Zimbabwe officials defy Mugabe’s ultimatum
A government report into Zimbabwe’s controversial land reform program has opened a can of worms, throwing the spotlight on corruption surrounding the ownership of multiple farms by senior government officials and others close to the establishment.
As of Sept. 15 only one politician, Obert Mpofu, the governor of the Matabeleland North province, has publicly surrendered his extra farms to the state, a month after the expiry of a two-week deadline set by President Robert Mugabe.
In the rest of the country’s nine provinces, officials have maintained a deafening silence over surrendering their extra properties.
Since May 2000 when the government lost a crucial referendum on a new constitution, it has embarked on a crude and rather populist land reform exercise, shortly before a crucial parliamentary election it was projected to lose.
The purpose for the land reform exercise was to correct colonial injustices in land ownership, one of the main reasons Zimbabweans fought a 15-year-long bush war that culminated in independence in 1980. (IPS)

Italian police faulted for Genoa G8 violence
On Sept. 14 an Italian inquiry listed 73 police chiefs, officers and doctors allegedly involved in the beating of anti-globalization protesters at the G8 summit in Genoa over two years ago. The preliminary report, the first stage in the legal process towards a trial, suggests four police chiefs, scores of officers and some police doctors were all accomplices in the attacks. Ninety-three anti-globalization protesters were beaten with batons and kicked so badly on July 21, 2001 that rooms in their makeshift headquarters were left splattered with blood. Some were additionally beaten, tortured and humiliated during detention at the Bolzaneto barracks. (Observer (UK))

Swedish Foreign Minister murdered
Sweden was in a state of emotional shock after Foreign Minister Anna Lindh died Sept. 11 from knife injuries inflicted by an unknown assailant just days before a key referendum on adopting the euro. Lindh was stabbed in the arm, abdomen and chest, and she succumbed to massive internal bleeding caused by a damaged liver, the Karolinska hospital said.
Lindh was one of Sweden’s best-loved politicians, and as tributes poured in from across the globe, thousands of shocked and grieving Swedes gathered at sites across Stockholm, including the NK department store where Lindh, who had two children, was attacked as she was out shopping.
Police said they were not ruling out any leads, including the possibility of a politically-motivated attack.
Lindh was a heavyweight on Sweden’s political scene who had been tipped to succeed Goeran Persson as prime minister.
The attack on Lindh, who was without a bodyguard, brought back memories of the 1986 assassination of former prime minister Olof Palme as he was leaving a cinema in downtown Stockholm.
Lindh herself was an outspoken critic of tight security surrounding top politicians in other countries. (AFP)

Coup in Guinea-Bissau
President Kumba Yala of Guinea-Bissau was deposed by the army in a bloodless coup on Sept. 14 after delaying parliamentary elections in this small West African state for nearly a year and leaving civil servants and soldiers unpaid for several months.
Kumba Yala, elected in 2000 with 72 percent of the vote, dissolved parliament in November last year after it passed a vote of no confidence against him. Then he delayed four times the election of a new legislature. The last straw may have come last week, when the National Electoral Commission announced that it would not be able to complete voter registration in time for the latest proposed election date of Oct. 12.
The pre-dawn coup by a military junta was headed by the army chief of staff, General Verissimo Correia Seabra — who played a leading role in two previous successful coups. The military chief pledged to form a broad-based government including all the main political parties.
Kumba Yala and his prime minister, Mario Pires, were taken into military custody, apparently without resistance, and the mood in the capital Bissau remained calm and relaxed, despite the announcement of a dusk to dawn curfew.
Troops were deployed on the streets of Bissau and private cars were banned from the streets. (UN IRIN)

Portuguese gays demand repeal of discriminatory law
Opus Gay, a Portuguese organization that fights for the rights of homosexuals, accused local authorities this week of violating the Portuguese constitution and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights by keeping a penal code article on the books that establishes a discriminatory age of consent for sexual relations between homosexuals.
The group complained that Article 175 of the penal code is discriminatory because it criminalizes “sexual relations of mutual consent between minors under 18 and adults of the same sex, and establishes different treatment for heterosexual and homosexual adolescents.”
In late August, Opus Gay sent a document to the Justice Ministry demanding the repeal of penal code article 175.
While most EU nations have struck down laws that discriminate against homosexuals, Greece, Ireland and Portugal still have discriminatory age of consent laws, as do Albania and Bulgaria outside of the European Union, according to Nico Beger, a representative of the European branch of the International Lesbian and Gay Association. (IPS)

US and Britain isolated over Iraq
At a Sept. 13 meeting, bitter divisions re-emerged among the world’s five most powerful countries about how soon America is prepared to return power to the Iraqi people.
The United States slapped down as unacceptable a French plan to end its occupation within a month, although Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, talked down the differences after the Geneva meeting of the United Nation’s big five.
If a new resolution is not agreed during further talks in New York this week, president George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair can expect a month of public humiliation over the Iraq crisis.
Powell rejected as “totally unrealistic” the French call for a timetable that would install a provisional government within a month, followed by a draft constitution and elections next spring.
Diplomats are doubtful that any resolution on Iraq can be agreed before Bush’s speech to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 23. The sole crumb of comfort is that none of those who disagree with the US wants to provoke a showdown like the one that led to the March debacle, as Britain and the US simply by-passed the UN to launch their invasion. (Independent (UK))

Foreign views of US darken since Sept. 11
In interviews by New York Times correspondents from Africa to Europe to Southeast Asia, one point has emerged clearly: the war in Iraq has had a major impact on public opinion, which has moved generally from post-Sept. 11 sympathy to post-Iraq antipathy, or at least to disappointment over what is seen as the sole superpower’s inclination to act pre-emptively, without either persuasive reasons or United Nations approval. To some degree, the resentment is centered on the person of President Bush, who is seen by many of those interviewed, at best, as an ineffective spokesman for American interests and, at worst, as a gunslinging cowboy knocking over international treaties and bent on controlling the world’s oil, if not the entire world.
A widespread view is that the United States is a classically imperialist power bent on controlling global oil supplies and on military domination.
That mood has been expressed in different ways by different people, from the hockey fans in Montreal who boo the American national anthem to the high school students in Switzerland who do not want to go to the United States as exchange students because America is not “in.”
Even in Japan, where support for America remains strong, the view of the United States as a bully has entered the popular culture. A recent cartoon showed a character looking like President Bush in a stars and stripes vest pushing Japanese fishermen away from a favorite spot, saying, “I can fish better.” (New York Times)

Global warming and deadly dams
Global warming and the construction of massive dams are together causing floods that are claiming thousands of lives in India.
In the Eastern states of Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh, torrential rains continue to cause severe flooding. All 15 rivers in Chhattisgarh, known as the rice bowl of India, have overflowed. When the Hirakund dam, the longest in Asia, threatened to burst, the sluice gates were opened, flooding thousands of homes. Whole villages have been destroyed and over one million families are now struggling to survive.
This is particularly painful as the Chhattisgarh Women’s Organization (CWO), a self-help organization of rural Dalit and Tribal women, have painstakingly organized grain banks which for years have kept families in 400 villages from starvation.
When the harvest is good every family contributes some surplus grain, so that in times of general famine or individual hardship, women can continue to feed their families and do not have to depend on uncertain food aid or on moneylenders to buy grain at inflated prices. Now they face starvation as these collective grain stores as well as rice, dahl, and vegetable crops are ruined, and cows and goats have died. (Philadelphia Crossroads Women’s Center)

EU protesters still held in Greece
An international day of solidarity has been called for Sunday, Sept. 21, in support of the seven prisoners arrested during the demonstrations against the European Union summit in Thessaloniki three months ago. The seven, who are facing felony charges and up to 25 years in jail, are still in two prisons in Greece, as their appeal against their bail has been refused. A new appeal was made, but it could take up to two months to be answered.
On Aug. 29 anarchists in Thessaloniki occupied a radio station and transmitted messages from the prisoners. (A-Infos News Service)