INTERNATIONAL

Honduras to open interests section in Cuba after 40 years of broken ties

Associated Press
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - Honduras will open an interests section in Cuba next week, an attempt to re-establish relations between the two countries that broke off 40 years ago, the foreign secretary said yesterday.

"The opening of the Cuba office is undoubtedly a step toward re-establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries," said Foreign Secretary Roberto Flores.

The office will open on Sept. 15 and will be headed by Reyieri David Amador, a career diplomat who has worked in the Honduran embassies in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, Flores said.

Honduras has not had diplomatic relations with Cuba since April 1961, when the Organization of American States expelled the communist island from its ranks.

Cuba opened an interests section in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, in 1999.

Honduras and El Salvador are the only two Latin American nations that don't have diplomatic relations with Cuba.

More than 150 Cuban doctors and nurses have been in Honduras since October 1998, when Hurricane Mitch pounded the country, killing thousands and causing billions of dollars in damage.

Meanwhile, more than 400 Honduran students have been studying with scholarships at the Latin American School of Medicine in Cuba since 1999 under a bilateral agreement.

The Honduran office also will offer help to Honduran companies who want to do business on the island, Flores said.

During a brief visit to Havana last month, Flores signed an investment protection agreement with Cuba. The action followed a similar visit by his Cuban counterpart Felipe Perez Roque in December 2000.

WASHINGTON

U.S. warplanes bomb air defenses in northern and southern Iraq

Associated Press
WASHINGTON - U.S. fighter jets bombed Iraqi air defenses in separate attacks yesterday in the southern and northern "no fly" zones, defense officials said.

The official Iraqi news agency said the strike in the south injured four people.

It was the fourth attack in southern Iraq in less than two weeks. In a brief announcement, U.S. Central Command said the strike was in response to recent Iraqi "hostile threats" against the American and British aircraft that regularly patrol the skies over southern Iraq.

The announcement gave few details beyond saying the targets were Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missile sites.

A defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the targets were near the city of As Samawah, about 130 miles southeast of Baghdad.

In the northern zone, U.S. officials said Air Force jets fired high-speed anti-radiation, or HARM, missiles at three Iraqi air defense radar sites north of the city of Mosul. The attack was provoked by Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery fire directed at U.S. aircraft near Mosul, U.S. officials said.

U.S. forces have been attacking Iraqi air defense targets with increased regularity in recent days, particularly in the south.

U.S. and British aircraft regularly patrol southern and northern Iraq to prevent Iraqi forces from attacking Kurds in the north and Shiites in the south and to provide early warning of Iraqi troop movements toward Kuwait.

Iraq considers the "no fly" zones illegal and has vowed to shoot down an American or British pilot.

Central Command, which is responsible for all U.S. military operations in the Persian Gulf area, said there have been 1,015 separate incidents of Iraqi surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft artillery fire directed against U.S. and British aircraft since December 1998.

STATES

Florida town votes by touch screen as state begins ridding self of punch-card ballots

Associated Press
CALLAHAN, Fla. - Callahan voters became the first in Florida to use touch-screen voting machines yesterday, which many counties are considering as the state rids itself of the punch-card ballots that hung up the 2000 presidential election.

"No more hanging, dimpled or pregnant chads," Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan said after getting a demonstration of the machines in the town in northern Florida's Nassau County. "It's very impressive."

Yesterday's election in the town of 527 registered voters, out of a population of 946, was for three of its four town council members.

"I like it," 72-year-old voter Rosa Lee Thomas said of the machines. "It's an easier way for me to vote."

In future elections statewide, Florida voters will have to use either the touch screen or optical scanning machines.

Punch cards were banned because of their role in the recounts and court fights after last fall's presidential balloting.

The touch screens, similar to automated teller machines, will not let voters cast more than one vote in each race. They will let voters skip a race, but will ask them if they know they did that.

The machines also can read a ballot to blind voters.

Election Systems and Software of Omaha, Neb., is the only company now certified by the state to sell touch-screen machines. ES&S offered Callahan free use of the technology for yesterday's election, said Vicki Peterson Cannon, Nassau County supervisor of elections.

Buying enough of the machines for Nassau County's 38,000 registered voters would cost about $700,000.

Touch screens have been in use for several years in Greensboro, N.C., and have seen some use in Dallas, said Dan McGinnis, vice president sales for ES&S. Florida's Pasco County, north of Tampa, has contracted with ES&S to begin a move to touch screens.

The touch screens are more expensive than the optical scanning systems - similar to those used to score standardized school tests - but they could save money in big counties by eliminating the cost of printing and storing paper ballots.

LOCAL

Marijuana seizures up along border as pot harvest peaks

Associated Press
PHOENIX - Harvest season for pot growers started last month and that has meant larger drug seizures for federal agencies, which say they also are getting better at finding big shipments hidden in vehicles coming from Mexico.

The U.S. Customs Service said it has confiscated 28,000 more pounds of the drug in Arizona so far this fiscal year than it did in all of last year, when it seized 174,000 pounds.

The U.S. Border Patrol in Yuma is already close to reaching last year's total of nearly 13,000 pounds.

While the Border Patrol's office in Tucson reported a slight decrease from this point last year, a spokesman said it could finish ahead of last year if seizures remain high in September. Last year, it seized 240,000 pounds.

"This is the point in the year where things start to pick up," said Rob Daniels, spokesman for the Border Patrol in Tucson.

Among the August seizures were a ton near the Coronado National Monument, nearly a ton on the Tohono O'odham Reservation, another 1,800 pounds in Ajo and more than 2 tons found in one day by Customs inspectors at the San Luis port of entry.

The Border Patrol's Tucson office confiscated 5,000 pounds of pot in one week.

Vincent Iglio, associate special agent in charge for the Arizona district of the Customs Service, said traffickers may be trying to move bigger loads to reduce the costs in hiring more smugglers.

Moving large loads means traffickers must hide their drugs deeper inside vehicles and cargo, Iglio said.

But more government funding has helped authorities find the hidden loads. The money has been used to hire more people to monitor the border and get better detection equipment, Iglio said.