Honduras

President speaks out about bus massacre

President Ricardo Maduro said Sunday that last week’s massacre of 28 people aboard a bus in San Pedro Sula might have been a warning from organized crime to back off his aggressive campaign against gangs and drug traffickers or face open warfare.

Since taking office in 2002, Maduro’s Zero Tolerance anti-crime campaign has put 1,800 gang members in jail and hit hard at drug traffickers who use Honduras as a shipment point for Colombian cocaine headed to the United States.

Speaking at a news conference, Maduro told reporters that the mass slaying of the bus passengers, including four children, was an act of “savagery and barbarity the likes of which Honduras has never seen.” He said it was carefully planned for maximum deadliness and terror, and possibly to send a message to his government.

Uzbekistan

Opposition barred from parliament election

Uzbeks voted in a parliamentary election Sunday in which opposition groups were barred from running, sparking criticism from Europe’s top election watchdog and a fierce defense from the country’s authoritarian president, who insisted Uzbekistan had no “real” opposition.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which sent 21 observers, has said Uzbekistan provided insufficient conditions for a democratic vote.

“The OSCE cannot have the exclusive right to assess elections,” President Islam Karimov said Sunday after casting his ballot at a polling station in the capital, Tashkent. “It represents Europe while we’re in Central Asia.”

Uzbekistan is a member of the OSCE.

The former Soviet republic was host to U.S. troops near its border with Afghanistan since 2001. But Washington has cut aid to this country, citing its lack of progress on democratic reforms.

Tokyo

Government to hand out survival guides

Japan’s government will distribute to each household in fiscal 2007 pamphlets that describe evacuation procedures to follow in the event of an attack by ballistic missiles or biological or chemical weaponry, according to government sources.

The pamphlets would serve as a survival manual for citizens if such an attack or natural disasters including earthquakes occurred, the sources said.

Local governments will formulate plans according to laws concerning contingencies to protect citizens, providing procedures for the evacuation and rescue of residents in the event of an armed attack on the nation.

Prefectural governments will compile such plans in fiscal 2005, while municipal governments will do so in fiscal 2006.

The purpose of distributing the pamphlets is to alert people to protective measures to be followed during an emergency.

Beijing

Asians eating more fast food

As the world’s most populous nation continues its transformation from a former outpost of communism into a place where spending power reigns, it has come to this: China’s cuisine is increasingly being altered by the growing consumption of fast food, with Chinese now more likely than Americans to eat takeout meals, according to a survey released last week by ACNielsen Corp., the market research firm.

The survey, which polled more than 14,000 adults in 28 countries, found that 41 percent of respondents in mainland China eat in a fast-food restaurant at least once a week, compared with 35 percent in the United States.

Elsewhere, 61 percent of Hong Kong residents, 59 percent of Malaysians and 54 percent of respondents in the Philippines say they frequent fast-food places at least weekly.

Saudi Arabia

Unemployment tops list of Arab youths’ worries

Unemployment tops the list of problems facing Arab youths in a region that’s one of the world’s youngest.

Of 88 million unemployed youths between 15 and 24 worldwide, almost 26 percent are in the Middle East and North Africa, according to a report from the International Labor Organization’s Youth Employment Network in Geneva.

The report said the total population of Arab countries quadrupled in the past 50 years to almost 300 million, with 37.5 percent under 15 and 3 million joining the job market every year. It is expected to reach 410 million in 2020.

Spain

European ‘smart house’ technology improving

From the outside, it looks like just another house on an upscale residential street outside Barcelona, Spain. But inside this “smart house,” its creators say, is the most advanced domestic technology in Europe.

The home can clean itself, adjust to changes in the weather and cut energy consumption.

Most of these technologies have been used for a decade or more in the United States or Japan. But Europe’s smart house industry has caught up in recent years, and experts say European companies have an edge on helping homes conserve energy.

“Though smart houses are more widespread in the U.S., Europe is far ahead in terms of researching and commercializing energy-efficient practices,” said Volker Hartkopf, a professor of architecture at Carnegie Mellon University.