Sony to cash in on Iraq with ‘shock and awe’ game
Japanese electronics giant Sony took an extraordinary step Mar. 21 – just one day after the war started — to cash in on the war in Iraq by patenting the term “shock and awe” for computer and video games, as well as a broadband game played both locally and globally via the internet among PlayStation users. A British company is also planning a computer game, books, cards, and magazines based on the war, called “Conflict Desert Storm II: Back to Baghdad.” Other goods planned for sale in the US include an “Axis of Evil” board game, “Iraqi Freedom” crockery and clothes as well as “Shock and Awe” trainers and dolls. (The Guardian UK)

Gay groups in Slovakia seek legal protection
Gay rights groups in Slovakia are seeking a new law to protect them after MP Anna Zaborska of the Christian Democrats (KDH) said that her party had its doubts whether gays were fit to be employed in professions such as teaching.
“If a person identifies with a group that organizes such events as love parades, that person cannot be responsible for children,” Zaborska said. She added that homosexuality was a health defect.
Zaborska’s comments have raised new fears over the KDH – the senior ruling party in the coalition government – opposition to anti-discrimination legislation. The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU has asked all states joining the EU next year to introduce anti-discrimination legislation before entry. The KDH claims that Slovakia does not need special legislation because equality is guaranteed under the constitution.
Efforts to bring in the legislation are continuing despite KDH objections. A draft of new legislation has been sent to ministries for initial comments. (IPS)

US bomb kills 11 Afghan civilians
Eleven Afghan civilians were killed Apr. 9 when a US warplane pursuing enemy attackers mistakenly bombed, the US military said, a house near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan. The military called the deaths, which occurred after a checkpoint manned by soldiers allied to US forces was attacked, a “tragic incident.” Two Harrier attack aircrafts were called in and spotted two groups of five to 10 enemy fighters each. One of the planes dropped a 450kg laser-guided bomb, but it missed its intended target, the military said. The US military said four Afghan fighters were injured in the initial fighting, but are in stable condition.
Over 10,000 US-led troops are in Afghanistan hunting down fighters supporting the former Taliban regime and al-Qaida, including the former prime minister, Gulbudding Hekmatyar. Afghan authorities say Taliban remnants are regrouping in an effort to destabilize Hamid Karzai’s government. (Guardian UK)

US leads world in juvenile offender executions
In a report released Apr. 11, Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) condemned the US death penalty record in 2002, during which the nation carried out the only known executions of juvenile offenders worldwide in Texas, ranked third worldwide in number of all executions, and executed more people in 2002 after a decline in the previous two years.
“The US government ostensibly rushed to war against Iraq due to human rights violations in that country, yet the US is one of the biggest violators of human rights standards when it comes to state-sanctioned murder,” said Dr. William F. Schulz, Executive Director of AIUSA. “This blight on our country’s human rights record belies our claim to be an international human rights defender.”
The US executed more prisoners in 2002 than in the previous year. In addition, the US was the only known country in the world to execute juvenile offenders last year when three child offenders were executed in Texas. The execution of Scott Hain in Oklahoma on Apr. 3, 2003 marked the first known juvenile offender execution worldwide this year. (Amnesty International)

Dominican Republic police kill, wound protesters
On Apr. 8, Dominican police entered the Ercilia Pepin high school in the Pueblo Nuevo neighborhood of San Francisco de Macoris, where students were protesting to demand better facilities, including an expanded sports field and library. Police attacked the students and shot student leader Juan Carlos Alvarado in the back, wounding him. In response, the protests spilled into the streets and surrounding neighborhoods, as students joined demonstrators from the San Martin neighborhood who were demanding construction of an aqueduct and other public works.
As police violence continued around the Ercilia Pepin school, 17-year-old student Claudio Alberto Abreu Agramonte died from a gunshot would to the head. Police say Abreu was killed by unidentified assailants, but Abreu’s family says he was shot by two police agents. Abreu’s death caused the protests to intensify; at least eight people were wounded by police fire in the San Martin neighborhood. On Apr. 1, nine more protests erupted at Abreu’s funeral; another four people were hurt, including at least one police agent.(Weekly News Update on the Americas)

Stranded Chinese workers revolt
Authorities locked more than 200 distraught Chinese garment factory workers inside their barracks Apr. 11 after forcibly removing scores of them from a gated restaurant where they had hastily barricaded themselves for 20 hours and allegedly took a police officer hostage for a few hours. At least one worker was believed to have been hospitalized, according to Moses Uludong, the worker’s attorney.
After the workers, mostly women, repeatedly refused to leave, some were dragged out through the mud, and some had their hands bound, Uludong said. Most of the protesters left peacefully after the initial confrontation.
The workers have been stranded on Palau for three months after the Taiwanese operators of the factory fled the island as they faced a coming liquidation action against their business, Orientex Palau. The workers had gone to Crystal Palace because they believed Frank Ho, the apparent owner of the establishment, was behind their current plight. The workers were never given their contract-guaranteed tickets home, and are owed thousands of dollars in withheld and unpaid wages. The total bill is more than $600,000, Uludong said. Ho, however, is not the party responsible, he added.
Because the prison is already at full capacity, the workers were put under house arrest in the factory barracks. Several criminal charges were filed against the workers, including disturbing the peace, trespassing, obstruction of justice, and rioting. (Pacific Daily News)

Cuba: The return of the firing squad
Cuba applied the death penalty Apr. 11 for the first time in more than two years to Lorenzo Enrique Copello Castillo, Barbaro Leodan Sevilla Garcia, and Jorge Luis Martinez Isaac, who were executed by firing squad at dawn after an “extremely summary trial.” The three men had hijacked a ferry in an attempt to reach the United States and, according to an official communiqué, were ringleaders who commandeered a commuter ferry carrying at least 30 passengers in Havana Bay on Apr. 2 and ordered the crew to head to Florida.
The executions will further complicate the situation for Havana in the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, currently meeting in Geneva. The commission is slated to debate on Apr. 16 a motion that was sponsored by Costa Rica, Peru, and Uruguay on Cuba’s human rights record. As Cuba’s legislation stipulates, the sentences were studied by the Council of State, headed by President Fidel Castro, which ratified them after spending “hours” reviewing the case, according to the official statement. The Council based its decision on “the gravity and potential dangers the incident implied, not only for the lives of innocent people, but also for the security of the country,” said authorities. (IPS)

Cocaleros resume protests in Peru
At least 17 Peruvian campesino coca producers (cocaleros) were injured on Apr. 8, one of them wounded with a bullet to the stomach, after police used tear gas and clubs to break up their peaceful demonstration in Huamanga, Ayacucho department. The incident marked the first day of an open-ended strike by more than 5,000 campesinos in the Ene and Apurimac valleys who are demanding an end to the government’s coca eradication program and the immediate release of leader Nelson Palomino, arrested on Feb. 20.
Cocalera leader Marisela Guillen said that the cocaleros have been marching in Huamanga every day for over a month and had no previous problems with the police. Guillen warned that if Palomino is not released, the cocaleros could take more drastic measures, such as taking over Yanamilla prison, where Palomino is detained, and freeing all the prisoners.
The cocaleros plan to march to Lima after ending a truce they had called on Mar. 3 to give talks with the government a chance to prosper. Tingo Maria cocalera leader Elsa Malpartida said that meetings with representatives of the government anti-drug agency DEVIDA and president of the Council of Ministers Luis Lolari de la Fuente had brought no results, “because the government has no desire to solve the problems.” (Weekly News Update on the Americas)

Pepsi, Coke vanish as anti-US feeling grows in India
“Bottled America,” as represented by Pepsi and Coke, has vanished from grocery stores and outlets in India’s southern Kerala state, thanks to an increasingly popular campaign to boycott goods associated with the perpetrators of the war in Iraq.
“Our aim is to make Kerala a ‘Pepsi-Coke-Free Zone’ from this week onwards,” said Dr. B. Ekbal, distinguished medical scientist and vice chancellor of Kerala University, who is one of the leaders of the national anti-war movement.
According to Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) leader Vasanthan, the movement has so far been “peaceful and voluntary,” though Coke and Pepsi officials have complained about the use of coercive methods to stop retailers from selling the beverages and goods made by the Indian subsidiary of the transnational, Lever. Vasanthan, however, warned that in the “second phase” of the movement, those who stock these products can expect “direct action,” which means forcible seizures and public destruction of the drinks as well as other items bearing US or British labels.
Last week, activists of the CPI (Marxist-Leninist) Red Flag faction ransacked the main marketing center of Coca Cola at Kozhikode in North Kerala and later symbolically dumped stocks into the sea. In a statement, the party asked distributors not to deal in Coca-Cola and Pepsi as these “contain the blood of innocent Children of Iraq.”
Also joining in the boycott were activists of Manushi, a women’s welfare cooperative which staged several protests in front of major stores, including those where the effigies of US Prsident George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were burned. Said Jameela Namkavau, secretary of Manushi: “If everybody pulls together we can make a dent on the multinationals and make our voices heard.” (IPS)

Cuba claims dissidents were US mercenaries
Cuba’s government said that 75 dissidents sentenced to up to 28 years in prison were US-paid mercenaries and accused Washington of using its diplomats to start opposition groups on the island. Responding to strong international criticism of the toughest crackdown on President Fidel Castro’s opponents in decades, Havana said it was resorting to legitimate defense against stepped-up “aggression” against Cuba by the Bush administration. Many of the dissidents arrested had attended meetings at the residence of the top US diplomat in Havana, James Cason, who had increased support for Cuba’s small but growing opposition movement, in line with the Bush administration’s harder push for political change in Cuba. (Reuters)

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