DEUTSCHE WELLE/DW-WORLD.DE Newsletter English Service News 15.02.07, 17:00 Uhr UTC
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' Take DW-WORLD.DE's survey for a chance to win an iPod! Visit our Homepage at www.dw-world.de. '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' Today's highlight on DW-WORLD: German Neo-Nazi Gets Five Years for Holocaust Denial A German court on Thursday sentenced a prominent Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel to five years in prison for inciting racial hatred and denying that the Nazis killed millions of Jews. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://newsletter.dw-world.de/re?l=evuhgoIfcha79I0&req=l%3DevuhgnIfcha79I0 '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' Madrid train bombings trial opens The trial of 29 suspects charged with involvement in the 2004 Madrid train bomb attacks is underway in the Spanish capital. Nearly 200 people were killed and more than 1,800 others were injured in the March 11 bombings, which struck crowded morning rush hour commuter trains. The prosecution alleges that the attacks were the work of mainly Moroccan Islamic extremists inspired by Al-Qaeda and angered by Spanish military participation in Iraq. One of the four alleged masterminds of the bombings, Rabei Ousmane, alias "Mohammed the Egyptian," has rejected all charges against him and is refusing to give evidence. He is one of seven lead defendants facing sentences of up to 40,000 years each for the deaths and membership of a terrorist organisation. All of the suspects say they are innocent. Russia could abandon Nukes treaty Russia has warned the United States it could pull out of a Cold War nuclear arms reduction treaty if Washington pursues plans to build a missile shield in Eastern Europe. General Yuri Baluyevsky, head of the Russian general staff, said if US plans to station further anti-missile defences in eastern Europe went ahead, Russia would withdraw from the INF treaty on the destruction of short- and medium-range nuclear missiles. Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski has already said under certain conditions he would favour having US missiles in Poland. The United States has said the shield is needed to protect Europe from Iranian missiles but Russia suspects Washington and its NATO allies are building the shield because of Russia. Bush urges NATO allies to boost troops US President George W Bush is urging NATO allies to help fill "security gaps" in Afghanistan by sending more soldiers and lifting restrictions on troops already there. Bush made the comments in a speech outlining the challenges in Afghanistan and a plan to defeat the resurgent Taliban Islamist militia. A number of NATO countries, including Germany, have troops among the 34,000 NATO forces in Afghanistan, but limit their use to peacekeeping missions in relatively safe areas of the country. Shiite cleric al-Sadr in Iran: Iraqi advisor An adviser to Iraq's prime minister says that radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is in Iran, but denied he fled due to fear of arrest during an escalating security crackdown. Sami al-Askari said al-Sadr traveled across the border by land "a few days ago". Sadr's supporters have denied an announcement by the US military in Iraq that the hardline Shiite leader had left for Tehran at some point last month. In Iran, there was no word from the government or media on al-Sadr's whereabouts. This comes as Iraqi and US forces launched a large and growing operation in and around Baghdad to curb sectarian violence in the capital. Authorities have also sealed off border crossings to Iran and Syria at least until Friday. Cyprus and Turkey row over oil Turkey has warned Egypt and Lebanon to delay oil deals with Cyprus. Cyprus has formally invited tenders for oil exploration and drilling rights off the coast of the Mediterranean island. The launch of the licensing round came just two days after Ankara announced its own plans for oil and gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean, triggering Cypriot government protests. Estimated oil reserves around the island, which has been divided since Turkey invaded in 1974, are put at around eight to 10 billion barrels. Turkey says the tender process infringes the rights of breakaway Turkish Cyprus, which only Ankara recognizes. Turkey to inspect Israel holy site repairs Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has agreed to a Turkish inspection of the Jewish state's controversial construction work near Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the move at a press conference with Olmert after talks spanning a wide range of issues. The renovation work was met by violent demonstrations by Palestinians and protests from the Muslim world. Israel insists the work poses no risk to the holy sites and is being done because of earthquake and snowstorm damage in 2004. EU immigration control comes up short. European Union countries have only come up with half the resources needed to equip a new border agency to control illegal immigration. EU officials said on Thursday 19 European states have offered eight aircraft, 13 helicopters and about 50 boats, as well as technical equipment for border surveillance. The resources are to be put at the disposal of the new EU border agency Frontex, whose director said he needed twice as much to halt the wave of illegal immigrants. The EU's justice chief on Thursday called for EU member states to provide the equipment by the end of April. More than 31,000 illegal immigrants reached Spain's Canary Islands last year, six times more than in 2005. Italy and Malta were also targeted heavily. Merkel urges Africans to act in crises German Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged Zimbabwe's neighbours to use their influence to help end the hardship caused by President Robert Mugabe's policies. Merkel was speaking at the opening of the Africa-France summit in the French Riviera resort of Cannes. In a shift from a previous Africa-France summit held in 2003, France decided not to invite Mugabe to the Cannes meeting. French President Jacques Chirac also addressed the summit, calling on the Sudanese government and rebels to accept the deployment of an international peace force in the war-torn Darfur region. Some 30 African leaders and German Chancellor Angela Merkel - whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency - joined Chirac in Cannes for the summit. German Holocaust denier sentenced A German court has sentenced Holocaust denier Ernst Zuendel to five years' imprisonment for inciting racial hatred, the maximum punishment possible under German law. The court in the southwestern city of Mannheim found Zuendel guilty of repeatedly denying the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis in World War II. The 67-year-old Zuendel also helped disseminate a range of anti-Semitic literature. He was extradited to Germany in 2005 from Canada, where he had lived for several decades. The German government is trying to convince all member states of the European Union to make denying the Holocaust a crime. EU court rejects Nazi compensation case The European Court of Justice has rejected arguments by Greek citizens seeking compensation from Germany for a World War Two massacre. Descendants of inhabitants of the town of Kalavrita executed by the German army in December, 1943, brought the case to the court after Greek courts said they lacked jurisdiction. They claimed that a provision of the Brussels Convention created an exception to the rule that Germany was entitled to immunity for acts in an armed conflict affecting non-combatants. The court said in its ruling that the Convention did not cover actions "where the public authority acts in the exercise of its public power," including military operations. Abbas puts off unity government speech Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has postponed an address he was to give to Palestinians to promote a deal on a new unity government with Hamas. Officials say the delay is due to a dispute with Hamas. Among other things, the two sides have failed to agree on a number of key appointments. An Abbas adviser told Palestinian television the president would now give his speech after holding talks later on Thursday with Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. The power-sharing deal was negotiated last week in Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Fighting between the Fatah faction of Abbas and the ruling Hamas has killed more than 90 Palestians between late December and early February. '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' Take DW-WORLD.DE's survey for a chance to win an iPod! Visit our Homepage at www.dw-world.de. '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' For more information please turn to our internet website at http://newsletter.dw-world.de/re?l=evuhgoIfcha79I1&req=l%3DevuhgnIfcha79I1 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. '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' Copyright Deutsche Welle 2007 We're sorry to hear that you want to cancel your newsletter subscription. http://newsletter.dw-world.de/public/unsubscribe.jsp?gid=90003210&uid=927954405&mid=900016872&sig=AKNOECADNANFHINF&locale=en [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
