 | | | | | | | Newsletter | 23.10.2008, 16:15 UTC | | | Newsline | | | World news: international | | | | | | | | | News | | | | | Current Article | | | | Germany and China to act jointly to solve financial crisis
Germany and China have said they want to work closer together to overcome the financial crisis and at the same time their strengthen economic ties. After meeting visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Beijing, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao said both sides should press for the shaping of a new global financial order. Merkel referred to the size of China's growing economy, adding that Beijing could play a significant role in solving the crisis. The Christian Democrat Chancellor is also expected to raise the issue of human rights during her three-day visit to China. On Friday Merkel is scheduled to attend the ASEM summit, a meeting of 43 European and Asian nations in Beijing. |  | | EU honours Chinese dissident
Chinese dissident Hu Jia has won the European Parliament's prestigious Sakharov Prize. Making the announcement in Strasbourg, European Parliament President Hans-Gert Pöttering said this year's award acknowledged the daily struggle for freedom of all Chinese human rights defenders. Hu is a campaigner for civil rights, environmental protection and AIDS advocacy in China. In April, he was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison on charges of inciting subversion. China has criticised the decision to honour Hu Jia as a "gross interference" in the country's domestic affairs. | | | French state to intervene more in market
France's President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced plans to protect French industry. Sarkozy said the government intended to create a sovereign wealth fund, which would be used to safeguard French companies from predatory investors. Sarkozy told business leaders at a meeting in eastern France, that the state fund could buy equities in troubled domestic companies, and then sell the stakes when the companies' positions improved. The president pointed to the rise of such funds in China, Russia and the Middle East as both a precedent and a threat. He called on the EU to follow the French lead, however Germany has already rejected the idea as protectionist. | | | German bank makes managers pay
In the midst of the global financial crisis some German bankers may now be made responsible for poor investment decisions. The ailing investment bank IKB has filed a lawsuit against its former chairman Stefan Ortseifen, demanding the repayment of over 800,000 euros. Three other ex-managers at the Düsseldorf-based bank have been told to repay sums of around half-a-million euros each. One serving manager has reportedly already returned his bonus pay. IKB said the payments were supposed to be linked to performance. The lender was the first major German banking casualty of the sub-prime crisis, and was forced to rely on a publicly funded bail-out to rescue it from collapse. | | | Ivorian court jails 2 for 2006 toxic waste dumping
A court in Ivory Coast has handed down jail sentences to two men for dumping deadly toxic waste that killed 17 people and made an estimated 100,000 people ill. Nigerian Salomon Ugborugbo, director of the local company which dumped the petrochemical waste at open sites across the Ivorian capital Abidjan, was given a 20-year sentence on a charge of "poisoning". An Ivorian shipping agent was sentenced to five years in prison for "complicity" in the same charge. Dutch-based company Trafigura paid for the waste disposal and has agreed to pay nearly $200 million in an out-of-court compensation settlement with the Ivory Coast government but denies any responsibility for the deaths and illnesses suffered by Abidjan residents after the dumping. | | | Trial of ''coup plotters'' resumes in Turkey
The trial of 86 people accused of plotting to overthrow the Islamic-rooted government in Turkey has resumed. The trial, which opened on Monday at a prison complex near Istanbul, was disrupted by lawyers protesting that they could not work in the tiny, overcrowded courtroom. The court has ruled that it will first hear the testimonies of the 46 suspects remanded in custody. The remaining defendants are to be heard in separate hearings. The case is focused on a shadowy ultranationalist network called Ergenekon. The prosecution says the group planned to stage attacks and assassinations in a bid to provoke a military coup to topple the ruling AK Party. | | | Baghdad attack hits minister's convoy
Iraqi officials say nine people have been killed in an apparent suicide car bomb attack on a convoy of Iraq's labour minister. They said 14 others were wounded in the attack, which occurred in a central district of Baghdad during rush hour. The minister, Mahmoud Mohammed al-Radhi, reportedly escaped unharmed. The attack came shortly before Iraqi forces took over control of Babil province, south of Baghdad, from the US military. The province is the 12th of Iraq's 18 provinces to be handed over by American troops to Baghdad. | | | | | |  | | |  Up-to-date news at DW-WORLD.DE | | | | | | |  | | | Note
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Experts: Crisis Will Hit Export-Nation Germany Where It Hurts
