Deutsche Welle English Service News 09. 06. 2005, 17:00 UTC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD:
Court Upholds Acquittal of Terror Suspect Germany's Federal Appeals Court on Thursday upheld alower court's acquittal of Abdelghani Mzoudi, who was accused of involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1609418,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DW-WORLD's "Click Back" monthly review quiz for June is waiting for you and will test your knowledge of stories we've written. If you answer all questions correctly, you can also win a great prize. To play, please go to: http://www.dw-world.de/english ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NATO to launch Darfur mission NATO defence ministers meeting in Brussels have endorsed a plan to airlift some 5000 extra African troops to Sudan's troubled Darfur region. This will be the alliance's first mission on the continent. NATO's go-ahead for the operation comes a day before Darfur peace talks sponsored by the African Union resume in the Nigerian capital Abuja. Many tens of thousands have been killed in Darfur and more than 2 million forced from their homes during a rebellion which began in February 2003. NATO plans to be ready with the air transport from July 1. Schroeder confirms confidence vote German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has asserted that he will go ahead with a vote of confidence in parliament on July 1 removing any doubts that he might resign. If his government loses the vote, parliament will be dissolved and elections held by mid-September, one year ahead of schedule. He announced the plans last month after his party lost a key regional election. Schroeder said then that defeat in North Rhine-Westphalia had undermined the government's programme of reform. Schroeder was addressing a news conference in Berlin after meeting with German President Horst Koehler. French FM visits Germany France's new foreign minister visited Germany today to discuss the crisis over the EU's constitution. After meeting with his German counterpart, Joschka Fischer, Philippe Douste-Blazy said that France and Germany remain the driving force behind the European Union but the two countries needed to co-operate more with other EU members. It was the French minister's first foreign visit since he took office after a cabinet reshuffle last week following the French rejection of the EU constitution in a referendum. Douste-Blazy said he would outline more details of how France and Germany will work together after an EU summit in Brussels on June 16-17. US rejects Germany's UN bid The United States has again rebuffed Germany's bid to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. After a meeting between German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and his US counterpart Condoleezza Rice in Washington, German officials said the US government was not opposing Germany's effort to join the council per se, but that it was wary of expanding the council. The four countries seeking permanent seats on the Council - Germany, Japan, Brazil, and India - have proposed foregoing their veto rights for 15 years if they are accepted, according to a draft proposal made public at the United Nations. Thousands without trial in Iraq - UN In Iraq thousands of people are being held in prison without proper trial, according to UN chief Kofi Annan. In a report to the UN Security Council, Annan says this amounts to a breach of international law by US-led occupiers. Of the 10,000 inmates counted in April by Iraq's justice ministry, 6,000 were held by multi- national forces. A European Union delegation has gone to Baghdad. It includes EU commissioners Benita Ferrero-Waldner and Javier Solana, the foreign ministers of Luxembourg and Britain, Jean Asselborn and Jack Straw. The delegation, which is preparing for a conference on Iraqi reconstruction, met Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. Pope vows to improve Jewish ties Pope Benedict XVI has assured the world's Jews that the Catholic Church remained fully committed to fighting anti-Semitism. The pontiff made his comments in his first audience for leaders of the world's largest and most representative Jewish groups from Israel, the United States, Europe and Latin America. Speaking in English, the German Pope told the 25 world Jewish leaders that he intended to carry on the work of his predecessor. Pope John Paul II, who died on April 2, was the first pontiff to visit a synagogue and the first to visit the sites of Nazi death camps. The Pope will make a landmark trip to Germany in August. Israeli court backs Gaza pullout Israel's highest court has ruled that the planned withdrawal from Gaza is legal. The Israeli Supreme Court rejected a bid by Jewish settlers to overturn the legislation underpinning the Gaza pullout plan. The 11-judge panel made only minor changes to a parliamentary-approved compensation package for the some 9,000 settlers slated for evacuation in August. This was the latest in a series of attempts by settlers to derail Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to remove all 21 settlements and four small enclaves in the Gaza Strip. Mladic near surrender says magazine The United States has resumed funding for Serbia and Montenegro amid rumours that Serbia is negotiating the surrender of Ratko Mladic, a top war crimes suspect wanted by UN prosecutors. Serbia's government has however denied a report by a Belgrade weekly magazine "Evropa". It said secret talks with Mladic had been "intensive" in recent weeks. Visiting Belgrade, US Under-Secretary of State Nicholas Burns said 10 million dollars in aid would be distributed in return for Serbia's recent success in convincing dozens of other war crimes suspects to surrender to The Hague. UN prosecutor Carla del Ponte wants Mladic, a top former Bosnian Serb general, in custody before the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre next month. Mzoudi acquittal endorsed Germany's federal appeal court has confirmed a "not guilty" verdict on Abdelghani Mzoudi, the Moroccan student accused of complicity in the September 2001 hijack attacks on New York. The court rejected an appeal from German prosecutors for a new trial and confirmed an acquittal pronounced by a Hamburg court in February of last year. Mzoudi lives in Hamburg and was a friend of the lead 2001 hijacker Mohamed Atta and other members of a Hamburg cell. Responding to the latest ruling, Hamburg city state's interior minister Udo Nagel said he would seek Mzoudi's expulsion from Germany. Kenyan police re-arrest terror suspect Police in Kenya have re-arrested a Muslim man suspected of terrorism links just hours after he was acquitted on murder charges in connection with the 2002 bombings of an Israeli hotel near Mombasa. Omar Said Omar was arrested as he was about to leave prison after the acquittal. Earlier on Thursday, Omar, a computer expert, and three other Muslim men were released by a Nairobi high court after the judge said that prosecutors had failed to link the men to the attacks in which 18 people, including three suicide car bombers, were killed. It is thought that US officials are interested in questioning Omar about the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Khodorkovsky's lawyers appeal conviction Lawyers representing jailed Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky have filed an appeal against his conviction on tax evasion and fraud charges. The ex-chief of Russian oil giant YUKOS was sentenced to nine years in prison ten days ago in a case widely criticised as being politically motivated. Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, was found guilty on six of seven charges of fraud and tax evasion after an 11-month trial. Prosecutors have pledged to bring more charges against him. YUKOS shares, which have lost 98 percent since September 2003 have altered little recently. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Send us your favorite picks for sight-seeing, museum hopping, historical edification – whatever you've got to share with others heading to Germany. Restaurants, hotels, back-country hideaways – write to us with your insider tips and tell us about what you liked best about traveling in Germany. 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