Group says Iran executes minors
Iran has sentenced 177 people under the age of 18 to death over the past decade and has executed nearly three dozen of them, a human rights group said Tuesday.
The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran published on its Web site a list of the 114 minors who still remain in prison awaiting execution, some of whom are now older than 18. The youngest person on the list was a 12-year-old boy sentenced by a court in 2005. The group did not specify what crime he was convicted of.
Aaron Rhodes, a spokesman for the group in Vienna, Austria, said the campaign has called on the international community to take steps to press Iran to abolish the executions. Rhodes said many of the death sentences were based on confessions obtained from defendants under torture or interrogations in which they had no access to a lawyer.
Havana
Fidel Castro shown talking with Chavez
Cuban television on Tuesday showed the first images of Fidel Castro in almost six months, broadcasting a silent video of the ailing revolutionary chatting in a garden with visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
The 81-year-old Castro looked thinner, and his hair and beard appeared much whiter, in the new video. But he nevertheless looked vigorous and animated as he talked with Chavez and younger brother Raul Castro. He wore in a white track-suit jacket with red and blue trim.
It was the second meeting in as many days between the elder Castro and Chavez, who are close friends.
The two countries are collaborating on a major petroleum refinery and petrochemical plant in the eastern Cuban port city of Cienfuegos.
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Congress to debate tax on grain export
President Cristina Fernandez announced Tuesday that a contentious grain export tax hike will be sent to Congress for debate, agreeing to a key demand of farmers who have waged three months of bitter protests against the increase.
Farm leaders welcomed Fernandez’s announcement but said road blockades and a grain-export suspension would remain in place through tonight. The blockades have emptied supermarket shelves of food and hurt exports in one of world’s leading sellers of soy beans and corn.
Fernandez, who increased export taxes in early March by presidential decree, said a debate by Congress would give the tax law “more democratic support.”
“If a decision by this president … isn’t enough, I’m going to send the proposal to Congress so they can also decide on the matter,” Fernandez said in a televised address.