturday. Pentagon forced to identify detainees In the US, the Pentagon has been forced to end four years of secrecy and release documents that identify detainees being held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. This follows a successful freedom of information lawsuit brought by the news agency Associated Press. The Pentagon says 317 of the roughly 500 Guantanamo detainees are identified in some 5,000 pages of documents published on its website on Friday. The documents stem from hearings by US military panels at the US naval base on Cuba. Only ten Guantanamo inmates have been charged with crimes, and civil rights groups have condemned the prisoners' lack of legal rights. The Bush administration regards the detainees, mostly caught in Afghanistan, as "enemy combatants" in its "war on terror". Ivory Coast extradites gang suspect Ivory Coast has allowed France to collect the suspected leader of a gang that abducted and murdered a French Jewish man near Paris last month. Youssef Fofana, also a French citizen, has been put on a French military plane at Abidjan. Outrage over the torture and murder of Ilan Halimi led last Sunday to large protests in Paris and other cities and prompted a French extradition request to Ivory Coast. Fofana in a television interview last Monday said Halimi was kidnapped for "financial reasons", but he denied anti-Semitic motives. In France charges are pending against 17 people. Attack on Iraqi minibus, seven killed In Iraq a mortar round has exploded at a minibus station in the town of Gisr Diyala, near Baghdad, killing seven people. Police said 25 others were injured. In Baghdad a daytime traffic ban has been lifted, but an overnight curfew remains in effect. It was imposed by Iraqi authorities to deter sectarian violence. On Thursday gunmen stormed another town in the area, Nahrawan, killing at least 19 people. Police said it was an attack by Sunni insurgents on Shiites. At Friday prayers many worshippers heard calls for Muslim unity. The unrest was sparked by the bombing of a Shiite shrine last week. Germany: Iraq enquiry looks likely In Germany, it looks increasingly likely that there will be a parliamentary enquiry into the involvement of the BND secret-service in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Juergen Koppelin, parliamentary secretary for the opposition liberal Free Democrats, says his party will vote to set up the enquiry. The move already has the support of the other opposition parties, the Greens and the Left Party, but needs the votes of the FDP to be successful. It follows a report in the New York Times earlier this week that German officials provided US military commanders with Iraqi plans for the defence of Baghdad. The German government has denied the allegations. China lifts military spending China says it plans to accelerate its military spending by a further 15 percent this year. Its defence budget will rise to 35 billion dollars, up from 30 billion last year. A spokesman for China's parliament, Jiang Enzhu, said that would represent 7.4 percent of China's overall budget. The extra money would be spent on higher wages and welfare of military personnel, and for the military's rising fuel costs. Analysts said the major focus of China's budget is Taiwan, the self-ruled island China says is its territory. Taiwan scrapped an advisory council on reunification earlier this week. H5N1 deaths in Asia, alert in Europe Two more bird flu victims have died in Asia as authorities in Europe tighten precautions, three weeks after dead birds with the virus H5N1 were first found in the EU. Indonesia's health ministry says a three-year-old boy has died in the Javanese city of Semarang. China says a 32-year-old man, who'd had contact with poultry, has died in Guangdong province, alarming health experts in nearby Hong Kong. In Germany, where the virus has now been identified in 140 wild birds and a cat, no-go zones have been declared. Within a radius of 10 kilometres from any find cats and dogs can no longer roam. Austria and Switzerland have each notified five new cases of infected birds. Experts fear the virus could mutate and spread from person to person. Traffic recovering after blizzard Flights are slowly returning to normal at Frankfurt Airport after Friday's blizzard, the worst in the region in 15 years. More than 500 flights were cancelled, affecting 20,000 passengers. Snow and ice gripping central and southern German are still hampering road traffic. On Friday night, say police, the late-winter storm resulted in numerous traffic jams and accidents. Three of them were fatal. A Bundesliga soccer match in Kaiserslautern has been cancelled because of snow on the pitch. The host club had been due to play Stuttgart. Football: Bundesliga Results Results from Saturday's Bundesliga matches: Nuremberg 3 MSV Duisburg 0 Bayer Leverkusen 1 Werder Bremen 1 Bayern Munich 1 Hamburg SV 2 Borussia Dortmund 1 Mainz 1 Hanover 96 1 Schalke 04 2 Hertha Berlin 2 Cologne 4 This leaves Bayern Munich at the top of the table with 58 points, 8 points clear of Werder Bremen. The scheduled match between Kaiserslautern and VfB Stuttgart was postponed due to snow. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Click Back is waiting for you! DW-WORLD invites you to participate in the February version of our monthly quiz and win a jacket: http://www.dw-world.de/english ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. 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