Police raid opposition group
Police and security forces raided an apartment where members of an opposition youth group were meeting Sunday and detained some 30 people, an activist said.
Activists from the Malady Front, or Young Front, were meeting in a rented apartment in Minsk when police and KGB officers burst in, organization member Zmitser Fedaruk said.
He said the detainees included regional leaders of the Young Front from various parts of the ex-Soviet republic of 10 million. Rights activist Lyudmila Gryaznova said some of the detainees were minors.
The officers gave no reason for the detentions, Fedaruk said, and officials at the precinct house where they were taken declined to comment.
Opposition activists are frequently detained in Belarus, whose authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko has been dubbed Europe’s last dictator by Western governments for his intolerance of dissent.
CANBERRA, Australia
Howard suggests carbon price plan
Australia must place a price on carbon emissions to fight climate change, Prime Minister John Howard said today in an apparent softening of his refusal to join in global emissions trading.
Australia, the world’s largest exporter of coal, joined the United States in refusing to sign the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which called for deep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions believed to worsen global warming. Australia is also one of the world’s worst greenhouse gas polluters per capita because of its dependence on coal to generate electricity.
The opposition Labor Party has long called for the government to sign Kyoto and to introduce a carbon trading scheme.
Howard said a government-appointed task force will release a discussion paper this week on the role Australia can play in a global emissions trading scheme.
MEXICO CITY
Corpse found near Acapulco
A dismembered corpse was found dumped in plastic bags in a slum outside the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco, police said Sunday.
The body of the unidentified man was discovered by residents of the Periodistas district on Saturday, said an Acapulco police department official who asked not be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media. He declined to comment further.
Acapulco has been hit by a wave of killings blamed on rival drug cartels fighting over smuggling routes along the Pacific coast and a burgeoning local drug market.
Last year, at least six heads of decapitated police officers and alleged drug smugglers were found in the resort and nearby towns. One washed up on a popular beach in the tourist zone, while the rest were dumped on the streets.