Deutsche Welle English Service News 16.12.2002, 16:00 UTC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD: Wide Support for New Tax Proposal Chancellor Schr�der�s latest plan to overhaul the complex German tax system has found a surprising echo across the political spectrum and raised hope of ending a fractious debate on the controversial wealth tax. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1430_A_715385_1_A,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- U.S. says that there will be no second chance for Iraq on any omissions The White House on Monday said Iraq would not be given a second chance to correct omissions in its declaration of arms capabilities to the United Nations. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, asked if Iraq would be given a chance to amend the 12,000 page document to correct any omissions, referred to a series of U.N. resolutions Iraq has been accused of violating said that Iraq has had it's last chence. U.S., British and U.N. officials said in recent days Iraq's declaration of its weapons program, turned over to officials last weekend, failed to account for all of its chemical and biological agents. The U.N. resolution adopted in November warned that Iraq faced serious consequences, if it failed to comply with U.N. disarmament demands. Britain inviting Palestinian leaders to London for talks British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Monday he was inviting Palestinian leaders to London in the new year to discuss progress on reform and to look at how the international community could help. Mr. Blair, who met earlier Monday with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told the House of Commons that representatives of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States, together with countries from the Middle East region, would also be invited to attend the talks. The British leader said that it was in the interests of both the Palestinians and Israelis that these reform efforts succeed, so that President Bush's vision of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security,could become a reality. White House-authorized killings would be murder in Europe An EU legal and constitutional experts in Brussels said Monday that the killing in the European Union of suspected terrorist leaders on a list drawn up by the White House would be considered murder, even if the person had been authorised for such a liquidation by the law of his home country The White House has prepared a list of terrorist leaders whom the US Central Intelligence Agency or CIA is authorized to kill, the New York Times reported Sunday, citing senior military and intelligence officials.The previously undisclosed CIA list of 24 terrorist leaders includes key al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, his chief deputy, as well as other principal figures from terrorist groups affliated with al-Qaeda, the officials said in the Times report. At least 48 killed in Liberia boat capsize At least 50 people are known to have drowned and many more were feared dead when an overloaded ferry carrying some 200 passengers capsized in Liberia, the West African country's defence minister said. Only 15 persons were rescued, Daniel Chea told a news conference. He said the passengers were being ferried across a river after attending the funeral of a popular footballer near the town of Robertsport in northwest Liberia. A defence ministry official said on Monday that the ferry normally carried less than 100 people. The accident follows one of Africa's worst maritime disasters in September, when well over 1,000 people died, when an overloaded ferry capsized in heavy seas off Gambia. Compensation deal over US submarine collision soon A final compensation deal over last year's fatal collision between a US Navy submarine and a Japanese training ship is set to be completed after the remaining 2 bereaved families decided to sign a settlement.The 6,000-tonne US submarine accidentally rammed the school's training vessel, Ehime Maru, as the nuclear-powered submarine performed a rapid-surfacing drill off Hawaii. Five adult crew members and four students died in the accident. Another 26 people aboard the Japanese training ship survived. The families announced the decision after former captain of the Greeneville, Scott Waddle, visited Ehime, western Japan, and apologised to survivors and bereaved families for the accident. The US navy has already signed a compensation deal, worth 14 million dollars with all 26 survivors and relatives of seven of the dead. Ex-Bosnian Serb leader says Milosevic masterminded ethnic cleansing Known as the Bosnian Iron Lady, Biljana Plavsic, the most senior official from the former Yugoslavia to plead guilty, before the UN war crimes court here, said former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was responsible for the campaign of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Mrs. Plavsic, who was one of wartime Bosnian Serb leader and indicted war-criminal Radovan Karadzic's closest allies, said Mr. Milosevic worked closely with the Bosnian Serb leadership in the planning and execution of wide-spread persecutions of non-Serbs. The 72-year-old former biology professor is the first woman to appear before the war crimes tribunal. In the hearing several high-profile witnesses are to speak in the next three days, among them former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright and Swedish diplomat Carl Bildt, the international community's first envoy in post-war Bosnia. Gore will not run against Bush in 2004 election In a surprise announcement, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore said that he would not challenge U.S. President George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential elections. The announcement ended months of speculation over a possible political duel between Mr. Gore and President Bush, who narrowly defeated the former senator from Tennessee in the 2000 presidential election.A divided Supreme Court effectively decided the 2000 race for Mr. Bush by refusing to permit Mr. Gore a recount in Florida. Though he won the popular vote, Mr Gore lost to Bush after the bitter 36-day recount battle. Sixteen more Russians file hostage lawsuits: lawyer Sixteen more victims of October's Moscow hostage drama have filed lawsuits for moral damage compensation from city authorities, bringing the number to 24, their attorney said Monday. In an unprecedented decision, a Moscow court decided last month to hear lawsuits of the first eight victims of the theater hostage-taking. That lawsuit claim came to damages of over 7 million dollars. Russian special forces on October 26th stormed the Moscow theatre where Chechen separatist commandos had held over 800 people hostage for three days. A total of 129 hostages died, most of them from the effects of a powerful opiate gas the special forces pumped into the theatre to subdue the hostage-takers before the raid.Should the lawsuits succeed, they would have severe implications in a country, where police or military attacks have killed or wounded hundreds of victims in recent years. Death toll in Turkish prison hunger strike rises to 62 In Turkey, a woman prison inmate involved in a long-running hunger strike to protest jail reforms became the latest prisoner to starve herself to death, bringing the total number of fatalities to 62. Feride Harman, an extreme left-wing prisoner on a six-month temporary release due to her deteriorating health, died overnight on the 512th day of her fast, a spokeswoman for the Turkish Human Rights Association said. The protest 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 and police. Polish cold-spell weather toll increases to 116 The toll from extreme cold weather in Poland has increased to 116 victims, police said on Monday. Most of the victims were men aged between 40 and 50 who died of hypothermia, after drinking alcohol and falling asleep, as temperatures dropped to minus 20 degrees Celsius in certain regions of the central European country. Around a quarter of the victims were homeless people sleeping in doorways or stairways.Last winter around 300 people died of cold in Poland, a record number compared to 112 in 2000. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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/
