 | | | | | | | Newsletter | 26.01.2009, 17:15 UTC | | | Newsline | | | World news: international | | | | | | | | | News | | | | | Current Article | | | | Deutsche Post ex-chairman sentenced in tax-evasion trial
The former chairman of Deutsche Post, Klaus Zumwinkel, has been given a two-year suspended jail sentence and fined one million euros after a court convicted him for tax evasion. The 65-year-old last week admitted to concealing nearly one million euros from German tax authorities in trust funds managed by the LTG Bank in Liechtenstein. The former executive was arrested in February last year after prosecutors obtained a list of alleged tax evaders from Germany's BND foreign intelligence service. Zumwinkel has since resigned as head of Deutsche Post and from other senior posts at Deutsche Telekom, Lufthansa and retail concern Arcandor.
|  | | Iceland first EU govt to collapse in wake of economic crisis
The government of Iceland has collapsed, becoming the first European government to do so as a direct result of the economic crisis. Iceland's Prime Minister Geir Haarde said his government would step down with immediate effect. Haarde said last Friday that he would step down as leader of the Independence Party at a party conference in March and has called for elections on May 9. Iceland was one of the richest countries in the world per capita in 2007 but plunged into crisis in October due to the global credit crunch. The country negotiated an 8 billion euro aid package put together by the International Monetary Fund to stay afloat. | | | Congolese war leader pleads not guilty at first-ever ICC trial
The first-ever trial of the International Criminal Court in The Hague has begun with Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga pleading, as expected, not guilty to charges of war crimes for using child soldiers during a five-year civil war that ended in 2003. Lubanga's Union of Congolese Patriots rebel group is held responsible for setting up an entire network that forcibly recruited child soldiers to fight in bloody ethnic battles in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Lubanga, who was handed over to the court 2006, claims he was a patriot fighting to prevent rebels and foreign fighters from plundering the vast mineral wealth of Congo's Ituri region.
| | | EU "tired" of paying to rebuild Gaza over and over
A senior EU official who is touring Gaza has said that the Hamas movement bears an overwhelming responsibility for the war in the Palestinian enclave. The AFP news agency reports that Louis Michel, the European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, who is visiting the town of Jabaliya, has said that the EU is tired of providing funds to rebuild infrastructure in Gaza that keeps being systematically destroyed. The EU has spent around three billion euros in Palestine in the past eight years. Michel labelled the Islamist Hamas group a terrorist movement and warned that if peace had any chance of succeeding, that Hamas must accept the right of Israel to exist and abandon its armed struggle. | | | Obama announces new energy and climate change measures
US President Barack Obama has announced new measures to reduce America's dependency on foreign oil as well as ways to cut greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Speaking at the White House, Obama said the objective of the administration was to reverse US dependence on foreign sources of oil. As part of his new energy and climate change initiatives, Obama announced measures to spur development of fuel efficient cars. He also approved plans by California and a dozen other states to impose their own limits on carbon dioxide gas emissions, efforts that the Bush administration had blocked. | | | New world body to promote renewable energy
A new global organisation has been launched in the German city of Bonn to promote the development and use of renewable energies. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) will advise countries around the world on ways to reduce their dependency on oil, coal and gas. It will also help distribute new technologies to developing countries. Speaking at the opening event attended by delegates from some 100 countries, German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel called for more efforts to achieve a global breakthrough in this area. The United States has not joined the body, but is widely expected to do so under President Barack Obama. | | | Somali islamists claim to have control of Baidoa
Hardline Somali Islamists claim to have taken control of the town Baidoa, the seat of the country's weak government. The claim was made just hours after Ethiopia pulled the last of its 3,000 troops out of Somalia after helping the government battle an Islamist movement there for the past two years. The African Union and the United Nations are now pushing for a unity government as the only option for peace in the country. The parliament has voted to double its size and invited 200 members of the moderate Islamist opposition to join it. Somali has suffered 18 years of conflict ever since a dictator was ousted from office. | | | Call for new focus on global food security
The head of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization has urged donors to release billions of dollars they have already pledged to alleviate hunger amid a global food crisis. Jacques Diouf was addressing delegates from 95 countries at the opening of a two-day UN meeting on food security in Madrid. This is a follow-up meeting to last year's UN-sponsored summit in Rome. The food crisis has stoked social unrest in many parts of the developing world and is threatening to push millions more people into hunger. Ahead of the conference, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero called for a new focus on food security despite the global economic crisis. | | | Pfizer takes over pharmaceutical rival Wyeth for US $68 billion
In what will be one of the biggest company take-overs in the pharmaceutical industry in years, US drug manufacturer Pfizer has announced it is acquiring its rival Wyeth for 52 billion euros. Pfizer said it hopes to complete the deal by fall. This is Pfizer's third takeover in ten years. It bought Warner-Lambert for more than 70 billion euros in 2000 and Parmacia three years later. | | | | | |  | | |  Up-to-date news at DW-WORLD.DE | | | | | | |  | | | Note
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EU Offers Aid to Gaza, Help in Countering Arms Smuggling
