Deutsche Welle English Service News 14.01.2005, 17:00 UTC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD:
Europe's Titanic Mission On Friday, the European Space Agency's Huygens probe will land on the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. The mission hopes to help unravel the mystery of how life evolved on Earth. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1458262,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Enjoy our "World News" newsletter? Why not also subscribe to "Daily Bulletin", DW-WORLD's latest daily digest of the day's top German and European stories, delivered to you around 18:30 UTC. To find out more and sign up, please go to http://www.dw-world.de/english/newsletter ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Abbas denounces Palestinian attack Palestinian President-elect Mahmoud Abbas has denounced an attack by militants that killed six Israelis at a Gaza border crossing late on Thursday. The incident has increased the pressure on Abbas to curb Palestinian militancy. The Israeli army said its troops killed at least three Palestinian gunmen in a battle following the attack. But militants in Gaza said the gunmen blew themselves up after infiltrating the border crossing. Soon after, Israeli helicopters fired missiles at a building belonging to the militant group Islamic Jihad in southern Gaza. Abbas also criticized Israeli raids last week in which nine Palestinians were killed, saying the violence did not benefit peace. Rocket hits Iraq oil pipeline In Iraq, saboteurs have shot a rocket at an oil complex in the north of the country, setting off a fire officials say will take days to control. Attacks against northern oil facilities have escalated in the last two months, helping to worsen a fuel and electricity crisis. Elsewhere in the country, violence also continues, with over a dozen Iraqis killed in attacks within 24 hours. A bomb on a mosque north of Baghdad late on Thursday killed seven people. On Wednesday, an aide to Iraq's top Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, the aide's son, and four bodyguards were murdered southeast of the capital. Ansar Al-Islam, an Islamist militant group, has claimed responsibility for those murders on the Internet. Aid for Tsunami fishing communities Tsunami survivors in Sri Lanka such as fishing families could get cash, free water and electricity, for a few months, under a plan being discussed by the government. Aside from 31,000 people killed, Sri Lanka's coastal communities lost 18,000 fishing boats vital for their livehoods. In Sri Lanka's Tamil north, rebels and government officials have met to settle a row over what the rebels said were uneven aid deliveries. Amid warnings around the Indian Ocean that orphaned children could be abducted by smugglers, the International Migration Organisation has started a preventative scheme. It's to include a telephone hotline. In Indonesia, whose Aceh region was also devastated, the forestry ministry wants the shrimp industry to reinstate mangrove swamps to tame future tsunami waves. The UN says the risk of epidemics such as cholera is declining but experts say malaria is a worry. The overall tsunami death toll exceeds 162,000. UN to appoint special tsunami envoy UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan says the United Nations will appoint a special envoy to supervise aid in areas devastated by the Indian Ocean tsunami on December 26. Annan said international donors had asked the UN to name a coordinator for relief efforts at a meeting last week in Jakarta. He said he hoped to name the envoy by the end of next week. Ex-Argentine officer in abuses trial The trial has opened in Spain of a former Argentine naval officer accused of torture and other rights abuses during the dictatorship in his native country from 1976 to 1983. Adolfo Scilingo is facing charges of murder, causing injury, terrorism and torture. He is one of several alleged ex-torturers and killers wanted by foreign courts for the death and disappearance of their citizens during the Argentine dictatorship. He is the first such accused actually to appear before a foreign court. Greece seizes 6 tonnes of hashish Greek police have seized about six tonnes of hashish after raiding a warehouse at the port of Piraeus near Athens. The financial fraud squad said in a statement that a British citizen of Indian origin had also been arrested. It was Greece's largest drugs haul in more than seven years. Greece lies on the crossroads of the international drugs route from Asia to central and northern Europe. Top IOC official loses appeal South Korea's Supreme Court has upheld a two-year jail term and a heavy fine for International Olympic Committee vice president Kim Un-Yong. He was taken into custody in January last year and convicted six months later of corruption involving millions of dollars. The conviction was upheld on appeal in September but the prison sentence was cut from 30 months to two years. The IOC is now expected to take action against him and could strip him of his IOC membership. Britain signs Tanzanian debt relief pact Britain has signed a debt relief pact with Tanzania as part of London's plan to help ease African nations' chronic poverty. Visiting finance minister Gordon Brown said Britain will pay ten percent of Tanzania's repayments to the World Bank and the African Development Bank. He said this should allow more money to be put into public services, particularly health care and education. Brown said London would make similar offers to 70 other poor nations, and was asking other countries to join it. Last week, he proposed a plan for Africa modelled on the so-called Marshall Plan, which restored Europe's economy after World War II. Huygens probe lands on Titan European Space Agency scientists say that the Huygens space probe has apparently landed safely on the surface of Titan, one of Saturn's moons. Professor David Southwood, director of science for the agency, said the landing must have been soft, as the probe was still transmitting data. He said Huygens had now been sending data to its mothership, Cassini, for several hours. Titan has a thick atmosphere similar to that of earth when life first began here. Scientists hope information from the probe could yield clues to how life emerged on earth. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DW-WORLD values your opinion: We look forward to hearing from you about stories we write and regularly post your letters in our reader response section. 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