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Deutsche Welle English Service News 19th April, 2002, 16:00 UTC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD: Between Past Crimes and Present Duties Germany is debating Israel's assault on the Jenin refugee camp. The country has good relations with the Palestinians but also a special responsibility for Israel's security. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1430_A_501564_1_A,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Saudi accuses Israel of Jenin war crimes Saudi Arabia's foreign minister accused Israel on Friday of committing war crimes in the Jenin refugee camp and said it was to blame for U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's failure to secure a Middle East ceasefire. Prince Saud al-Faisal, speaking after talks in Moscow said that an independent fact-finding mission must be dispatched as soon as possible to Jenin. He also emphasised that Saudi Arabia would never resort to using oil as a weapon in the conflict to support the Palestinian cause, and pledged to maintain present production levels. The Israeli army left Jenin on Friday ,as Palestinian residents of the town's devastated refugee camp dug up corpses. An army statement said Israeli forces had completed their mission in Jenin, but tanks have taken up positions around the city. A senior hospital official there said that they had recovered about fifty corpes, but the the death toll could rise to 400, once all corpses were extracted from rubble. Germany says Mideast tension threatens Europe Germany warned on Friday that a failure to find peace in the Middle East would hurt European security and that U.S., Israeli, British and Jewish institutions were now at risk of attack. Interior Minister Otto Schily said that failure to stop the terror and the bloodshed will have unforeseen consequences in which many people will also suffer outside the Middle East. Germany's BKA federal crime agency also warned of security risks and has notified the 16 German states of a risk both inside Germany and for Germans abroad. Afghan refugees return in droves The United Nations refugee agency said on Friday that 300,000 Afghans had gone home from Pakistan and Iran in just seven weeks. The flood was shaping up to be the largest and fastest return since 800,000 ethnic Albanians went back to the Serbian province of Kosovo in the summer of 1999, a UNHCR spokesman said.The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees now hopes to help 800,000 Afghan refugees return home this year, double its initial planning target, as well as 400,000 internally displaced people within Afghanistan itself. Iran and Pakistan host about three-and-a-half million Afghans, who fled war, drought and lack of food over more than 25 years. North and South Korean parliamentary leaders exchange warm handshake Parliamentary leaders from North and South Korea formally shook hands at a meeting in the southern Chinese city of Chonqing, a move which China's official news agency said symbolized the hope for peace and reunification oof both countries. The handshake follows an ice-breaking visit to the communist capital Pyongyang earlier this month by South Korea's special envoy Lim Dong-Won. During that visit, the two Koreas agreed to resume family reunions and open tourism and economic cooperation talks. South Korea Awards Multi-Billion Dollar Fighter Jet Deat to Boeing South Korea has awarded a multi-billion dollar fighter jet contract for 40 planes to the U.S. Boeing concern. The deal is expected to generate almost 3 billion dollars in jobs and technology for South Korea, which hopes to develop its own fighter by 2015. Seoul is expected to take first delivery of the new F 15 jets in 2005. Plan Crash in Milan Still Leaves Many Open Questions Investigators in Italy are still trying to discover what caused yesterday's crash of a private plane that slammed into Milan's tallest building, killing 3 people, including the pilot and injuring more than 90. The incident, which initially was thought to be a terrorist attack is currently being called an unbelievable accident, after it was disclosed that the pilot told air controllers minutes before impact that he was having technical problems. The Italian authorities are now speculating that the 67-year-old may have committed suicide. The plane struck the building near the top and blew out windows on both sides. About 300 people were believed to have been in the building at the moment of impact. Spanish customs seize 500 kilos of cocaine Spanish customs seized 500 kilos of cocaine and arrested two people on Friday in a raid in the northwestern province of Galicia, a government spokesman said. The drugs, worth an estimated 45 million euros on the street, were found when customs officials stopped a lorry travelling on one of Galicia's main roads. Galicia, with its rugged Atlantic coastline and isolated coves, is one of the principal entry points to Europe for smuggled cocaine from Latin America. German fund pays third of Nazi slave compensation The German foundation in charge of compensating survivors of Nazi-era slave labourers said on Friday it had paid nearly 1.3 billion euros to a total of about 660,000 eligible survivors. The payments to some 1.5 million people are due to be completed by 2004. The compensation fund was set up by the German government and German firms last year after lawsuits launched by groups representing survivors of some 10 million people used by the Nazi regime as slave labourers. The government paid half the 2.6 billion euros making up the fund, while 6,500 firms contributed the rest. Germany agrees to tighten party finance law The German parliament reacted to recent political corruption scandals by approving legislation on Friday that tightens party financing rules and introduces jail terms for those who break them. Germany has slipped up on an international list of perceived corruption after former Chancellor Helmut Kohl admitted receving over a million euros in undeclared donations and still refuses to name the donors. In recent months,local functionaries of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats have been accused of accepting improperly declared donations in return for favours like the awarding of state contracts. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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