WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Bush's "Initiative for a New Cuba," which the president announced in a major policy speech at the White House Monday, is designed to generate "rapid and peaceful" change within that Caribbean country, says Otto Reich, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.

In congressional testimony Tuesday, Reich reiterated that the initiative challenges the Cuban government to undertake political and economic reforms and to conduct free and fair elections in 2003 for the Cuban National Assembly.

If the Cuban government takes concrete steps to open up its political and economic system, Bush will work with the U.S. Congress to ease the ban on trade and travel between the United States and Cuba, Reich told a Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs, Foreign Commerce, and Tourism.

Reich, who was born in Cuba, said the president's initiative is not the end of the Bush Administration's policy review, "but the beginning of an ongoing, flexible, and responsive campaign" to help Cuba make the transition to democracy.

He also emphasized earlier claims by the Bush Administration that Cuba has a sophisticated biotechnology infrastructure capable of supporting a biological weapons program and has transferred dual-use technology to a number of countries around the world, including those with known or suspected biological weapons programs.

"These facts underpin our assessment that Cuba has at least a limited, developmental biological weapons research and development effort," Reich said.

Despite Cuba's "aggressive policies" against the United States, Reich said the Bush initiative offers a serious alternative to the present hostile relationship between the two governments.

Reich concluded his statement by citing the president's belief that it is time for Cuban dictator Fidel Castro "to cast aside old and failed ideas and to start to think differently about the future." Quoting from Bush's speech about U.S. policy toward Cuba, Reich added: "Today could mark a new dawn in a long friendship between our people, but only if the Castro regime sees the light."

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department said that the regime of Fidel Castro continues to harbor international fugitives suspected of terrorist activity and other violent crimes, while refusing to cooperate with countries seeking to extradite those fugitives. That was the gist of the State Department's annual "Pattern of Global Terrorism" report relating to Cuba.

Castro's regime has allowed members of various terrorist organizations "to reside in Cuba as privileged guests" and "provided some degree of safe haven and support" to these criminals. In addition, the report says that during the past year, "numerous U.S. fugitives continued to live on the island, including Joanne Chesimard, wanted in the United States for the murder in 1973 of a New Jersey police officer and living as a guest of the Castro regime since 1979. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. —  The U.S. Senate is moving toward likely passage of a package of trade bills including one granting trade negotiating authority to the president.

Senate leaders expected a vote on the bill could come today or tomorrow after nearly five weeks of debate. Since one amendment anathema to the Bush Administration —  called the Dayton-Craig amendment — was approved May 14, senators have blocked or defeated most other substantial amendments.

In one key decision Tuesday Democratic senators failed to get the votes needed to end debate on an amendment that would have provided health care benefits to retired steel workers. After supporters managed to get only 56 votes, four short of the 60 needed under Senate rules, the sponsors withdrew the amendment, which was vigorously opposed by the administration.

In another key vote senators voted to table, or kill, another amendment opposed by the administration. It would have restricted in future trade agreements the rights of foreign investors to challenge U.S. state and local health, environmental and other regulations in international tribunals. The amendment sponsored by Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, had strong support from state and local governments.

Vice President Richard Cheney made a rare appearance as president of the Senate to break a tie vote on another amendment. On the 49-49 tie, Cheney's vote defeated the amendment that would have provided government assistance on mortgage payments to workers who lose their jobs as a result of imports.

Earlier at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce session in Washington U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick expressed confidence that the Dayton-Craig amendment would not survive into a final trade bill. It concerns trade promotion authority, otherwise known as fast track.

In the past, under fast track Congress restricted itself only to approve or reject a negotiated trade agreement, within strict time limits and without amendments. Under Dayton-Craig, Congress could vote separately to reject part of a negotiated agreement that affected antidumping or other U.S. trade remedy laws.

Even if the Senate passes its trade package, obstacles to final passage remain. To become law, a final bill reconciling very different Senate and House of Representatives versions would have to be passed in each chamber and then get the president's signature. Zoellick was indicating that the Dayton-Craig amendment would get dropped in the House-Senate conference.

The House passed its version of fast track in December by one vote, 215-214. 

World treaty on music
enters into effect

An international treaty negotiated in 1996 to protect the rights of singers, musicians, actors and other performers on the Internet entered into force May 20, the World Intellectual Property Organization announced. 

The WIPO Phonograms and Performances Treaty  is one of a pair of treaties negotiated by 160 countries to protect against Internet piracy. The second pact, the WIPO Copyright Treaty protecting authors' rights on the Internet, entered into force March 6. 

The WPPT updates international standards of protection for performers set out in the 1961 Rome Convention to cover use of their performances on the Internet, the organization said Monday.

Director General Kamil Idris described the treaties' entry into force as "a significant first step in creating the conditions necessary for the broad-based and legitimate distribution of creative works and recordings on the Internet." 

Boy dies in Pacific surf

A 15-year-old boy drowned Sunday on Playa Espadilla in Manuel Antonio while surfing, said investigators. The body was discovered Monday afternoon. Sources in Manuel Antonio said the boy was Kénneth Durán Rodríguez, and they gave the age as 13. 

The president of the Instituto Mixto de Ayuda Social, Costa Rica’s big antipoverty agency, is out of her job. 

President Abel Pacheco said Tuesday he had relieved the woman, Roxana Víquez and appointed a commission to investigate alleged irregularities in the purchase of 40 pieces of land in Calle Pastoral de San Ramón, Alajuela. 

Ms. Víquez, in her capacity as head of the agency, authorized the purchase of the properties in December 2000. Pacheco said Tuesday that the Contraloría General de la República, the watchdog agency, had determined that the land was not appropriate for the construction of dwellings. That was the purported reason for the purchases. 

The properties cost 15.3 million colons or about $52,000 at the exchange rate then. 

The sellers were politicians and relatives of politicians affiliated with Pacheco’s Partido Unidad Social Cristiana. 

The last straw for Pacheco was when Ms. Víquez held a press conference last week and said she never bothered to read the property transfer documents that she signed. 

The investigative commission will be made up of the minister of Vivienda, Helio Fallas; of Justicia, José Miguel Villalobos, and the minister of the Presidency, Rina Contreras. 

"These in one month are going to give a verdict, and for this also the intervention of the Ministerio Público has been asked," said the president. The Ministerio Público is the national police agency. 

Eventually, the Instituto Mixto de Ayuda Social will be raised to cabinet level, the president said, adding that the commission also will suggest names of people to head the agency. 

Year’s terror report
highlights Sept. 11

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Some 3,547 people were killed in international terrorist attacks in 2001, "the highest annual death toll from terrorism ever recorded," according to the U.S. State Department's annual terrorism report. 

Of the total fatalities, 90 percent occurred in the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, the "Patterns of Global Terrorism: 2001" report said. By comparison, in 2000, 409 people died in international terrorist attacks. 

Citizens from 78 countries were killed in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Towers in New York City alone, the report said. 

The State Department released its annual report on terrorism, which is required by the U.S. Congress, at a news briefing Tuesday.

The annual report, which is double in size from previous years, notes that eight other U.S. citizens were killed and 15 wounded in other acts of terrorism last year. 

The full report is available on the State Department's Internet website at http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2001/. 

 Prisoner murdered
in Alajuela facility

A convicted robber died Tuesday morning afer being stabbed in a dispute at the Centro Penitenciario La Reforma in Alajuela. 

Investigators identified the man as Freddy González Flores, an inmate in minimum security section of the prison. The principal suspect in the killing is Melvin Calvo More, who is in jail for homicide, said investigators. 

SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Authorities in California have sealed a tunnel that was used to bring drugs from Mexico to the United States. Investigators say the passage was a conduit for a Mexican drug cartel. After months of investigation, a larger picture of the operation is now emerging. 

Acting on a tip, U.S. investigators found the passageway beneath a house east of here in late February. The tunnel began beneath a ranch house near Tecate, Mexico, east of Tijuana. Stretching 266 meters northward, it ended on the U.S. side of the border beneath a house that was unoccupied much of the time. 

The drug operation was active. Inside the tunnel, authorities found a 135-kilogram stash of marijuana. 

Don Thornhill of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says billions of dollars in drugs may have gone through the passageway, over a decade or longer. The drug enforcement official says the tunnel may have existed in rough form 20 years ago. 

No arrests have been made, but authorities believe the tunnel was operated by Tijuana's Arellano Felix drug cartel. The man who runs the cartel in Tecate is being held in Mexico City on separate narcotics charges. 

Drug enforcement officials say smaller cross-border tunnels have been found near San Diego, but none this elaborate. They estimate that construction of this passageway took two years. With the U.S. side cemented shut, they say the tunnel is now out of operation.
 

Concerns voiced
on child soldiers

NEW YORK, New York — The United Nations refugee agency said it is concerned that armed groups in Colombia are forcing refugee children to join their fight against government troops. 

The agency said it is getting reports that rebel groups in Colombia are forcing children to fight as soldiers in the rebel conflict with the Colombian government. 

Spokeswoman Jennifer Clark said the reports say the rebel groups are recruiting child soldiers in Colombia's border areas with Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela. "We had some reports that illegal armed groups from Columbia have been recruiting, particularly Colombian boys under the age of 18, in these regions to fight. This is of great concern to us. It is a violation of international law and the rights of children and certainly can have serious consequences for the refugees and particularly the children," Ms. Clarke said. 

She said the agency fears that if the conflict between rebels and Colombian government troops intensifies, rebel groups could increase their recruitment of child soldiers. 
 

Six Ticos arrested
near Niagara Falls

U.S. Border Patrol agents grabbed six Costa Ricans who tried to sneak into the country across the Niagara River, according to news reports in the United States and Canada.

The six were arrested in Lewiston across the Niagara River from Queenston, the reports said. They arrived there by boat.

Some seven Costa Ricans went to jail April 29 after they crossed from Canada by crawling on the supports under a railroad bridge, the news reports said.

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