Chinese police tore up a protester’s poster and detained at least two people on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on Sunday as the country marked 17 years since local troops crushed a pro-democracy demonstration in the public space. Discussion of the crackdown still is taboo in China outside of the semiautonomous regions of Hong Kong and Macau. Chinese TV news and major newspapers did not mention the anniversary.
Gitmo hunger strike smaller
The number of Guantanamo Bay detainees on hunger strike has dropped from 89 to 18, the U.S. military said Sunday. The strike–which jumped from three participants in late May to 89 on Thursday–was the biggest of the year at the U.S. prison in Cuba, where about 460 men are being held on suspicion of links to Al Qaeda or the Taliban.
Dirty living for quake survivors
Many of Indonesia’s 650,000 homeless earthquake survivors are living with deteriorating sanitary conditions, forced to wash with dirty water that infects wounds and spreads skin disease, doctors said Sunday. There also was concern about bird flu, as the number of Indonesia’s human deaths from the virus mounted. Some of the homeless have taken shelter in chicken coops that aid workers fear could contain the disease.
More violence rocks Iraq
Masked gunmen stopped two mini-vans carrying students north of Baghdad on Sunday, ordered the passengers off, separated Shiites from Sunni Arabs, and killed the 21 Shiites “in the name of Islam,” a witness said. In predominantly Shiite southern Basra, police hunting for militants stormed a Sunni Arab mosque early Sunday, just hours after a car bombing. The ensuing fire fight killed nine.
AND FINALLY
‘Da Vinci Code’ crackdown
Police seized 2,000 pirated DVDs of “The Da Vinci Code” on Saturday, and the Egyptian Coptic Christian church demanded the film be banned. “Code” has not been shown in Egypt, and the government has not decided whether to permit it. Bishop Morcos, a spokesman for Coptic Pope Shenouda III, the head of Egypt’s largest church, praised the police action and urged the film to be banned, saying it could spread misinformation about Christianity.
