Deutsche Welle English Service News 23. 11. 2005, 17:00 UTC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's highlight on DW-WORLD:
Merkel Meets Chirac on First Foreign Tour Angela Merkel marked her first day in office with a visit to European leaders. First stop: lunch with Jacques Chirac. To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the internet address below: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1789346,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DW-WORLD.DE's Redesigned Web site: More information at a glance! Deutsche Welle's online news service has a new outfit that's more compact, fresher and faster. It's the site's first re-design since 2001. To check it out, please visit http://dw-world.de ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Merkel meets EU and NATO officials Just one day after being sworn in, new German Chancellor Angela Merkel, has embarked on a tour of European capitals. She arrived in Brussels after holding talks with French President Jacques Chriac in Paris. During her talks with Chirac, Merkel stressed that Central and Eastern European countries would still play an important role in Berlin's European policies. Chirac said that for the European Union to operate well, a solid German-French axis was necessary. In Brussels she met NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and was due to hold talks with EU Commission President Jose Mauel Barroso, before heading to London on Thursday. Merkel, leader of the conservative Christian Democrats, is Germany's first woman chancellor. She heads a coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats. China city has taps turned off Emergency measures have come into force in Harbin in north-eastern China, after water supplies were turned off. The move came amid fears they may have been contaminated with the toxic substance benzine by a chemical factory explosion upstream. The authorities in the city of almost four million people are bringing drinking water in by road. The initial announcement of water stoppages led to panic buying of water and food. The 13 November explosion at a petrochemical plant in Jilin city, about 380 km up the Songhua river injured more than 60 people. Johnson-Sirleaf wins Liberia election Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has won Liberia's presidential run-off, becoming the first woman to be elected head of state of an African country. The National Elections Commission said official voting results from the November 8 run-off showed the former Finance Minister and World Bank economist beat football legend George Weah by securing 59.4 percent of the vote, compared to Weah's 40.6 percent. Kenya president sacks government Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki has sacked his entire cabinet and their assistants. The move came one day after the people of the east African country rejected a proposed draft constitution in a referendum. In a nationally televised speech, Kibaki said the results forced him to re-organize the government so that it could better serve the Kenyan people. Council of Europe opens CIA probe The Council of Europe has announced it was opening a probe into reports that the CIA used European airports to transport suspected terrorists held secretly outside US territory. Press reports have said the CIA has operated secret detention facilities in eastern Europe, Afghanistan, Thailand and elsewhere in order to circumvent US laws protecting detainees. Britain, the current chair of the European Union, said on Tuesday that it would request answers from Washington to allegations that the CIA had held terrorist suspects in Europe. Oil minister nominee vetoed in Iran Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has suffered a fresh political blow after parliament rejected his third nominee for the post of oil minister. More than 70 percent of the 290-seat assembly voted against Seyed Mohsen Tassaloti, a former high-ranking official in the Interior Ministry and head of Iran's largest petrochemical zone. Deputies acknowledged the dispute could damage investor confidence as well as the Islamic republic's standing within OPEC. Meanwhile at the end of a landmark visit to Tehran by Iraqi president Jalal Talbani, Iran promised one billion dollars to boost Iraq's security. Talabani stressed the the importance of improving political and commercial ties between two countries. US says Iraq troop reductions 'soon' The United States has indicated that conditions for a gradual pullout of US troops from Iraq may be given "fairly soon," but warned that a decision about their withdrawal would not be made unilaterally. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the possibility of handing over to Iraqis important security responsibilities and of US force reductions was constantly under review. About 159,000 US troops are currently deployed in Iraq ahead of a December 15 election that is expected to produce the country's first democratically-elected government since the Saddam Hussein was overthrown in April 2003. Number of land mine victims falls in 2004 The number of reported new land mine casualties across the world has declined for a sixth year in a row. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines says in a report however that efforts to treat victims remain grossly inadequate. At least 6,521 people were maimed or killed by mine blasts last year, compared to some 8,000 two years ago. Fewer casualties were recorded in some of the countries most affected by land mines, including Afghanistan, Angola and Sri Lanka, but several countries suffered increased mine casualties last year, notably Colombia and Cambodia. Indian engineer killed in Afghanistan Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has condemned the murder of an Indian engineer in the country. The Taliban, ousted from government four years ago, said they had kidnapped and then beheaded the man because the Indian government did not respond to a demand to pull out of Afghanistan. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also condemned the killing and reaffirmed India's commitment to help Afghan recovery efforts. The engineer had been kidnapped on Saturday along with his Afghan driver and two guards. The driver has since been released but the fate of the two guards remains uncertain. Israeli troops shoot man in West Bank Israeli soldiers have shot a Palestinian man in the West Bank town of Jenin. The shooting happened after troops entered the town searching for militants and were confronted by stone-throwing protesters. Israeli troops also exchanged fire with Hizbollah guerrillas across the Lebanese border after an Israeli paraglider accidentally drifted into Lebanon. It was the second incident on the border in three days. The pilot managed to make it back to Israeli territory. Only hours before the skirmish, Israeli aircraft had dropped leaflets in Beirut urging Lebanese to act against Hizbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran. UN confirms yellow fever in Sudan The UN's health agency has confirmed an outbreak of a yellow fever epidemic in Sudan, which has killed 121 people. The World Health Organisation and several non-governmental organisations have been dispatched to the affected areas. As of Sunday, 448 cases had been recorded in the central region of South Kordofan. The EU Commission has allocated 2 million euros in emergency aid to contain the outbreak and treat the sick. A total of 1.8 million people are to be vaccinated. The outbreak had initially been identified by Sudanese health officials as dengue. Yellow fever is spread through the bite of the Aedes mosquito and health organisations have been spraying insecticide and removing stagnant water where the mosquitoes breed as precautionary measures. Georgia remembers Rose Revolution The people of Georgia are celebrating two years since the so-called Rose Revolution that deposed veteran president Eduard Shevardnadze. Two years ago, following weeks of street protests, thousands of Georgians, led by Mikhail Saakashvili, broke into the country's parliament. Saakashvili waved a rose in Shevardnadze's face while demanding that he resign. Thousands of people and foreign leaders are attending celebrations to mark the revolution, including Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko, whose own "Orange Revolution" a year ago is widely seen as having been inspired by events in Georgia. Serbian premier visits Croatia Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has become the first Serbian government leader to visit Croatia since the war, signalling better ties between the two countries. Zagreb gained its independence from communist Yugoslavia in 1991. Relations between Zagreb and Belgrade are seen as key to the stability of the multi-ethnic region, where the status of Kosovo, currently administered by the United Nations, still has to be resolved. Both countries are bidding to join the European Union. Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader made a landmark trip to Belgrade last November, pledging more economic cooperation and better treatment of minorities. Vatican bans active gays from priesthood A new Vatican document on homosexuality in the Catholic priesthood has touched off a storm of criticism from those who say the Church is missing the point and using gays as a scapegoat for its sexual abuse scandals. In the document, to be published next week, the Vatican says practising homosexuals should be barred from entering the Catholic priesthood. The document reinforces standing policy that many in the Church believe has not been properly enforced. Its urgency has been highlighted by the 2002 sexual abuse scandal in the United States, which involved mostly abuse of teenage boys by priests. New fatal human case of bird flu A woman farmer in east China has died from bird flu, becoming the third confirmed human case in the country. The 35-year-old woman from Anhui province became ill after contact with sick and dead poultry. She died on Tuesday and is the second fatality in China. The Chinese government described the current bird flu crisis as severe and set to get worse as winter deepens. Beijing wants to vaccinate the nation's 5.2 billion poultry stock to stop the spread of bird flu but experts said that would be almost impossible. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Week in Germany: The best from German culture, business and politics in a convenient weekly wrap-up. 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