Deutsche Welle English Service News July 17th 2005, 17:00 UTC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD:
Goodbye PDS, Hello "Left Party" After much back and forth, Germany's reform communist PDS party on Sunday voted in favor of joining a new leftist alliance, and agreed to change their name, as expected, to The Left Party. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1651365,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Last chance to play! DW-WORLD's "Click Back" monthly review quiz for July is waiting for you and will test your knowledge of stories we've written. If you answer all questions correctly, you can also win a great prize. To play, please go to: http://www.dw-world.de/english ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Four suicide car bombers strike in Iraq Four suicide car bombers have struck in Baghdad killing at least eight people less less than 24 hours after nearly 100 people were killed in a suicide bombing south of the Iraqi capital. Police said Sunday's attacks targeted police men and employees of the electoral commission. The first, which killed two policemen and a civilian in an eastern Baghdad neighborhood, occurred as police inspected the bodies of two Iraqis killed by insurgents. Two other car bombers exploded near police and US convoys in southern Baghdad. Another triggered an explosion outside the offices of Iraq's electoral commission in eastern Baghdad, killing five employees of Iraq's electoral commission and one policeman, according to officials. The latest wave of attacks came even as details continued to emerge of Saturday's suicide bomb in Musayyib. Iraq tribunal formally charges Saddam Iraq's special tribunal empowered to try war crimes has issued its first charges against Saddam Hussein. The chief investigating judge Raed Jouhi told reporters in Baghdad that Saddam and three others had been charged with the killings of 140 Shi'ite Muslims in the village of Dujail in 1982. The killing occurred after an attempt to assassinate Saddam as his convoy passed through the village, 60 km north of Baghdad. The retribution also allegedly included jailing hundreds of women and children from the town. The judge said an announcement would be made within days as to when Saddam would stand trial. Pakistan troops say 17 militants killed Pakistani troops have killed 17 militants, some believed to be from Central Asia, after coming under fire near the Afghan border. The military said soldiers had surrounded some houses near Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan when militants turned down an appeal from tribal elders to surrender and opened fire. They said some women, whom the militants used as human shields were also killed in the clashes. The army offensive coincides with president Pervez Musharraf's order for a countrywide crackdown on Islamist militants in the wake of reports of Pakistani connections to the bomb blasts in London on July 7. Germany's PDS is now Left Party Members of the former East German communists, the Party of Democratic Socialism or PDS have approved a new name for the party. At a special congress in Berlin on Sunday, they decided to call themselves the Left Party. Opinion polls indicate that an alliance between the new Left Party and the western-based Election Alternative Labour and Social Justice party could win as much as 11 percent of the vote in elections expected later this year. The alliance is threatening to draw votes away from Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's ruling Social Democrats and their junior coalition partners, the Greens. Hardy Graupner reports from Berlin. Hurricane Emily Windows have been boarded up and businesses closed as Hurricane Emily, heads toward a direct hit on the coast of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. In the popular resort of Cancun, 30,000 tourists, the majority of them foreigners, have been shifted to better protected hotels, away from the shores. Earlier, Hurricane Emily had passed to the south of Jamaica, bringing torrential rains and pounding surf to the island. Experts say the hurricane is extremely dangerous with maximum sustained winds of about 250 km/h. Plane crash confirmed in Guinea A Russian-built Antonov airliner with 55 people aboard operated by the private airline Ecuatair crashed Saturday about 30 kilometers from the Equatorial Guinea capital Malabo.The offical statement by the Transport Minister,did not give a death toll but said the plane had 55 people on board and was found near the district of Baney. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Send us your favorite picks for sight-seeing, museum hopping, historical edification whatever youve got to share with others heading to Germany. Restaurants, hotels, back-country hideaways write to us with your insider tips and tell us about what you liked best about traveling in Germany. 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