 | | | | | | | Newsletter | 02.12.2008, 17:15 UTC | | | Newsline | | | World news: international | | | | | | | | | News | | | | | Current Article | | | | Pakistan offers "joint investigation" into Mumbai attacks.
Pakistan has offered India a joint commission and its full cooperation in investigations into the Mumbai terrorist attacks. The foreign ministry also said it would “frame a response” to Indian demands it hand over 20 wanted men. Indian investigators said all the militants involved in the coordinated attacks, which killed around 180 people, were Pakistani nationals. Meanwhile, public outrage in India has been fuelled by reports that authorities ignored warnings of a planned attack. The country's interior minister, as well as governor and deputy of the state of Maharashtra have already resigned in the political fall-out. |  | | 350,000 tourists still stranded in Bangkok
Thai officials say there is still no definite word on when the nearly 350,000 tourists stranded in the Thai capital Bangkok will be able to return home. Officials also said they will decide on Wednesday when the Don Muang and the Suvarnabhumi international airport in Bangkok will reopen. Anti-government protestors who had staged sit-ins in the airports since last week have agreed to go home after Thailand's constitutional court stripped Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat of his post and outlawed the ruling People Power Party for electoral fraud. The court also barred the party's top leaders from politics for five years. Government supporters, who are angry at the court's ruling, predict a resumption of hostilities after the king's birthday on December five. | | | Iraqi court condemns notorious Saddam hatchet man to death
An Iraqi court has sentenced Saddam Hussein's cousin "Chemical Ali" to death for crushing a Shi'ite revolt after the 1991 Gulf War. It was Ali Hassan al-Majeed's second death sentence after he was condemned to be hanged last year for his role in the killing of tens of thousands of Kurds in the 1980s. Judge Mohammad al-Uraibi also sentenced former top Baath party official, Abdul Ghani Abdul Ghafour, to hang for his involvement in the 1991 crackdown on Shi'ites in southern Iraq, which left as many as 100,000 people dead. | | | Georgia urges EU to stay tough on Russia.
The European Union has launched an investigation into the causes of last summer's war between Georgia and Russia. EU foreign ministers endorsed the enquiry which will rely heavily on Russian goodwill to gain access to Georgia's rebel regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The August conflict broke out after Georgian troops entered South Ossetia in an effort to regain control of the breakaway province. Russia now controls both regions and has recognised them as independent. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on Tuesday urged the West not to “return to business as usual” with Russia without holding the country to account for the war. | | | Thousands of Kosovo Albanians protest EU police force.
Thousands of Kosovo Albanians have gathered in the capital Pristina to protest against the deployment of a European Union police mission, saying it threatens Kosovo's sovereignty. EU police are to take over from the UN's post war mission on December 9, with a mandate to oversee Kosovo's transition in a neutral capacity. The UN backed plan provisionally leaves Serb enclaves in the North under the UN umbrella. Albanian Kosovars fear this will lead to partition.
| | | EU squabbles over bank aid continue.
Tensions between European Union finance ministers and the EU Commission surfaced on Tuesday over whether the Commission will approve state aid to ailing banks. Members have been pushing the EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes to approve new rules that would allow greater state support. Kroes said only that the Commission would announce rule changes, “shortly." In a separate development the Commission announced that proposed German assistance for Germany's second largest bank, the Commerzbank, does not respect EU rules on state aid. Earlier German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck criticised the Commission for being too slow to respond to the financial crisis.
| | | EU to raise bank deposit guarantees.
European Union ministers meeting in Brussels have agreed to raise the minimum level of bank deposit guarantees for their citizens from 20,000 to 100,000 euros by the end 2011. In the meantime, the safety net will be increased to 50,000 euros from June next year. The move, which needs EU parliamentary approval, is part of a series of initiatives to restore confidence in the bloc's financial sector. Earlier, finance ministers from the 12-member euro zone rejected calls to lower VAT or sales tax, saying there was no reason to believe the move would boost consumption. Further EU attempts to pass a 200 billion euro economic stimulus package were finding little support among the 27 EU member states.
| | | Merkel insists no tax breaks for Gemans
At the close of the Christian Democratic Union party conference in Stuttgart supporters of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives were still divided on the issue of tax cuts. Merkel, who was re-elected as party head on Monday, has ruled out tax reductions before next year's federal election. The CDU's sister party the Christian Social Union is calling for almost immediate cuts to boost the country's economy, now officially in recession. Party delegates also passed a resolution calling for German to be declared the official language of Germany's constitution. | | | Compulsory prison term for major German tax evaders
German citizens who are found guilty of tax evasion of more than one million euros will in future receive an automatic prison sentence. The German Federal court in Karlsruhe on Tuesday handed down a prison sentence to a builder who had withheld taxes and social security payments. The court ruled that only exceptional circumstances would warrant a milder punishment. The court also ruled that those found guilty of tax avoidance over 100,000 euros would receive suspended sentences. Others will be fined. The ruling is intended as a warning for citizens avoiding tax by holding accounts in Liechtenstein. | | | Cholera epidemic sweeps Zimbabwe
Up to 500 people have been killed in the biggest outbreak of cholera in Zimbabwe since the early 1990s. According to the World Health Organisation, the spread of the disease has been quickened by the collapse of the country's health and sanitation systems, and an ongoing economic and political crisis. On Monday, the country's capital was without water after purification chemicals ran out. The WHO report says the cholera outbreak is affecting the whole country with a fatality rate of up to 50 percent in some areas. | | | | | |  | | |  Up-to-date news at DW-WORLD.DE | | | | | | |  | | | Note
To unsubscribe to this newsletter, please click here.
If you have any questions or comments, please send us an email:
online@dw-world.de
For more information, please click here. | | |  | | | © 2008 DEUTSCHE WELLE | > Contact | | | |
EU Launches Probe to Find Truth Behind Georgia-Russia War
