News, 15.03.2005, 18:00 Uhr UTC Deutsche Welle English Service News March 15th 2005, 18:00 UTC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD:
Doing Better Than "Business as Usual" Three months after a tsunami devastated resorts in South Asia, the region is the focus of the world's biggest tourism fair in Berlin. Tourists are being asked to return, but can the industry learn from past mistakes? To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1518188,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In light of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in 2005, DW-WORLD has put together a special site marking the occasion. Our coverage looks at the effect of World War II on countries around the world and includes interviews with scholars as well as picture galleries. To view the site, please go to http://www.dw-world.de/english ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Israel re-opens Holocaust memorial World leaders have gathered in Israel for the opening of the redesigned Yad Vashem Holocaust museum and memorial. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan are among the more than 40 heads of state and ministers attending the opening. The museum details the annihilation of six million Jews under Germany's Nazi regime during World War Two. It seeks to personalise both the victims and the Nazi perpetrators by recounting the Holocaust's history via displays of personal artefacts, diaries and photographs. Israel to start West Bank withdrawal Israel has agreed to hand over control of the West Bank town of Jericho to the Palestinian Authority on Wednesday. Israeli and Palestinian officials said Israeli troops would also pull out of the towns of Tulkarem and Qalqilya in the next few days. The decision came at a meeting outside of Tel Aviv between Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz and Palestinian Interior Minister Nasser Yousef. Thousands in Lebanon rally against US Thousands of demonstrators have rallied near the US embassy in the Lebanese capital Beirut, denouncing Washington as a source of terrorism and pledging solidarity with Syria. Pro-Syrian groups have blamed the United States for pressuring Damascus into deciding to withdraw its 14,000 troops from Lebanon. Tuesday's protest followed an anti-Syrian demonstration in Beirut on Monday in which close to a million people took part. Meanwhile, in addition to the troop pullout, Syrian intelligence agents have also begun withdrawing from Lebanon. In Damascus, Syrian President Bashar Assad discussed the crisis in Lebanon with his Egyptian counterpart, Hosni Mubarak. No deal to ease political stand-off in Iraq Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq are trying to resolve a political stand-off on the eve of parliament's first session. Discussions between the Shi'ite alliance, which won a slim parliamentary majority in the January elections, and the Kurds, who came second, have foundered over how to share out key posts and Kurdish wishes for greater control of the north. Meanwhile, insurgent violence in Iraq continues, with a car bomb targeting a US convoy in Baghdad killing two people and wounding at least four others. In a separate incident, a blast near the Ministry of Health wounded two people. French militant jailed for 10 years A Paris court has sentenced French-Algerian Islamic militant Djamel Beghal to 10 years in prison for plotting to blow up the US embassy in the French capital in 2001. The court also handed out jail sentences to five of Beghal's accomplices for periods of one to nine years. The six men, all of Algerian origin, are suspected of having links to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden but denied any role in the foiled plot. French investigators say Beghal's cell had contacts in Britain, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. Blast damages Kosovo president's car An explosion has damaged a car carrying Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova in the Serbian province's capital, Pristina. At least one person was injured in the blast, but the president was unhurt. It happened as Rugova was on his way to meet European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana who arrived in Pristina on Monday. The cause of the blast was not immediately clear. This comes a day after Kosovo's former prime minister, Ramush Haradinaj pleaded not guilty to war crimes charges, at the United Nations war crimes tribunal in the Hague. The charges stem from the 1998-99 Kosovo conflict. Russia paid bounty on Maskhadov Russia's Federal Security Service says it paid a 10-million-dollar bounty to people who helped it find and kill Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov. Maskhadov was killed last week in what troops said was a targeted raid, but there has been speculation over the official version of how the rebel leader was slayed. Maskhadov led resistance to Moscow's rule in Chechnya for a decade. Chechen activists have slammed Moscow's decision to invoke the anti-terrorism law and described its refusal to give Maskhadov's body to relatives for burial as a violation of human rights. Philippine forces storm prison Police in the Philippine capital, Manila, have killed at least 22 prisoners after storming a detention centre to end a revolt by Islamic militant inmates. Philippine Interior Minister Angelo Reyes told a news conference that among the dead were several senior members of the Abu Sayyaf Islamic militant group. One of them is said to have been behind a raid of a Malaysian resort five years ago, in which 21 people, including three Germans, were kidnapped and held for ransom. Prisoners had taken control of part of the prison on Monday, killing three prison guards and injuring two others, in what the interior minister said was a break-out attempt. Rice kicks off Asia visit in New Delhi US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has arrived in the Indian capital New Delhi at the start a six-nation tour of Asia. On Wednesday she will meet with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Foreign Minister Natwar Singh before flying off to Pakistan in the evening. Economic and security relations, the situation in Nepal, and the India-Pakistan peace process are some of the issues expected to come up for discussion. Rice is also due to visit Afghanistan, Japan, China and South Korea. EU voices concern over new China law The European Union has expressed concern over the latest escalation in tensions between China and Taiwan following the passing of an anti-secession bill by China's parliament. The EU said in a statement that it urged all sides to avoid any unilateral action that could stoke tensions. This follows the passing on Monday of the anti-secession law allowing the use of military force if Taiwan moves towards independence. Meanwhile, China has sought to allay fears over the new legislation saying there is no change to its policy towards the self-ruled island. A senior official of China's Taiwan Affairs Office said that passing the law did not mean there was major adjustment to the existing policy. Ebbers guilty in WorldCom fraud Former WorldCom chief executive Bernard Ebbers has been convicted on fraud charges after the accounting scheme that led to the biggest corporate collapse in US history. Sentencing is set to take place in June. Ebbers is accused of being the mastermind of an 11-billion-dollar fraud that forced the telecom giant into bankruptcy in 2002. Shareholders lost about 180 billion dollars in WorldCom's collapse, and 20,000 workers lost their jobs. Less than two weeks after WorldCom's downfall, the US passed one of the toughest corporate governance laws in history, which made corporate leaders accountable for financial misconduct at their companies. Koehler urges more reforms in Germany German President Horst Koehler has said that the country must be prepared to undergo more economic reform to contain unemployment figures which have swelled to over five million. With more Germans out of work than at any time since World War Two, Koehler said large-scale reform of the labour market and tax system must continue. Koehler, who used to head the International Monetary Fund, addressed business leaders prior to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's scheduled meeting with opposition leaders on Thursday to discuss ideas on job creation. Koehler welcomed the reforms package known as Agenda 2010 introduced by Schroeder as a "brave start", but said that those measures were not enough. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. 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