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World in brief

Cubans release dissidents, but not all

By wire services
Published July 24, 2005

HAVANA - Cuban authorities released opposition leader Martha Beatriz Roque and about 10 other dissidents early Saturday morning, but continued to detain at least 15 others who had attempted to attend a demonstration for the freedom of political prisoners, according to a human rights monitor in Havana.

A 59-year-old economist and former political prisoner who heads one of Cuba's largest opposition coalitions, Roque was on her way to a demonstration at the French Embassy on Friday morning when her car was stopped by Cuban police and she was taken into custody, she said.

Two other dissident leaders, Rene Gomez and Felix Bonne, were also detained and remained in custody Saturday, said human rights activist Elizardo Sanchez of the nongovernmental Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

During her 20-hour detention, Roque was taken to two police stations and questioned about her role in planning the demonstration. She said she was released at 5 a.m. Saturday morning after being examined by a doctor who found she was in poor health due to complications from diabetes.

Roque was the only woman arrested during the Cuban government's 2003 crackdown, which sent 75 dissidents to prison for up to 28 years on charges that they conspired to subvert Cuba's socialist system. She was released last year due to ailing health, but has continued to draw attention to Cuba's political prisoners.

The roundup was criticized Saturday by the U.S. State Department, which said the dissidents' only crime "was attempting to exercise their basic human rights and freedoms."

"We call on the Cuban government to end this deplorable repression and immediately free all of those arrested," State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said in a statement.

TOKYO - A magnitude-6.0 earthquake shook the Tokyo area Saturday, injuring at least 27 people, rattling buildings across the sprawling capital and temporarily suspending flights and train services.

The earthquake struck at 4:35 p.m. (3:35 a.m. EDT) and was centered about 55 miles underground in Chiba prefecture, just east of Tokyo, Japan's Meteorological Agency said. There was no danger of tsunami, the agency said.

The quake injured at least 27 people, including five people hit by a falling signboard at a supermarket in neighboring Saitama prefecture, Kyodo said. There were about 50 cases of people briefly trapped in elevators.

GRENADE-THROWER: A man who admitted throwing a live grenade toward President Bush during a rally in Georgia said in a video broadcast Saturday he aimed to spray shrapnel over the bulletproof glass protecting the U.S. leader. The grenade landed about 100 feet away, but did not explode. "I threw the grenade, not directly at where there was bulletproof glass, but toward the heads ... so that the shrapnel would fly behind the bulletproof glass," Vladimir Arutyunian said in the video broadcast by Georgia's Rustavi-2 TV.

[Last modified July 24, 2005, 00:32:04]