Deutsche Welle English Service News July 11th 2002, 16:00 UTC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD: Fischer Translates Bush Speech into Action Plan German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer has drawn up a concrete plan to kick-start Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The proposal retains elements of President Bush's controversial Middle East policy speech from last month. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://kleist.dwelle.de/english/current_affairs/currentaffairs1.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Turkish premier calls on ministers to return Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit has urged more than 35 members of his Democratic Left Party, including seven ministers, who have resigned this week to return. Earlier Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem resigned. Mounting desertions from Ecevit's three-party government over the last week are expected to set the scene for probable early elections that some fear could undermine Turkey's frail economy. Turkish television stations reported that Kemal Dervis, who earlier quit as economy minister, was withdrawing his resignation. Dervis, the architect of Turkey's multi-billion dollar IMF rescue programme, met earlier in the day with a visiting International Monetary Fund team inspecting progress in the country's crisis plan. EU says hormone food contamination could spread The European Union has said that a problem in the Netherlands over pig feed contaminated with banned growth hormones could spread to other countries. In what is the latest food scare for Europe, the Netherlands last month found pig feed contaminated with the MPA hormone. Belgium has said the feed was from a now bankrupt Belgian firm, which had in turn imported materials from Ireland. MPA is banned in the EU as scientists believe it might cause infertility in humans. Products containing it must be destroyed. MPA is still used by humans in birth control pills and also in hormone replacement therapy for women going through menopause. It is approved as a growth stimulant in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. German Telekom chief criticizes debate on his replacement The controversial boss of the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom, Ron Sommer, has called the public discussion about his replacement damaging to the company he heads. He told the mass circulation Bild newspaper that instead the government should stick to its job of creating a legal framework conducive to business. Angry investors have demanded Sommer's ouster after the steep drop in Telekom's share price in recent months. Meanwhile, German media reports that Sommer may be replaced as early as this weekend. UN warns that aid is needed to stabilise Afghan government A leading UN official has siad that Afghanistan could slide back under the control of warlords if it failed to receive the aid it urgently needed. Kenzo Oshima, U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said over 750 million Euros were needed by the end of this year to pay for food and shelter for returning refugees as well as items such as police and army salaries. He was speaking to a meeting in Geneva of U.N. officials and representatives from 15 donor countries less than a week after Afghan Vice-President Haji Abdul Qadir was shot dead after his first morning's work as public works minister. Victims of the Srebrenica massacre remembered A memorial service for the dead of Srebrenica has marked the seventh anniversary of the Bosnian Serb massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in what was supposed to be a United Nations "safe area". Around 2,000 mourners took part in the service in a field near the town, praying for the victims of what is widely considered Europe's worst atrocity since World War Two. The Serbs captured the isolated, enclave on July 11, 1995 and rounded up the Muslim men while the UN peacekeepers stood by helplessly. They had no orders to fight and were denied air support. AIDS summit delegates urge drug access In Spain, delegates at the world's biggest AIDS conference have urged governments to provide nationwide access to anti-AIDS drugs because people should not be dying when life-saving treatments are available. The World Health Organisation laid the groundwork to increase access when it announced new guidelines this week to simplify treatment with the goal of getting anti-retroviral drugs to three million people by the year 2005. Earlier activist groups appealed to industrialized nations to do more to help poorer countries combat the HIV epidemic. They called on pharmaceutical companies to cut the price of so-called retroviral drugs which hinder the full-blown AIDS condition. One million children suffer malnutrition in North Korea The United Nations children's fund, UNICEF, has estimated that about one million children in North Korea are undernourished. Reinhard Schlagintweit, the head of UNICEF Germany said in Cologne that UN food and health programs were acutely threatened because only about one-quarter of the necessary funding had been made available. He said 1,4 million dollars was still needed. One-in-three children, he added, suffered from malnutrition in North Korea which in turn affected their physical and mental development. South Korea appoints first female premier President Kim Dae-jung has chosen South Korea's first female prime minister and replaced six other ministers in a government reshuffle. The appointment of Prime Minister Chang Sang, a Princeton-educated former university dean was thought to be designed to restore faith in Kim's administration after a spate of scandals. South Korea will elect a successor to the 77-year-old Kim in December. He is barred by the constitution from seeking a second five-year term. Seven people killed bya storm in Germany The people of Berlin have launched a major clean-up operation after a storm wrought havoc in the German capital and killed seven. Hurricane-like winds of 150 km an hour uprooted around 1,000 trees in the capital and surrounding region. Streets were strewn with debris, disrupting public transport and causing traffic delays. Air traffic and rail services were suspended temporarily. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. 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