Deutsche Welle English Service News 24. 01. 2005, 17:00 UTC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD:
Germany Nabs Two Suspected Terrorists German police arrested two suspected members of the al Qaeda network on Sunday. The men are alleged to have planned a suicide attack in Iraq and one reportedly tried to buy uranium in Luxembourg. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1467564,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Are you coming to Germany soon? DW-WORLD has just the thing for you: Ever Monday, we compile a list of the top five events that are going on this week -- from exhibitions to concerts to festivals and markets. Check out "Germany's Top Five" at www.dw-world.de/English ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UN to mark Holocaust anniversary The United Nations General Assembly in New York has commemorated the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. Monday's special session preceded the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, which falls on Thursday. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that "evil" still threatens the world today and should not be forgotten. He said the United Nations was formed as a response to the "horror of the Holocaust." Six million Jews were exterminated in Nazi camps as well as millions of others including Poles, homosexuals, Soviet prisoners and Roma, or gypsies. Yushchenko meets Russia's Putin Newly-inaugurated Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko is in Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Although Putin had openly supported Yushchenko's rival Viktor Yanukovich, the new Ukrainian president said that he regarded Russia as "an eternal strategic parter" for his country. For his part, Putin reaffirmed that the Kremlin was willing to work with any leader elected by the Ukrainian people. Yushchenko's trip to Russia is his first foreign visit following his inauguration Sunday. Before he left for Moscow, Yushchenko named his ally Yulia Tymoshenko acting prime minister in a statement on his official website. The nomination, however, still must be approved by parliament. Blast rocks pre-election Baghdad Just a week before Iraq's election, a suicide car bomb has exploded near the Baghdad offices of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's party. Officials said at least ten people were wounded, mainly Iraqi policemen. Allawi, who was absent, had vowed over the weekend to safeguard 5,000 polling stations. Responsibility for the latest suicide bombing was claimed by the insurgent group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Allawi's government, in turn, says it has arrested two of Zarqawi's lieutenants, including one implicated in the 2003 bombing of what was the United Nation's Baghdad headquarters. Earlier, Zarqawi had warned of a "bitter war" against voters, mainly from Iraq's Shi'ite majority. Many leaders among Iraq's Sunnis, who predominated during Saddam Hussein's rule, want an election boycott. Quake hits Indonesia's Sulawesi island Another part of Indonesia, Sulawesi, has been hit by an earthquake, nearly a month after quake-induced tsunami waves ravaged Sumatra. Sulawesi's quake, measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale and sited inland, caused panic in the coastal city of Palu as residents rushed to higher ground. Initial reports say one person was killed and four others were injured. Up to 50 buildings have been badly damaged. Sulawesi, 2,500 kilometres distant from Sumatra, was left untouched by last month's seabed quake and tsunami that killed 174,000 people in Indonesia alone. Meanwhile, Finland plans to host talks later this week between rebels from the Sumatran province of Aceh and Indonesia's government. The mediator will be the former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari. N. Koreans break into Beijing school Eight people believed to be North Korean refugees have broken into a Japanese school in Beijing to seek asylum. South Korea's Yonhap news agency said the eight were asking to travel to South Korea. A Japanese embassy official said the embassy was making checks to confirm that the group were North Koreans. Human rights groups estimate that several hundred thousand North Korean refugees may be living near the border in northeastern China. China has allowed many of those who enter foreign missions to leave for a third country on their way to South Korea, despite an agreement with Pyongyang to repatriate them. Call for campaign against far-right Germany's mainstream political parties are calling for a broad public campaign to counter the country's extreme rightwing groups. This follows outrage at a speech last Friday in the state parliament of Saxony by the leader of the far-right National Party of Germany (NPD), who described the Allied bombing of Dresden in World War II as a "bombing holocaust". In the same session, NPD parliamentary deputies walked out while other members of the state legislature observed a minute's silence for the millions who died at the hands of the Nazis. Nevertheless, an outright ban on the rightwing parties remains unlikely after the government's previous attempts were knocked down by Germany's highest court. Opposition CDU picks new executive Germany's opposition Christian Democrats have picked a new secretary-general to run the party's executive in the lead-up to next year's federal election. Volker Kauder replaces Laurenz Meyer who resigned in December amid allegations that he had received a second income from his former employer, the energy giant RWE. Over the past two years, Kauder, aged 55 and a trained lawyer, had managed the CDU group of parliamentarians in the Bundestag. CDU leader Angela Merkel said she and Kauder planned a strong challenge to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's governing Social Democrats. TV entertainer Johnny Carson dies Legendary television entertainer Johnny Carson has died at the age of 79. The NBC television network reported on its web site on Sunday that Carson died of emphysema. The entertainer hosted NBC's popular "The Tonight Show" for nearly 30 years. He did his final show on Friday, May 22, 1992, seen by 55 million, and was replaced the next Monday by the current host, Jay Leno. Drug traffickers get death sentence Seventeen drug traffickers have been sentenced to death in Vietnam's biggest drug case, a court official said on Monday. Among those sentenced to death were two former anti-narcotics policemen. In all, 29 defendants pleaded guilty to trafficking more than 800 kg of heroin over a period of nearly five years. Vietnam, a conduit for heroin smuggled from the Golden Triangle poppy-growing region where Laos, Thailand and Myanmar meet, has some of the toughest drug tracking laws in the world. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The waiting is over: on Jan. 21 the Bundesliga returns from its winter break and starts off the second half of the 2004/05 season. The 17 remaining match days leading up to the final on May 21 guarantee plenty of excitement. Can FC Bayern-Munich keep its lead at the top of the table or will one of the strong contesters Schalke 04 or VfB Stuttgart overtake the club from the Bavarian capital? And how do the lower ranked teams keep up with the rest? Who will survive into the next season and who will be forced down a notch? Keep informed of what’s happening in Germany’s premier soccer league at http://www.dw-world.de/soccer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 news@antic.org http://www.antic.org/
