Deutsche Welle
English Service News
14. 12. 2005, 17:00 UTC
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Today's highlight on DW-WORLD:
No Better Deal to Come Says Britain as Europe Nears Crisis
Britain's second draft of budget proposals will be its last for the
forseeable future, officials said Wednesday as Germany and the rest
of the EU urged the presidency to avoid an imminent crisis.
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Iran once again calls Holocaust a myth
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has once again described the
Holocaust as a "myth." He made the comments in a speech in the city
of Zahedan that was broadcast live on state TV. Ahmadinejad caused
uproar recently when he made similar disparaging remarks about the
Holocaust and said Israel should be moved to Europe. In a reaction
to his latest outburst, Israel has urged the world to "open its
eyes" to the Iranian regime. Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter
Steinmeier has described Ahmadinejad's comments as "shocking and
unacceptable" and said he'd summoned Iran's ambassador.
Thousands bid farewell to Tueni
In Lebanon, tens of thousands of people have lined the streets of
the capital Beirut to pay their last respects to the anti-Syrian
journalist and parliamentarian Gibran Tueni. He, his driver and a
bodyguard were killed in a car bombing in a Christian-dominated
suburb on Monday. The attack has been blamed on the Syrian
government. A general strike was also called in mourning for Tueni
and police said around 80,000 people took part in the funeral
procession.
Explosion tears through car in Gaza
At least three people have been killed in a suspected Israeli air
strike in Gaza. Witnesses and hospital officials said an explosion
tore through a car as it was driving through an eastern suburb of
Gaza City. There were several casualties. The identity of the
passengers was not immediately known. In Tel Aviv, the Israeli army
had no immediate comment. The Israeli military has carried out a
number of targeted killing operations in recent days.
Bush defends Iraq policy ahead of poll
US President George W. Bush has defended his decision to invade Iraq
and vowed that the United States will stay until victory is
achieved. Bush made the remarks on the eve of the Iraqi elections.
Bush said that while alleged weapons of mass destruction were never
found in Iraq, it was still important to topple Saddam Hussein
because he had declared the United States was an enemy and he wanted
to pursue unconventional weapons. The president is facing waning
American public support for the war with critics questioning the
reasons for the 2003 US-led invasion.
Appeal launched for kidnapped German
The sister of a German aid worker kidnapped last month in Iraq has
appealed for her compatriots to demonstrate for her release in a
signal of solidarity with the captive. Anja Osthoff, the sister of
Susanne Osthoff, said she had no word on the fate of her sister, who
disappeared Nov. 25 in northern Iraq along with her Iraqi driver.
Anja Osthoff said demonstrations in France and Italy had been
important in keeping the plight of earlier captives from those
countries in the public eye.
Germany played no role in CIA abduction
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier says German authorities
played no role in the abduction of Khaled El-Masri, a German man of
Lebanese descent seized in Macedonia and held for five months in
Afghanistan. He told parliament during a debate about the case that
neither the government nor the police and secret service authorities
provided assistance in the abduction of Masri. Masri last week filed
a lawsuit against the US Central Intelligence Agency in a US federal
court, alleging that he was wrongfully abducted and abused as a
prisoner. Steinmeier said the chancellery and the foreign ministry
were only informed of the case a letter from his lawyers. The Masri
case has fuelled the controversy over the alleged secret prisons run
by the CIA and prisoner flights through Europe.
EU chief blasts British budget plans
European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso has poured scorn on
new British proposals to resolve the deadlock over the EU's budget.
Speaking on the eve of a crucial summit on the 2007-2013 EU budget,
he added that a deal was still possible, but a huge divide remains
between governments of the 25-nation bloc. His reaction came after
the EU's British presidency unveiled new proposals which would
increase the overall budget, but in which London refuses any further
cut in its long-cherished rebate. The EU failed in June to strike a
deal on the budget, notably due to Britain's refusal to give ground
on the rebate, and French resistance to calls for reform of the
bloc's generous farm aid systems.
Bosnian Serb war crimes suspects held
Bosnian Serb police have arrested six Serbs sought by local
authorities for alleged atrocities against Muslims during the
country's 1992-1995 war. A police spokesman said the six, who were
captured in the region of the northern town of Banja Luka, were
sought for their suspected roles at a wartime concentration camp.
They face charges of war crimes committed against non-Serb
civilians, notably Muslims, at a Serb camp on northern Mount Manjaca
during the inter-ethnic conflict. According to a local organisation
called Izvor, Serb forces detained and tortured 3,227 mostly
Muslims in the camps, before murdering around half of them.
German to replace Ashdown in Bosnia
A German former government minister, Christian Schwarz-Schilling, is
to succeed Britain's Paddy Ashdown as the international community's
high representative in Bosnia. This was announced following a
meeting in Paris of the Peace Implementation Council to mark the
10th anniversary of the formal signature of the Dayton peace
accords. 75-year-old Schwarz-Schilling is a former postal minister
and Balkans expert who has been acting as an international mediator
in the region since 1995. He resigned from chancellor Helmut Kohl's
government in 1992, after the start of the Balkan wars, in protest
over Germany's policy towards the region.
Italian Senate approves election reform
Italy's upper house of parliament has approved a controversial new
election law that will see the country return to proportional
representation. Left-wing critics say the reform, which comes just
before parliamentary elections next April, will benefit Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi. They also say that it could see a return
to the political instability that shaped Italian politics in the
1970s and 1980s. However Berlusconi's supporters say the new law is
more transparent than the previous mix of proportional
representation and first-past-the-post.
UN highlights plight of children
In a new report the UN agency for children UNICEF says that hundreds
of millions of children suffer discrimination and exploitation but
are invisible to the world. They include trafficked children, some
of whom are sold for sex, who "disappear" from mainstream society.
Others, including street children, are denied basic rights such as
schooling and healthcare. The report also says that children not
registered at birth are among those most likely to be forgotten and
invisible. It concludes that new laws are required to ensure that
births are officially registered, and it also urged governments to
do more to stop "abuse and exploitation".
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