DEUTSCHE WELLE/DW-WORLD.DE Newsletter English Service News March 23rd 2006, 16:00 UTC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD:
Germany Ploughs Millions Into Bird Flu Research The German government has announced that it would spend 60 million euros ($73 million) on bird flu research in the next four years in the hope of developing a vaccine for humans soon. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1941982,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "Kicking News" -- DW-WORLD's Soccer Newsletter: Get all the news about the World Cup and Germany's Bundesliga on DW-WORLD.DE at the end of every month. To subscribe, go to: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1170241,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Three Christian aid workers freed in Iraq Three western peace activists held hostage in Iraq since November have been freed. According to British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Briton Norman Kember and Canadians Harmeet Sooden and James Loney were rescued in a multinational military operation. Straw also told reporters that no shots were fired during the rescue. The three men were being held by a previously unknown group calling themselves the Brigades of the Swords of Righteousness. They were kidnapped while on a peace mission with the Canadian group Christian Peacemakers. American Tom Fox, who was kidnapped at the same time as those rescued today, was found murdered two weeks ago. Bagdhad car bombs kill 20 In the Iraqi capital Bagdhad, at least 28 people have been killed in two separate bomb attacks. The most serious was a suicide car-bombing near a police major crimes unit in downtown Baghdad, which killed at least 23 people and wounded dozens. A second car bomb exploded at a market near a Shi'ite mosque in the Shurta district, killing at least five. Gandhi resigns from Indian parliament The chief of India's ruling Congress party, Sonia Gandhi, has stepped down as a member of parliament. She has also quit a key advisory body, after a controversy over whether she broke Indian law by holding both posts. The Indian consitution bars members of parliament from holding other paid public positions. Earlier in March an opposition MP was disqualified under the same law. Despite quitting, Gandhi said that she will run again in the next election in a bid to win back her seat. EU duties on Chinese, Vietnamese shoes The European Commission has approved anti-dumping duties on leather shoes imported from China and Vietnam. The temporary duties will be introduced in early April, and will rise over five months to 16.8 percent for Chinese shoes and 19.4 percent for those from Vietnam. The move comes after a recent EU investigation which found that manufacturers in those coutries were selling shoes at below the cost of production, a practise known as dumping. The new duties are supported by European countries with shoe manufacturing industries. But China has said it might consider a complaint to the World Trade Organisation, which regulates global trade. Merkel calls for energy to flow freely European Union leaders are meeting in Brussels for a two day summit. The talks are to focus on agreeing new measures to boost employment and growth, as well energy security. The meeting comes after moves by the Spain and France to intervene in recent corporate deals in the energy sector fuelled concerns that state protectionism could harm the EU's internal market. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged her EU counterparts not to think of energy in strictly national terms, but she made clear she favours better co-ordination of national policies rather than handing powers over to Brussels. The German chancellor is to lead a discussion about a joint EU energy strategy at the summit. Afghan man faces death for conversion Afghanistan says it will not bow to international pressure over the case of a man facing a possible death sentence for converting from Islam to Christianity. 41-year-old Abdul Rahman converted to Christianity 16 years ago and spent nine years living in Germany before returning to Afghanistan. Following a cabinet meeting in Berlin, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called on Kabul to ensure that Rahman wasn't sentenced to death for his religious beliefs. However, Steinmeier has rejected calls from some German opposition politicians to pull Bundeswehr peacekeepers out of Afghanistan. A Western diplomat in Kabul said the Afghan government was seeking a face-saving solution to the case. Pakistan protests killing of 16 men Pakistan has lodged a protest with Afghanistan over the killing of 16 men on Tuesday. Afghan authorities claim the men were Taliban militants, but Pakistan says were on holiday in Afghanistan. The Pakistan Foreign Ministry claims the group was detained in the capital, Kabul and then brought them back near the Pakistani border, where they were executed with their hands and feet bound. But an Afghan army officer said the men were Taliban who were killed after they surrounded his forces in the mountains near the Pakistani border. Afghan authorities say they are investigating the killings. Asylum seekers granted visas in Australia The Australian government has granted temporary visas to dozens of Indonesian asylum seekers. Forty-two people from the Indonesian province of Papua who spent five days at sea before landing on a remote beach in north-east Australia in January were granted temporary protection visas allowing them to stay in Australia for three years. The asylum seekers claim that the Indonesian military committed genocide in their homeland while putting down a separatist movement. Indonesia insists the migrants have nothing to fear in Papua and demanded that Australia send them home. Meanwhile, seven athletes from Sierra Leone taking part in the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne have gone missing. It is thought that they too may seek asylum. Boat sinks in Cameroon, 130 feared dead Almost 130 people are feared drowned after a boat capsised off the south-western coast of Cameroon. State radio said that the boat was found near the port of Kribi by local fishermen, who managed to rescue some 20 people. The boat was apparently carrying around 150 people, and was travelling from the eastern Nigerian port of Oron to Port Gentil in Gabon. The passengers included nationals of Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Benin and Mali. French PM ready for talks French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has invited union and student leaders to talks over a controversial new youth jobs law. His offer came as protests against the law continued around France, with tens of thousands of school and university students on strike and protesting in the streets. De Villepin promised the talks would be open-ended, and urged unions to take up the offer as quickly as possible. But union sources say talks will probably take place after a national strike planned for next Tuesday. The so-called CPE First Job Contract would allow firms to fire workers aged under 26 without giving reasons during their first two years of work. ETA calls on Basques to support peace The armed Basque separatist group ETA has called on all Basques to support the fragile peace process. The new statement in the Basque nationalist daily paper Gara comes a day after ETA's announcement of a historic cease-fire. This has been cautiously welcomed by Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. The European Commission has called the ceasefire an important development, but said it was up to individual governments to decide whether to remove ETA from an EU terror blacklist. Some 800 people have died in ETA's four-decade-long campaign for an independent state between northern Spain and southern France. UN envoy condems Belarus' rights record In Belarus, an opposition leader jailed for organising an pre-election rally has been released after 15 days in prison. On his release, Vintsuk Vyachorka said the news that people were continuing to protest the re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko in Sunday's poll boosted morale in the prison. He said there were between 180 and 200 political prisoners at the jail. Meanwhile, a UN human rights envoy has condemned human rights violations by the Belarussian government during elections. Adrian Severin, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Belarus, called on Lukashenko's government to immediately release all political prisoners and to allow the right of peaceful assembly. Ex-Siemens workers charged with bribery Here in Germany, two former managers at the German electronics giant Siemens have been charged with paying millions of euros in bribes. Public prosecutors in the state of Hesse allege that between 1999 and 2002, the two men paid more than six million euros to managers from the Italian energy concern ENEL. In return Siemens received contracts for gas turbines and accessories worth more than 338 million euros. The money for the bribery payments is alleged to have come from a so-called "black account", in which agents found nearly eight million euros. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Would you like to receive news from DW-WORLD.DE automatically on your desktop? Subscribe to our RSS-Feeds. Click here to read how it works: 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. 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