Havana: Cuban political prisoner set to be released today

Cuba’s most famous political prisoner, Vladimiro Roca, is scheduled to be released today, one week before former President Carter arrives on the communist island for a five-day visit, Roca’s wife said Saturday.

News of the coming move was seen as a goodwill gesture by Cuba’s communist-ruled government to Carter, who has emphasized the importance of human rights.

Roca, 59, has been serving a five-year sentence that was scheduled to end July 16.

The son of the late revered Communist Party leader Blas Roca, Vladimiro Roca is a former fighter jet pilot who broke from Cuba’s socialist system a decade ago and began calling for a Western-style democracy.

Mexico: 17 die in bus wreck

A bus crashed into a ravine Saturday in central Mexico, killing 17 people and injuring several others.

The bus left a two-lane mountain road near the community of Desdavid, 125 miles north of Mexico City, coming to rest at the bottom of at 21-yard-deep ravine. Twelve people died at the scene, and five others were declared dead at area hospitals.

Many of the passengers on the bus were Otomi Indians. Officials said the bus wasn’t licensed to carry passengers.

It was unclear what caused the crash.

Nepal: 350 Maoists killed, government claims

Security forces killed at least 350 guerrillas in gunbattles in western Nepal, the Defense Ministry said Saturday, in what would be the deadliest fighting in the rebels’ 6-year-old campaign to oust the constitutional monarchy.

The bloodshed comes days before Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba travels to Washington to discuss the communist insurgency with President Bush. The Bush administration recently asked Congress for $20 million in military aid to Nepal.

Pakistan: Extradition denied in Pearl slaying case

Pakistan’s president said Saturday that the killers of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl must face punishment in Pakistan despite a U.S. extradition request as an example for those defying his crackdown on terrorism and sectarian violence.

Gen. Pervez Musharraf said he would resist any U.S. pressure for the extradition of British-born Islamic militant Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the chief defendant in the trial of those accused of killing Pearl.

Pearl disappeared in January in Karachi.