2008 Woodie Awards
News From Around the World
Brian O'Connor and Courtney Roy
Issue date: 11/30/05 Section: News
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On Friday an Austrian judge denied a request for bail for David Irving, a British historian accused on breaking the country's laws against denying the existence of the Holocaust.
Irving, who has gained worldwide infamy for his controversial views of Nazi history, will remain in jail for at least four more weeks while lawyers Austrian prosecutors prepare the indictment against him. Irving's lawyer, Elmar Kresbach, argued that Irving could be easily found and returned to Austria for his trial if he was allowed to return to Britain, but prosecutors countered that it would be difficult to extradite him once he left Austria.
The charges against Irving come from 1989, when he gave two speeches in Austria in which he was reported to have said that the Nazi gas chambers did not exist. He was arrested on November 11 while making a trip to northern Austria to speak to a right wing student group.
According to the New York Times, Kresbach, has said in recent interviews that Irving has since retracted some of the views that he has been made famous for, including his statements about the gas chambers.
Irving's arrest and the recent decision has provoked debate in Austria, with some saying that despite the objectionable nature of his views, he should have the right to express them.
SOUTH BRONX RESIDENTS TO RECEIVE SHIPMENT OF HEATING OIL FROM VENEZUELA
Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela came to an agreement with US Representative José E. Serrano to provide eight million gallons of discounted heating oil to low income families in the South Bronx.
According to Serrano, the oil will arrive during the week of December 5, and will be provided at 40 percent below the market rate. As quoted in the New York Times, Serrano said, "This is something that came as a result of conversations between me and President Chávez. As part of our talk, he suggested that he wanted to ask Citgo to make home heating oil available to the poor of the South Bronx at a lower rate."
Earlier this year, two Massachusetts non profit groups signed an agreement with Citgo, which is the American branch of the state Venezuelan oil company, to provide discounted heating oil to thousands of low-income families. Serrano said that the there were some challenges in perfecting the South Bronx program that the Massachusetts groups did not encounter, which came from the fact that most of the residents that will participate in this program rent their homes, rather than own them as in Massachusetts.
Serrano added that it was his priority to run the program as efficiently as possible to pass the savings on to participants.
CHINESE STRUGGLE TO CLEAN UP AFTER CHEMICAL EXPLOSION CONTAMINATES WATER
Facing subzero temperatures, Chinese soldiers and workers hacked away at ice on the Songhua river in Harbin, attempting to speed the drainage of polluted water affected by a chemical plant explosion in the area.
Trying to meet a government deadline, the workers struggled day and night to have the area restored by last Saturday. The city, composed of about nine million people, has been without clean water for the past four days, raising concerns throughout the government about the safety and health of their citizens.
About 3 million local residents have not had running water after an explosions ripped through a chemical plant in Jilin, releasing 100 tons of benzene into the Songhua river, which is the main source of drinking water for Harbin. With winter coming early to the region, workers had to battle ice buildup to allow the contaminated water to flow past the town. As the water is moving at one mile per hour, the benzene-contaminated water could not pass the town until early Sunday, according to some reports.
Earlier in the week, critics said that the Chinese government attempted to cover-up the explosion, as other nations were not notified of the disaster until the information leaked out of the realm of the state-censored media.
EGYPTIAN ELECTIONS MARRED BY VIOLENCE
As polls opened in the latest round of Egyptian elections, early reports of violence against voters, mass arrests, and rioting in polling places cast a negative light on the future of the nation's attempts at democracy.
The Muslim Brotherhood opposition party, claims that about 600 members of their organization have been arrested. The group had a strong showing in earlier polls, and had a chance at securing spots in the Egyptian government, according to some political analysts.
Monitors of the elections say that thugs and gangs from rivaling political organizations have been attacking voters with knives, clubs, and have been causing chaos throughout polling stations throughout the nation. The violence has caused police to block access to voting stations in areas loyal to the Muslim Brotherhood party, which many of the group's advocates have cried foul.
The Brotherhood, though officially banned in the nation, has many of their candidates up for election as they are running as independents. The group currently has 46 of the 186 parliamentary seats, making them the largest oppositional party to the People's Assembly, the largest rival of the National Democrat Party currently running the parliament.