Deutsche Welle English Service News 19.11.2002, 16:00 UTC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD: Turkish Leader Rallies Berlin's Support for EU Negotiations Recep Tayyip Erdogan is on a whirlwind tour of European capitals to build support for future Turkish EU membership. But even strong U.S. support is no guarantee of a concrete commitment from Brussels. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1716_A_678566_1_A,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Oil tanker off Spain breaks up The Prestige oil-tanker laden with 70,000 tonnes of fuel oil split in two off northwest Spain on Tuesday and sank. Ecologists say this could lead to the world's worst oil spills, twice as bad as that caused by the Exxon Valdez, which ran aground in Alaska in 1989. Experts said the ship's tanks might now crack open upon hitting the sea floor,or implode from the pressure almost 3,000 meters deep or eventually rust through. Spanish officials said the Bahamian-flagged Prestige spilled about 6,000 tonnes of its toxic load, when the vessel broke apart, adding to the earlier 5,000 tonne spill, caused when it was holed in bad weather. there is now acute danger that hundreds of kilometers of coastal Portugal and Spain could now be poluted by the highly toxic oil-fuel spill. Brussels presses EU states over ship safety The European Commission called on EU states Tuesday to urgently implement Europe-wide rules on maritime safety, highlighted by the major oil tanker spill off the Spanish coast. Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio has written to EU governments reminding them of their obligations as the 26-year-old Prestige tanker began sinking, six days after cracks appeared in its single hull during a storm last Wednesday. EU governments agreed in 2000 to phase out single-hull vessels by 2015, while also setting limits for the age of vessels plying its territorial waters. Meanwhile, Spain said today that it would push to bring foreward the date to ban single-hull tankers and have the international shipping lane moved further from it's treacherous Galician coastline, known as the Coast of Death, because of its inclement weather and long history of shipwrecks. Annan says Iraqi no-fly zone firing no violation Iraq's firing on U.S. and British aircraft enforcing "no-fly" zones in Iraq is not a violation of the latest Security Council resolution, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Tuesday. Contradicting the United States' interpretation of Resolution 1441 on Iraq adopted two weeks ago, Mr. Annan indicated that the Security Council would not see such action by Iraq as a trigger for war. The United States is alone among the 15-member Security Council member states in insisting that the no-fly zones are included in the resolution and that firing on the aircraft policing the two zones is therefore a breach of Resolution 1441. Last fuel oil shipment before cutoff reaches N. Korea An oil tanker arrived in North Korea on Tuesday carrying the last shipment of U.S.-funded fuel oil to the communist state unless it halts a banned nuclear weapons programme, South Korea said. Washington and its allies decided last week to stop vital fuel oil aid to penalise Pyongyang for breaking a series of nuclear non-proliferation agreements. The cuts will hit North Korea just ahead of winter, which brings sub-freezing temperatures. The United States, Japan, South Korea and the European Union agreed to suspend the fuel oil shipments to North Korea from December. Under a 1994 agreement, the North promised to stop its nuclear weapons programme in return for fuel oil, paid for by Washington, and two light water reactors that cannot easily be converted to produce atomic weapons material. Chechen refugees' plight worsening as food aid runs out says the UN The plight of Chechen refugees in and around the war-torn republic will worsen dramatically as UN food supplies run out, United Nations officials warned Tuesday. The United Nations World Food Program will have no food stocks for distribution in six weeks time. The UN is appealing for 34 million euros from international donors to provide food and other assistance for civilians in Chechnya and neighboring Russian republics in 2003. The situation of about 250,000 refugees in neighboring Russian republics has worsened due to the increased presence of Russian forces since Chechen separatists seized a Moscow theater with hundreds inside last month. The conflict in Chechnya flared up again in October 1999, when Russian forces re-entered the country, ejected the elected government and renewed their military campaign against Chechian separatists. Death toll in Turkish prison hunger strike rises to 59 In Turkey, the death toll in the two-year hunger strike against controversial high-security jails rose to 59 on Tuesday when another prisoner starved himself to death, a human rights activist said. Imdat Bulut, who had been on strike since June last year, died on Tuesday at an Istanbul hospital, a spokeswoman for the Turkish Human Rights Association said. The hunger-strike was launched in October 2000 by mainly left-wing inmates to protest the introduction of new jails in which one to three-person cells replaced large dormitories for dozens of inmates. The strikers say the new cells leave them socially isolated and more vulnerable to mistreatment by warders. German government wasted 2 billion euros in 2001 says audit office The German government could have shaved two billion euros from its huge budget deficit last year by using taxpayers' money more efficiently, the Federal Audit Office said in a report released Tuesday. The budget watchdog said in its 300-page report that the Social Democrats and Greens government had wasted funds on 121 occasions in 2001. In one case, it said that 157 million euros had been spent by the army on an anti-tank rocket system that was out-dated by the time it was ready and which proved too expensive and too dangerous for troops to use. Meanwhile, the European Commission has formally launched disciplinary procedures against Berlin for allowing its public deficit to exceed the euro-zone limit of 3 percent of gross domestic product.France has received a so-called "early warning" alert. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. Serbian News Network - SNN [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.antic.org/
