Learn with your ears

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DHAKA, Bangladesh : Security forces in Bangladesh rounded up hundreds of fugitive border guards after a two-day mutiny crumbled in the face of a government show of force, according to news reports on;Friday.
At least 20 people are believed to have died in the uprising, including some civilians, according to local television. But Reuters, quoting unnamed emergency officials, said the death toll was about;70. The newly elected prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, promised amnesty for those who surrendered and tough action against any;holdouts.
The arrests came a day after army tanks surrounded the border guards' headquarters in the heart of this crowded capital. The guards had been demanding improved pay and working;conditions.
Army officers were quoted on Friday as saying security forces set up roadblocks and arrested almost 300 border guards, many of whom shed their uniforms and fled after the mutiny fizzled.
Security forces searched buses and ferries for more fugitives, the reports;said. “We have taken control of the BDR headquarter and armory,” said the Dhaka police commissioner, Naim;Ahmed.

On Thursday evening, police officers entered the headquarters of the border force, called the Bangladesh Rifles, or BDR, after the mutineers laid down their guns. It also averted the prospect of a clash between the civilian and military leadership of;Bangladesh.
The surrender ended, at least for now, the biggest test yet facing Hasina, the prime minister, who was elected by a landslide last December after two years of army-backed emergency rule. The mutinous guards' demands included better pay, the ability to participate in lucrative United Nations peacekeeping missions and a change in the command and control structure of the border;force.
The Bangladesh Rifles has more than 40,000 members.
Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority nation of 140 million, is among the worlds poorest countries and is prone to disasters, natural and man-made.
Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority nation of 140 million, is among the worlds poorest countries and is prone to disasters, natural and man-made.
The army-backed government's efforts to sideline the nations two leading politicians did not succeed.
In January 2007, after street fights between members of rival parties, an army-backed caretaker government declared a state of emergency, postponed elections and arrested hundreds of politicians on corruption;charges.
The elections were widely seen as a vote for a return to democratic rule and secular politics. One, Hasina, leader of the Awami League, was elected prime minister by a landslide last;December.
The rare mutiny posed a critical test of her authority, particularly in the face of such stark criticism of the country's powerful;army. Hasina has promised to quash Islamist guerrilla;groups.
Julfikar Ali Manik reported from Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Somini Sengupta reported from New;Delhi.
What lasting impact the conflict will have on a still fragile civilian government depends on whether, and how swiftly, Hasina's administration can assuage the grievances of the paramilitary border forces without upsetting the military;leadership.

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A Christian Democrat Union politician has been arrested for smuggling heroin, party colleagues confirmed on Saturday.

The 40-year-old candidate for a local council in Neckarsulm in Baden-Wurttemberg was arrested after police found 80 grams of heroin mixture packed up and ready to sell, as well as more than 5,000 in cash. . If there is anything to these accusations, it would be clever of him to clearly distance himself from his political candidature. I am stunned and furious, Thomas Strobl, secretary general for the party in Baden-Wurttemberg said.

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The police would not comment officially but sources say the CDU man and a younger man were arrested, accused of smuggling drugs from Holland to Germany

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The decision by Mikhail Gorbachev not to try to prevent German reunification was more than ideology the Soviet Union had decided to give up on Eastern Germany during the 1980s according to a new book, The Warsaw Pact published in Berlin this week.

The book is a collection of essays on the subject from various writers, examining how the Warsaw Pact the military alliance between the Soviet Union and surrounding eastern states adapted to the inability of its members to finance its intentions, and its ultimate demise. Soviet leader Gorbachev hoped that this would lead to disarmament in the west and even eventually to a European peace and reduction of tension.

Christopher Jones from the University of Washington says the Warsaw Pact had adopted a new military doctrine from 1987 one of unilateral radical reduction of its military might in Eastern Europe.

Even East Germany, long considered one of the least wounded of the eastern economies, was only able to contribute 60 percent of what it was supposed to pay for Warsaw Pact finances, Torsten Diedrich of Potsdams Military History Research Office wrote.

The driving force behind this was the disastrous economic situation of the Soviet Union and many of its satellite states, which was beginning to threaten its military abilities.

The defence policy of the Warsaw Pact was also radically changed, according to the book. .

Yet this mental border was changed under Gorbachev, from western to eastern-central Europe. Initially any attack from NATO forces would be met with atomic weapons and ground forces entering western Germany and further west.

This, the book argues, shows that Eastern Germany had been effectively abandoned by the Soviet Union before the start of the two-plus-four negotiations which eventually led to reunification. The Soviet Union would not fight in Bordeaux or Frankfurt am Main, rather, Berlin or Frankfurt an der Oder.

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Social Democrat Party chairman Franz Muntefering , has called for the rich to be taxed more heavily and warned that if the CDU did not cooperate on this topic, the SPD will make it an issue in Septembers general election .

The rich must pay more, otherwise one will not be able to father the money that is needed by organised solidarity the state, he told Der Spiegel on Saturday.

We want to help, yes. . It is a big temptation for the politicians to think they are omnipotent. But we cannot cushion everything.

He warned the Christian Democrat Union not to block his partys proposal to limit the wages of top managers. The state must not try to go towards national ownership, he told the magazine. The grand coalition must do this before the election, he said. We need strict rules, and fast.

Focus magazine reported this weekend that this income bracket pays 13 percent more tax than they did in 1990.

A study commissioned by the Association of Tax Payers shows that the middle classes may be those in need of most help reporting that they will pay more tax next year than in 1990, with those earning around 65,000 a year hit the hardest.

Those earning less or more than this have done better in the last 20 years, Focus reported, with those earning around 12,000 paying only half the amount of tax they would have done in 1990.

That is an additional tax burden of 2,260 a year, said Volker Stern, the economist who conducted the study for the Karl-Bruer Institute. A person who had earned a million Deutschmarks whose income kept pace with inflation would now pay 10 percent less than in 1990.

Meanwhile the wealthy are doing better.

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Despite having a woman chancellor, and the fact that six of the 14 ministers are female, the government is doing badly in promoting equal opportunities at the top of political appointments, according to Der Spiegel magazine.

Information issued in response to a question from Free Democrat MP Volker Wissing shows that women are barely to be found at the level of state secretary, with just one of 25 such office holders being female.

The next level down on the ministerial ladder - section leaders includes just 15 women out of 110 jobs.

The appointment of women at these levels of responsibility and influence has hardly changed in the last few years, despite the government adopting an equal opportunities law in 2001. The ministries of agriculture, environment and transport have no female section leaders at all, the magazine reported. .

Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke this January to mark the 90th anniversary of womens voting rights, saying she wanted to see more women in leadership positions in the economy and politics.

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More than 50,000 people have visited the Merkez mosque in Duisburg since it opened four months ago - so many that three people work on arranging tours and catering for those who want to come to see it.

One of the three is Sabrina Vorberg, a 26-year-old Christian, who leads tours around the huge building, explaining to visitors how and why the mosque functions and is used. .

As a student of Islamic studies, Vorberg knows what she is talking about, but as Christian, she does not pray in the mosque and therefore does not wear a headscarf when inside it. We had not expected such a rush of people. But because I dont pray here, it is not necessary.

At first I thought I should wear one out of respect, she said.

She leads tours through the prayer room, explaining the glittery blue dome with the gold writing on it, the prayer niches and even why Muslims take their shoes off before they enter the mosque.

Some visitors have come from as far as Japan and Brazil, to examine how the construction of such a large mosque in Germany was undertaken from a town planning as well as a social perspective.

When they pray, the worshippers touch their heads on the floor, so the room has to be very clean, that is really important, she said.