CARIBBEAN

HUNGER-STRIKING CUBAN NEAR DEATH

A Cuban journalist is near death after nine days of a hunger strike protesting the oppressive policies of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, according to the free-press organization Reporters Without Borders.

The director of the island nation’s Cubanacan Press news agency, Guillermo Farinas Hernandez, has forgone all food and water since midnight on January 31. Mr. Farinas, according to accounts out of Cuba, refuses to end his strike until the Castro dictatorship ends its prohibition against independent journalism and allows unrestricted Internet use for the Cuban public. According to a press release, Mr. Farinas’s Cubanacan Press colleagues have taken turns fasting for a day in solidarity with their editor, whose medical condition has grown dire. “I am ready to die,” Mr. Farinas told Reporters Without Borders. “Fidel knows my position.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

WORLDWIDE

ADL DENOUNCES CHURCH OF ENGLAND’S DIVESTMENT

Jewish groups in America and around the world denounced yesterday the Anglican Church’s decision to boycott companies that it said “profit from the illegal occupation” by Israel. The divestment campaign will effect companies such as Caterpillar, which provides bulldozers for the construction of the defensive barrier and other Israeli projects in the West Bank and Gaza.

The World Jewish Congress, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and other Jewish organizations denounced what the Anti-Defamation League yesterday called “a sad day for the Church of England.” A former archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, told the Jerusalem Post he was “ashamed to be an Anglican” following Monday’s decision, which he said was “a most regrettable and one-sided statement” that “ignores the trauma of ordinary Jewish people,” who are exposed to terrorist attacks.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

WESTERN EUROPE

E.U. COMMISSIONER URGES PRESS CODE ON RELIGION AFTER CARTOONS

BRUSSELS, Belgium – Plans for a European press charter committing the press to “prudence” when reporting on Islam and other religions, were unveiled yesterday.The E.U. commissioner for justice, freedom, and security and a former Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini, said the European Union faced the “very real problem” of trying to reconcile “two fundamental freedoms, the freedom of expression and the freedom of religion.” Millions of European Muslims felt “humiliated” by the publication of cartoons of their prophet, he added, calling on journalists and press chiefs to accept that “the exercising of a right is always the assumption of a responsibility.” He appealed to European press to agree to “self-regulate.”

– The Daily Telegraph

WEST AFRICA

NIGERIA REPORTS FIRST OUTBREAK OF DEADLY BIRD FLU STRAIN IN AFRICA

LAGOS, Nigeria – Africa’s first outbreak of the deadly bird flu virus was reported yesterday in a large commercial farm in Nigeria that raised chickens, geese, and ostriches, and 46,000 birds were slaughtered. International health officials called for help to prevent the spread of the disease on the world’s poorest continent, where governments are ill-equipped to combat it.

– Associated Press

SOUTHERN AFRICA

MUGABE TO ASK WHITES TO RETURN TO ZIMBABWE IN LAND GRAB U-TURN

HARARE, Zimbabwe – President Mugabe has begun to reverse his land grab and offer some white farmers the chance to lease back their holdings in Zimbabwe. With the fastest shrinking economy in the world Mr. Mugabe has had to backtrack on six years of chaos and his own determination to rid the country of all white farmers. The U-turn is expected to be announced within days. The ruling Zanu-PF Party’s politburo has been informed and selected journalists in the state-controlled press have been briefed on how to spin the policy reversal.

– The Daily Telegraph