Israel

Mock Statue of Liberty used as protest symbol

Palestinian artists built a mock Statue of Liberty atop the rubble in Yasser Arafat’s ruined headquarters Thursday to protest U.S. support of Israel.

Israeli forces have repeatedly besieged the Palestinian leader’s Ramallah compound, most recently last month in a response to a Palestinian suicide bombing. Israeli tanks and bulldozers destroyed most of the buildings in the city-block-sized compound.

Sculptors Nabil Anani and Abdel Hadi Yaish created the six-feet-high corrugated cardboard replica on the wreckage of a building. Anani said the message was that the United States violated its own values of freedom by backing Israel.

“Therefore we have turned the torch upside down, to say that American values are also upside down,” Anani said.

Jordan

No leads in slaying of American diplomat

Investigators reported no new leads Thursday in the killing of a U.S. diplomat, gunned down Monday in Jordan’s capital, Amman.

Jordanian security officials have been questioning dozens of Islamic militants as they try to discover who was behind the assassination of Laurence Foley, a U.S. aid agency administrator. The gunman escaped, and no arrests have been made.

“The investigation is continuing, but there is nothing new,” Jordanian Prime Minister Ali Abul-Ragheb told reporters in Beirut, Lebanon.

He said security for Westerners had been increased after the shooting, which shocked many in Jordan, a key U.S. ally that had been considered stable and relatively safe despite increasing popular opposition to U.S. policies on Iraq and Israel.

Paris

French Catholic Church takes aim at Halloween

Halloween in France took a new twist Thursday, with the Catholic Church sending protesters into Paris and launching a campaign with rock music to refocus attention on All Saints’ Day a religious holiday that falls a day after Halloween.

Television talk shows turned their attention to the subject. Bakeries passed out fliers about the holiday’s patron saints, and a small group of protesters gathered outside Planet Hollywood on the Champs-Elysees to denounce the Halloween-mania.

Arnaud Guyot-Jeannin, president of “The No to Halloween Collective” was quoted in Le Parisien newspaper as saying his group was composed of Christians opposed to the commercialism of Halloween, in which “the monstrous and the ugly is exalted.”

The Rev. Benoist de Sinety of the Paris diocese said the main issue was not the domination of American culture or globalization.

Moscow

Chechens complain about harassment

Chechen representatives and human rights officials charged Thursday that last week’s seizure of 800 hostages by Chechen guerrillas has set off a campaign of harassment against Moscow’s Chechens, who they say are being falsely arrested and shaken down for bribes under cover of an anti-terrorism crusade.

In a still-jittery capital, federal and local police are on the lookout for possible accomplices of the rebels, whose seizure of a Moscow theater left 119 hostages dead, all but two from effects of the gas used by authorities to subdue the gunmen. But human rights officials say they see a pattern of officers using that pretext to intimidate and extort money from law-abiding Chechens, some of whom say they’re afraid to go outside.

Meanwhile, Moscow police spokesman Filipp Zolotnitsky said a suspected Chechen terrorist, Sergei Krym-Gerei, was arrested carrying 18 pounds of poisonous mercury in a bottle while allegedly planning a new attack. The arrest was made several days ago, police said.

Ecuador

Thousands protest at Americas trade forum

Ecuadorean security forces battled protesters Thursday but the standoff failed to disrupt the work of trade ministers trying to hammer out a regional trade pact.

An estimated 10,000 anti-free trade protesters were not the only voices clamoring for an audience in Quito as trade officials from 34 nations met as part of negotiations for a Free Trade Area of the Americas. Representatives of a business forum, of civil society groups and the Hemispheric Social Alliance handed their recommendations over to the government officials Thursday, just one day before the minister was to issue a Declaration of Quito.

Army troops cordoned off blocks surrounding the Marriott Hotel, where the trade ministers were meeting. Troops stood by while protesters from Latin America and the United States waved banners and danced on armored vehicles. They then fired tear gas on protesters.

“The FTAA is not seeking a true free market, but the opening up of Latin American markets for the United States,” said Juan Jine, a leader of the Guatemalan Coordinator of Indigenous and Rural People.