Deutsche Welle English Service News 27. 01. 2006, 17:00 UTC ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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A statement released by his office said he passed away at his Berlin residence at the age of 75 after being ill for some time. Throughout his political career, Rau sought to promote deeper ties with Israel. In 2000 he used a speech to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, to ask Israel and the Jewish people for forgiveness for the Holocaust. Rau was premier of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia for two decades and was the Social Democrats' candidate for chancellor in the 1986 federal election. German hostages in Al-Jazeera tape Two German engineers who were kidnapped in Iraq three days ago have appeared in a video broadcast by the Arabic-language news channel Al-Jazeera. In the video, the two men ask the German government to do everything in its power to secure their release. The captives are shown sitting on the floor in front of at least two armed men. Al-Jazeera said it received the tape from a group calling itself the Brigade of Ansar al-Tawheed Wa-Sunna. The foreign office in Berlin says its crisis team is currently evaluating the tape. German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed her sympathy for the families of the hostages. The two men were kidnapped on Tuesday outside their workplace in the town of Baiji about 180 kilometres north of Baghdad. Hamas seeks talks with Abbas Two days after its shock election win, the radical movement Hamas has proposed talks for Sunday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on forming a government. Hamas won 76 seats in Wednesday's poll. Abbas' party Fatah slumped to 43. Several Asian nations, Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan, have called on Hamas to renounce its violent stance toward Israel and urged the world community to accept the election outcome. Meanwhile the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is in Davos attending the World Economic Forum offered to act as an intermediary between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel has ruled out dealing with any government involving Hamas. Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said there would be no talks with an armed group that has called for the destruction of Israel. Widespread concern after Hamas win Many members of the international community have expressed grave concerns over the victory of Hamas in the first Palestinian parliamentary election in a decade. US President George W. Bush said Washington would not deal with Hamas, unless the organisation renounces acts of violence against Israel. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier voiced a similar position. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is to visit the Middle East on the weekend and is scheduled to hold talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Iran to supply gas to Georgia Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has announced that Iran has agreed to start supplying gas to Georgia. He said supplies may begin flowing as early as Sunday. The country has been suffering from an energy crisis since unexplained explosions last Sunday on the main pipeline from neighbouring Russia disrupted supplies in the middle of a severe winter. Russia, meanwhile, says it is close to completing repairs to the pipelines that would allow it to resume gas deliveries. Saakashvili added that the deal with Iran was important as it effectively broke Georgia's dependence on Russia for natural gas. Georgian energy minister Nika Gilauri made the deal on the second day of a visit to Tehran. World Forum Plan to stop TB At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Great Britain, Nigeria and Microsoft founder Bill Gates have announced a ten-year plan to wipe out tuberculosis. The Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis, backed by more than 400 organisations worldwide, aims to treat 50 million people. Launching the plan with British Finance Minister Gordon Brown and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, Mr Gates said it was a "chance to save 14 million lives". The Gates Foundation will triple its contributions to the plan to 900 million dollars by 2015. The total cost of the plan will about 46 billion euros over 10 years. Steelmaker Mittal bids for Arcelor The world's largest steelmaker, Mittal, says it wants to buy its nearest rival Arcelor for 18.6 billion euros. The offer has shocked tiny Luxembourg, where Arcelor is a major employer. France has also reacted sceptically. Arcelor also has three subsidies in Germany with more than 7,000 staff. A Mittal takeover would create a world giant with 320,000 employees making 115 million tonnes of steel per year. Mittal, based in Britain and led by the Indian-born magnate Lakshmi Mittal, says it may sell its new Canadian offshoot Dofasco to ThyssenKrupp of Germany, if the bid for Arcelor succeeds. A few days ago ThyssenKrupp lost out to Arcelor in a bid for Dofasco. UN withdraws 400 staff from Ivory Coast The United Nations has withdrawn 400 of its civilian workers out of Ivory Coast after persistent anti-UN violence by young supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo. EU envoy Pierre Schori said staff were traumatised and local radio stations had continued to call openly for attacks on UN staff. The temporary evacuation to Gambia leaves 800 civilian UN staff still in Ivory Coast along with some 11,000 soldiers under UN and French mandate. Unrest erupted last week when a UN-mandated panel recommended that the Ivorian parliament stand down because its term has ended to speed up a peace process. The UN Security Council is consider sanction proposals to deter violence. Lambert slams Iran's Holocaust denial At a Holocaust day ceremony in Germany's parliament to remember Jewish and other victims of Nazi persecution the Bundestag's president has condemned anti-Israeli remarks by Iran's leader. Norbert Lammert described as "incomprehensible" recent denials of the Holocaust by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Lammert said it was all the more important that Germany underscore Israel's right to exist. From New York, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has condemned those who lie about Auschwitz. Last year the United Nations adopted January 27 as international Holocaust Day. It recalls the moment in 1945, near the end of World War Two, when Soviet troops liberated survivors at Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp. Nepal's opposition vows more protest Nepal's main political parties say they'll stage nationwide demonstrations next week in a further challenge to King Gyanendra, one year after he seized power. On Thursday demonstrators clashed with police during a general strike in protest at his refusal to restore democracy. At least 12 people were hurt and the parties say hundreds of activists were arrested. Nepal's electoral commission says municipal polls will be held on schedule on February 8 despite a refusal by the parties to submit candidate applications. During his takeover last year the king cited a failure to tackle Maoist rebels. Music world celebrates Mozart's 250th The music world this Friday is celebrating the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. His hometown of Salzburg, Austria is to throw street parties and stage concerts to lead the world in celebration of his musical genius. There will also be concerts and events around the world, including Vienna, Paris and Berlin. Mozart began composing at the age of five. Between then and his death at the age of 35 he composed numerous piano concertos, chamber music, 40 symphonies and 22 operas. Euro 2008 qualifying draw In the qualifying draw for the European Football Championship to be held in 2008, Germany has been drawn in the same group as the Republic of Ireland, Wales, Cyprus, San Marino, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. England is in Group E along with Croatia, Russia, Israel, Estonia, Macedonia and Andorra. The draw took place in the Swiss city of Montreux. The rest of the draw is as follows: Group A: Portugal, Poland, Serbia & Mont, Belgium, Finland, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan. Group B: France, Italy, Ukraine, Scotland, Lithuania, Georgia, Faroe Islands. Group C: Greece, Turkey, Norway, Bosnia, Hungary, Moldova, Malta. Group F: Sweden, Spain, Denmark, Latvia, Iceland, N. Ireland, Liechtenstein. Group G: Holland, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Albania, Belarus, Luxembourg. Joint hosts Austria and Switzerland qualify automatically. DAX exceeds 5,600 European shares have risen strongly, with the DAX index in Frankfurt exceeding the 5,600 level for the first time since 2001. By late afternoon the DAX was up 1.7 percent at 5,645. The biggest gainers were German steelmakers. The euro is trading at one dollar 22 cents. US Treasury Secretary John Snow has meanwhile dismissed statistics showing that US economic growth slow to just 1.1 percent in the last three months of 2005. In the previous quarter it was 4.1 percent. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Receive DW-WORLD headlines and news reports straight on your desktop as RSS feeds: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1137115,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. 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