AP - May 30th, 2004

HONG KONG (AP) -- Thousands of people marched through Hong Kong on Sunday to commemorate the killing of students by Chinese troops who broke up pro-democracy rallies in Tiananmen Square 15 years ago.

The June 4, 1989 crackdown, in which Beijing used soldiers and tanks against the unarmed activists, shocked Hong Kong, then a British territory. Hong Kong reverted to China in 1997.

``Chinese people will never forget this incident,'' said Thomas Ma, an unemployed 44-year-old. ``Using guns to suppress defenseless people -- you tell me whether it's right.''

Demonstrations are held here every year to commemorate the Tiananmen crackdown.

But this year's protests marking the 15th anniversary were more highly charged because Beijing last month ruled out direct elections for the territory in coming years.

Rally organizer Szeto Wah said 5,600 marched Sunday -- doubling the previous year's turnout. Police estimated at least 3,000 participated.

As the demonstrators marched, they chanted ``Reverse the verdict on June 4'' and ``Return power to the people.''

Several people carried a black coffin. Others waved banners demanding democracy in Hong Kong.

China says its troops acted properly in stopping what officials have called a counterrevolutionary riot. Hundreds if not thousands of activists were killed.

``The students were innocent. They shouldn't have been suppressed with tanks and machine guns,'' said one man visiting from Shanghai who identified himself as Chen.

BEIJING (AP) -- They are detained at home and watched around the clock by police. Their phones are tapped or cut off, and Internet connections are spotty. Others are ordered out of Beijing.

China's government appears to be trying to block any public memorial for 15th anniversary of the June 4, 1989, attack on pro-democracy demonstrations by tightening their watch on political activists and relatives of people killed in the crackdown.

``Things will only get worse as the date gets closer,'' Ren Wanding, who spent 11 years in prison for advocating Western-style democracy. Ren said Friday that police had been outside his home since mid-May and he's allowed out only to buy groceries.

The effort to stifle dissent highlights the communist leadership's enduring sensitivity to a movement that brought thousands of people to the square in the heart of Beijing to demand a more open political system.

``As a Chinese, I feel very mournful. This is a government that is scared,'' said Ding Zilin, a 67-year-old retired academic whose son was killed in the crackdown. ``They've done bad things, but not only do they not apologize, they keep on doing them.''

Ding said police have been posted outside her family's apartment since Tuesday. She said she is allowed out only to buy food or to go to the hospital.

``I ask who authorized this action and they say their superiors, but they won't say who,'' said Ding, spokeswoman for the group Tiananmen Mothers, which represents families of those killed in 1989.

``I say, 'I'm not your enemy. What law gives you the right to do this?' but they don't answer,'' she said.

Phone calls Friday to Beijing's police headquarters weren't answered.

In Washington, the U.S. State Department expressed concern about the latest crackdown. ``We oppose any efforts to limit freedom of speech and urge China not to restrict its citizens from engaging in debate on important and sensitive issues of public interest,'' it said in a statement.

Troops killed hundreds, possibly thousands, when they attacked protesters who had gathered for weeks on Tiananmen Square agitating for a more open political system and an end to corruption.

Dissidents and family members have since been demanding that the government overturn its ruling that the 1989 protests were a counterrevolutionary riot and declare the demonstrators patriots.

Last week, a group of Chinese and foreign academics issued an open letter asking for an investigation and for those responsible to ``openly ask for forgiveness of the people.''

``The tragedy of June 4 is like a bullet lodged deep within the collective body of society,'' the letter said. ``We believe that the government must deal honestly with this burden of the recent past, and truly respect human rights.''

To prevent protests, the government routinely detains activists to during events such as the annual meeting of China's legislature or on key political anniversaries.

Jiang Qisheng, an activist who was imprisoned for four years after calling for vigils to mark the 10th anniversary of the protests, said surveillance was ``extremely tight.''

``It's around the clock,'' he said before his phone was disconnected.

Ren, who marked the anniversary by posting two essays and one poem on the Internet, said he expects to be taken out of Beijing before next week.

Hu Jia, an AIDS activist, said police have arranged for him to leave Beijing on Saturday.

``They won't let me back until June 10,'' Hu said. ``They were watching the outside of my home earlier this week. Now, they are in my home.''

Other key figures say they haven't been affected.

Jiang Yanyong, a military surgeon who petitioned the government to admit it made mistakes in crushing the Tiananmen protests, said he had not been followed nor had authorities visited him.

``Everything is fine, fine,'' he said from his Beijing home.

Relatives of Zhao Ziyang, the former Communist Party general secretary who was purged in 1989 after sympathizing with the pro-democracy protesters, told the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy that security around his home is still the same.

But even activists outside the capital are feeling pressure.

Yin Weihong, who took part in the 1989 protests, said police have told him not to hold any public commemorations in Wenzhou, the southeastern city where he lives. The former student was jailed for several months after the crackdown.

A pro-democracy writer in the southern city of Fuzhou who was imprisoned eight months after the protests, said police surveillance ``started especially early this year.''

``They've been calling me in for three-hour chats and they still want to keep me longer,'' said Lin Xinshu. ``But I tell them I'm beat.''

CHOEUNG EK, Cambodia (Reuters) - Thousands of survivors of the Khmer Rouge genocide paid respects on Thursday to Pol Pot's estimated 1.7 million victims and called for a swift trial of the ailing leaders of the 1970s regime.

At Choeung Ek, a ``Killing Fields'' cemetery of mass graves on the outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh, Buddhist monks, students and government officials offered flowers, food and incense to the dead on what has become a symbolic ``Day of Rage.''

An estimated 1.7 million died under the Khmer Rouge, an ultra-Maoist guerrilla organization who ruled the jungle-clad southeast Asian nation from 1975 to 1979. Many victims were tortured and executed. The rest died of starvation, disease or overwork.

``I want a clear explanation from the leaders of the regime why they committed such crimes against our own people,'' said Chhim Davanny, 50, who lost 20 relatives under Khmer Rouge supremo Pol Pot.

``They were even more brutal than Hitler. He did not kill his own people -- the Khmer Rouge did,'' Davanny said, laying flowers at the foot of Choeung Ek's tower of skulls. Others lit incense sticks and candles in memory of the dead.

Pol Pot died of natural causes in 1998. Cambodia and the United Nations inked a deal last year to put his top surviving henchmen on trial, but Cambodia's parliament, deadlocked since inconclusive elections 10 months ago, has yet to ratify it.

Relatives of the victims now fear a natural death might claim prime suspects such as 'Brother Number Two' Nuon Chea or former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary before they can be brought to justice.

``I want the government to try the Khmer Rouge now so that the souls of my relatives will be appeased,'' said Ear Vany, 49, tears welling up in her eyes. ``Every time I see the skulls here, it reminds me of my mother.''

Students were also encouraged to attend Thursday's ceremony in the hope that the next generation will not forget, and that the likes of Pol Pot -- whose regime rose from the chaos of the anti-communist war in Indochina -- will never rise again.

Sieng Heng, a 14-year-old schoolboy, confessed that he knew only a little from his textbooks about the 'autogenocide', as it has become known, but had learned a great deal more when he saw the excavated mass graves and skulls with his own eyes.

``My teachers told me to come and see the evidence of the Killing Fields so that I can learn that these acts must never be repeated,'' Heng said, waiting patiently in line with friends, all of them carrying a small offering of flowers.

HAVANA, May 18 - Three Cuban dissidents were sentenced to prison on Tuesday in the third trial of opponents of this country's Communist government in a month, a human rights group said.

Orlando Zapata, Raúl Arencibia and Virgilio Marante were convicted of contempt for authority, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, said Elizardo Sánchez, president of the advocacy group Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation in Havana.

"They were sentenced to three years in jail," Mr. Sánchez said.

The men were arrested on Dec. 6, 2002, when they gathered to study the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at a house in a Havana suburb.

A leading dissident, Óscar Elías Biscet, was arrested in the same incident and sentenced to 25 years in prison for acts against Cuban sovereignty in a summary trial in April 2003.

Only relatives were allowed to attend the trial on Tuesday at a municipal court. The police cordoned off the block to keep the public and reporters away.

President Fidel Castro ordered a crackdown on dissent in March 2003 that has resulted in the jailing of 75 opponents for up to 28 years.

The government said they were traitors on Washington's payroll and charged them with plotting to overthrow the government.

The United Nations Human Rights Commission criticized the arrests in a resolution on April 15. Last week, the European Union condemned the "disproportionate severity" of sentences being given to dissidents.

The sister of Serbia's assassinated prime minister Zoran Djindjic has been attacked at her home and reportedly injected with an unknown substance.

Unidentified men burst into Gordana Djindjic-Filipovic's house south-west of Belgrade on Saturday night. She was in a "stable condition" after being taken to hospital for tests.

Radio reports say Mrs Djindjic-Filipovic's attackers threatened to kill the whole family if a key suspect in the murder case - Milorad Lukovic - was convicted.

Full story here.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush is tightening the U.S. economic squeeze on Syria with a ban on all American exports to the Arab country except food and medicine.

For years, Syria has been branded an exporter of terror by the State Department, which automatically prohibits U.S. arms sales and American economic aid. The executive order Bush signed Tuesday goes further in exacting punishment.

Bush accused Syria of pursuing weapons of mass destruction and said that, coupled with its influence over Lebanon, represents an ``extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States.''

State Department officials emphasized what they said was Syria's approval for Palestinian extremist groups such as Hamas to plot attacks on Israel from havens in Damascus.

Syria has said it has closed the Damascus offices of Palestinian militants, who it insists are not terrorists but fighters resisting Israeli occupation of their homeland. The militants did lay low after Secretary of State Colin Powell visited last May and warned President Bashar Assad to expel them or face sanctions. After Israel assassinated Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin in March and another top leader in April, the group's new leader, Khaled Mashaal, started openly preaching revenge.

In Friday's State Department briefing, the officials said under rules that barred identifying them that U.S. fuel oil imports from Syria, which amounted to about $200 million last year, could be decreased.

While Syrian exports are not banned, American oil firms will be unable to import equipment from their factories in the United States, and this could complicate their operations, the officials said.

Overall, the United States exported $214 million in goods to Syria last year and imported $259 million worth.

In Damascus, Syrian officials minimized the significance of Bush's action. Still, Ahmed Haj Ali, media adviser to Syria's information ministry, said the political effects of the sanctions were much bigger than the economic ones.

Diplomatic relations were not severed. State Department officials said one reason was to keep alive any lingering hope that Syria might join Middle East peacemaking efforts. Haj Ali said Syria was still committed to dialogue with the Untied States.

The new sanctions include a ban on flights to and from the United States, although there is no current commercial air traffic between the two countries.

Also, the Treasury Department was authorized to freeze assets of Syrian nationals and entities involved in terrorism, production of weapons of mass destruction, occupation of Lebanon or terror in Iraq.

Restrictions were imposed on banking relations between American banks and the Syrian national bank.

The sanctions go beyond minimum requirements of the Syria Accountability Act. That law, which Bush signed into law in December, provides the basis for his actions Tuesday.

At the same time, the president chose not to take other, more drastic action under the law, such as barring American companies from doing business in Syria.

``President Bush did everything within his power to send a message through diplomatic channels that Syria should not support groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, but it has continued to do so,'' said U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., chairwoman of the House International Relations Middle East subcommittee.

The United States is sending ``a loud and clear message to the leaders of Syria that we will no longer turn a blind eye to their transgressions,'' said Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y, who co-authored the legislation with Ros-Lehtinen. ``The ball is now in Damascus' court.''

John Kerry, Bush's probable Democratic opponent in November's election, endorsed the sanctions but said Bush had waited too long to impose them.

``The administration had previously acknowledged that Syria has failed to adequately police its border with Iraq, may be developing weapons of mass destruction and provides support to terrorist groups,'' the Massachusetts senator said.

``Given all these troubling facts, it is unfortunate that President Bush failed to impose sanctions until now.''

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) -- Brazil's justice ministry on Tuesday canceled the journalism visa of a New York Times reporter who wrote an article saying President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has a drinking problem.

The ministry said the article by correspondent Larry Rohter, published Sunday, ``offended the honor of the president.''

Rohter, writing that Silva's drinking had become a national concern, summarized a series of rumors that have long circulated in Brazil and cited an ally-turned-enemy of Silva and two newspaper columnists.

Silva has never hidden his affection for alcohol, occasionally appearing with a glass of beer or whiskey in hand. He has never been known to appear drunk in public.

The Times article caused an outcry in Brazil, with opposition politicians and usual critics of the president denouncing the report as biased. On Monday, the Times published a letter from Brazilian Ambassador Roberto Abdenur responding with ``perplexity and indignation'' to the article.

Shortly before the visa cancellation was announced, Silva told reporters: ``The article does not deserve a response but rather an action.''

Rohter's whereabouts were unknown. It was not immediately clear if he would be expelled or, if he was out of the country, whether he would be allowed to re-enter. He is married to a Brazilian.

Officials from the Justice Ministry declined to elaborate on the decision.

No one could be reached at the Times office in Rio to comment. A call to the Times' foreign desk in New York requesting comment was referred to the newspaper's public relations department, which was closed.

The Times said earlier it stood by Rohter's story.

Full article here:

GROZNY, Russia (AP) -- A bomb ripped through a stadium in the Chechen capital during a Victory Day ceremony on Sunday, killing provincial president Akhmad Kadyrov, the Kremlin's point man for efforts to control separatist violence in the war-wracked region.

No group claimed responsibility for Sunday's explosion, which killed as many as 24 people, but suspicion inevitably fell on separatist rebels, who have made Kadyrov a top target and tried to assassinate him several times.

Police and soldiers launched an extensive search after the blast and detained at least five people, news reports said.

The attack harshly underlined the difficulties Russia faces in restoring order in the southern region despite a massive troop presence. It was expected to set off a new round of killing between Kadyrov's camp and his enemies.

The stadium's VIP section collapsed into a jagged hole in the explosion, sending up a plume of brown smoke. Panicked people, including many elderly dressed in their Sunday best, clambered over the bleachers as gunshots split the air amid the chaos.

Footage on Russia's NTV television showed men in uniform dragging away the body of a man resembling Kadyrov and covered in blood.

The explosive was believed to be a land mine, said Sergei Kozhemyaka, a spokesman for the southern Russian branch of the Emergency Situations Ministry. NTV television quoted an investigator as saying the bomb was made from a 152 mm artillery shell and detonated with a wire or timer.

The bomb was planted under the concrete floor of the VIP podium where Kadyrov and other dignitaries were watching ceremonies marking the 59th anniversary of the defeat of the Nazis in World War II.

A second land mine was found nearby.

Investigators were trying to identify people who worked on the three-month renovation of the stadium, which was completed just recently, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.

Official estimates of the death toll varied.

The Grozny emergency medical center said 24 people were killed and 46 others were wounded.

However, Russian President Vladimir Putin's representative in the southern Russian district, Vladimir Yakovlev, said six people died in the blast and 53 others were wounded, the Interfax news agency reported.

The differing estimates could not immediately be explained.

Russian authorities have blamed Chechen rebels for many attacks since 2002, including a Feb. 6 suicide bombing on a Moscow subway that killed more than 40 people and wounded dozens.

Previous major attacks in Chechnya have been followed by massive operations to find the perpetrators, with troops and security forces sealing off whole neighborhoods and towns, conducting house-to-house searches and detaining scores of people.

Sunday's attack was expected to send waves of fear through the Connecticut-sized region of 1 million people. Kadyrov's security service, run by his younger son, Ramzan, has been accused of being behind civilian disappearances and extrajudicial killings. Both Kadyrovs denied the accusations.

``Justice will take the upper hand and retribution is inevitable,'' Putin said at the conclusion of Moscow's Victory Day parade on Red Square, ITAR-Tass reported.

Later in the day, meeting with Ramzan Kadyrov, Putin called the late Chechen president ``a really heroic person.''

``Akhmad Kadyrov left this life on May 9 ... undefeated,'' Putin said.

The explosion also reportedly killed Khusein Isayev, head of Chechnya's State Council, and Eli Isayev, the region's finance minister.

The Reuters news agency said its photographer Adlan Khasanov, 33, also was killed.

``He was a fine journalist working with dedication and great courage in often-dangerous conditions,'' Reuters editor-in-chief Geert Linnebank said in a statement.

A top Russian commander, Col.-Gen. Valery Baranov, was in critical condition, with one leg amputated, officials said. Russia's deputy interior minister, Col.-Gen. Mikhail Pankov, was named commander of troops in Chechnya, Interfax reported.

Chechen Prime Minister Sergei Abramov will become Chechnya's acting president, the Kremlin said.

Kozhemyaka, the Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman, said a second land mine was found near the VIP seats. An unnamed investigator said on NTV television that a bottle containing a plastic explosive was found in the stands, where it apparently was planted after the blast that killed Kadyrov.

Security was tight across Russia as the nation celebrated Victory Day, one of its most sacred holidays. In 2002, a bomb exploded during a Victory Day military parade in the Caspian Sea port of Kaspiisk, killing 43 people, including 12 children.

Last year, a police officer was killed and two more people were wounded when a bomb exploded near the Grozny stadium.

Russian troops have been fighting Chechen insurgents for much of the past decade, with the latest war beginning in September 1999.

Kadyrov, a barrel-chested, gravel-voiced Muslim imam, was a rebel commander during the 1994-96 war that ended with Russian forces withdrawing. However, he became disenchanted during the period of Chechnya's de facto independence, complaining of the growing influence of the Wahhabi sect of Islam in the republic.

He broke with Aslan Maskhadov, who had been elected Chechen president in 1997, and in 2000 the Kremlin appointed him the republic's top civilian administrator. He was elected president in an October vote widely criticized as fraudulent.

Libya has sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death by firing squad for deliberately infecting some 400 children with HIV.

Prosecutors demanded the death penalty, claiming the accused gave patients HIV in a bid to find an Aids cure.

The medics, who worked at a children's hospital in the city of Benghazi, were arrested five years ago.

Bulgaria's government, which had been lobbying for their release, condemned the "unfair and absurd" verdicts.

Full story here.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush hopes to end Cuba's jamming of U.S. government broadcasts to the island as part of a broader effort to toughen U.S policies toward the island, a senior official said.

The official said Bush, acting on a recommendation by a government commission, has decided to order deployment of military aircraft to transmit signals of the Miami-based Radio Marti and TV Marti.

A formal announcement was expected on Thursday, three days after a government commission headed by Secretary of State Colin Powell sent the president a 500-page report with Cuba policy recommendations, including one to circumvent jamming.

The commission's mandate was to propose steps to hasten an end to communist rule in Cuba and to provide ideas on ways to assist a post-Castro government.

TV Marti has been jammed since its inception in 1990. Jamming of Radio Marti began almost simultaneously, five years after it first went on the air.

The president also is prepared to adopt measures to curb the flow of U.S. dollars to Cuba. While eager to apply economic pressure against Cuba, Bush is not expected to reduce the $1,200 a year ceiling on transfers to needy Cuban families by Cuban-American relatives, the official said.

Frank Calzon, executive director of the anti-Castro Center for a Free Cuba, said the decision to maintain the ceiling rather than slash it was welcome news because it deprives the Cuban leader of a ``propaganda victory.''

The commission also urged increased support for Cuban dissidents and families of political prisoners. In addition, it called for measures to encourage foreign governments to distance themselves from the Cuban regime.

The official said the anti-jamming plan contemplates an ``airborne platform to break through the information logjam'' that Cuba has imposed against the two stations.

With all local media under state control, Cubans have little access to information that is not approved by the government.

The plan involves use of C-130's that will fly over international waters adjacent to the island. Operations are expected to begin in a few months.

The Cuba commission was set up last October with a May 1 deadline for making its recommendations to Bush.

The alleged mastermind of the murder of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic has surrendered to Serbian police.

Milorad "Legija" Lukovic surrendered at 2100 (1900 GMT) in Belgrade and was immediately arrested, said Serbian Interior Minister Dragan Jocic.

He had been on the run since Mr Djindjic was shot dead by a sniper on a Belgrade street on 12 March 2003.

Mr Lukovic is being tried in absentia over the killing, along with 12 other suspects.

Full story here.

DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) -- Leaders from across Europe set aside their concerns about the EU's growing pains Saturday to seal the entry of 10 nations into the European Union and mark the end of the continent's Cold War divide.

After leading overnight festivities in their homelands, presidents and prime ministers from the new members will sit down for the first time as equal members of the EU's governing council.

``We used to be the gateway to Europe. ... We are now inside the gate,'' Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy told revelers Friday in Budapest.

``A new chapter can commence in our national history,'' Medgyessy said. ``Tomorrow is an opportunity for a new modern Hungary.''

The 10 nations officially became members after midnight Friday in central Europe. They are Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Cyprus and Malta.

The event was marked by fireworks and street celebrations in nations where EU entry is seen as a return to the European mainstream after decades under the Soviet yoke.

In Ireland -- which holds the EU's rotating presidency -- a ``Day of Welcomes'' was kicked off with evening fireworks in Dublin Bay. Festivities scheduled for Saturday range from Slovak folk dancing in Cork to Hungarian poetry reading in Sligo and a banquet of eastern European delicacies in the streets of Dublin.

The newcomers want to emulate Ireland's economic transformation from the EU's poorest member when it joined in 1973 to one of the most affluent in the bloc today.

Prime Minister Bertie Ahern was to start the day with Christian, Muslim and Jewish religious leaders at a ``Prayers for Europe'' ceremony in Dublin Castle.

Leaders from the other 24 EU nations were expected to arrive Saturday for a summit that begins with symbolic raising of their flags outside the parkland residence of President Mary McAleese.

Ireland placed 5,000 police and 2,000 soldiers on alert to prevent demonstrators from disrupting the event.

The short summit will toast the historic importance of EU enlargement, which comes just weeks after NATO opened its doors to Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania and Bulgaria, most of them former Warsaw Pact foes. Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999.

Any concerns about the impact of EU expansion will probably be put on hold until the bloc holds its next summit in mid-June at its headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

Nevertheless, eastern European nations are annoyed that all of their established EU partners -- except Ireland, Sweden and Britain -- have placed restrictions of up to seven years on freedom of movement for workers from the relatively poor east into the west.

The other 12 nations have argued they must restrict the movement of workers -- a freedom enshrined in EU treaty law -- to deter a flood of workers from the new members.

Many in the older EU nations fear that jobs and investment will be lured to the cheaper labor markets in the east. But other government leaders argue that the entry of 74 million people into the EU will be good for business across the bloc.

``It creates an expanded market of 450 million consumers which will increase prosperity, trade, investment and jobs throughout the enlarged Europe,'' British Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote in an article published Friday in The Times newspaper of London.

Blair pointed out that Britain's trade with the eight new members from eastern Europe has doubled in the past decade as they shook off the remnants of communism and opened up their economies.

Blair has found allies among the eastern leaders, most of whom supported his firm stance in support of the war in Iraq last year, despite opposition from other EU members led by France and Germany.

Also attending the Dublin summit will be leaders of countries still knocking at the EU's door: Romania and Bulgaria, which hope to join in 2007, and Turkey, which aims to open membership talks next year.