THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2012
PAGE 3A
NEWS OF THE WORLD
Associated Press
SOUTH AMERICA
Paraguayan farmers continue to struggle
ASSOCIATED PRESS
**RESULTS**
Juana Evangelista Martinez, 42, poses for a portrait on Nov. 7 with her sons, Eulalo, 5, resting on her lap, Christian, 10, in window left, Gabriel, 10, middle row left, Ricardo, 12, in window right, Arnaldo, 9, second from right, and Fable, 8, right, in the Py Vyfa piture near cunquitura, Paraguay.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ASUNCION, Paraguay — Lucia Aguero stood with the other farmers in the standoff. About 300 of them had occupied the rich politician's land that they insisted wasn't legally his. On the other side of the clearing were some 200 riot police. She watched as the two negotiators walked up to each other and began talking.
And then the shooting started.
And then the shooting started.
The negotiators were both hit.
The young woman threw herself to the ground, shielding a friend's 4-year-old boy beneath her as she felt a bullet's sting in her thigh.
In the end, 17 were dead, including the men who were trying to resolve the six-week-old occupation.
Politicians opposed to President Fernando Lugo seized on the "Massacre of Curuquaty" on June 15 to vote the sandal-wearing leftist out of office for "mismanaging" the property dispute. Paraguayans' hopes for land reform died with his presidency.
Six months after the shootout, there has been no official accounting of how a peaceful negotiation ended with a barrage of bullets that killed 11 farmers and six police
officers. Farmers and their supporters say the official investigation is a one-sided effort to make an example of the farmers so that nobody will dare challenge the interests of powerful landowners ever again.
Grieving relatives suspect the dead farmworkers were wounded and then summarily executed by police after the firefight. In separate interviews, they described bullet wounds on three of the corpses that they said showed
Catalino Aguero, Lucia's father, lost his 24-year-old son, De los Santos, in the firefight.
people were shot at close range in defensive positions.
"They gave me my son's decomposing body in a black plastic bag. He had bullet wounds in both feet, but a huge hole in his neck," Aguero said. "Witnesses of the tragedy told me my son begged for help, lying face down, because his wounds were painful, but a police
officer came close and shot him."
His daughter Lucia, a 25-year-old mother of two, was arrested along with 11 other people, mostly farmers. She was taken to a hospital emergency room after she was wounded, but doctors were too busy with other victims to remove the bullet from her thigh.
"When I couldn't stand the pain any longer, I used a razor blade in jail to make a cut, and pulled out the .38-caliber bullet with my finger," she said
Aguero joined a hunger strike to protest being jailed without formal charges. She lasted 59 days, and nearly died before a judge said she and three others could return home under police custody until a hearing Dec. 17.
The former president, Lugo, has called the shootout a setup. His land redistribution efforts were threatening the economic interests of the country's most powerful businessmen, and they needed a scandal big enough to bring him down, he said.
"This government of coup-plotters has no interest or political will to seriously investigate and clear up the case. And the prosecutor's performance gives little credibility," Lugo declared last month.
AFRICA
Trains to be updated throughout South Africa
JOHANNESBURG — South Africa agreed upon a $5.8 billion deal Wednesday with French company Alstom SA to completely refurbish the nation's passenger trains, part of a 20-year plan to overhaul the rail system of Africa's biggest economy.
The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa accepted Alstom's bid over other companies including Bombardier Inc.,
Switzerland's Stadler Rail AG, a Spanish firm and Chinese companies. The deal includes Alstom, partnered with a local company, building some 3,600 passenger coaches for the rail agency.
Officials with Alstom in Paris could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday.
by the South African government since the end of apartheid in 1994 and seeks to improve rail to improve passenger movement across a nation where many of the poor cannot afford care transport.
Currently, the rail agency has some 4,600 coaches operating across the country — with much of it more than three decades old. The deal represents one of the biggest agreements made
The railway agency predicts some 8,000 jobs will be created locally by the deal. The agency hopes to build another 3,600 coaches as part of a second-phase of the project 10 years from now.
South Africa's Transport Minister Dikobe Ben Martins applauded the deal.
Wednesday, saying it would help modernize and improve the safety of the country's railroads.
"This process is much more than a train purchase, we are reviving our rail engineering sector, contributing to skills development and job creation amongst other bigger objectives," Martins said in a statement. "A long journey still lies ahead of us, we will walk with our fellow citizens and keep them informed."
Police start excercise program in Indonesia
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ASIA
TANGERANG, Indonesia — Potbellied police in Indonesia's capital have been ordered to exercise, exchanging their uniforms twice a week for sweats and sneakers as they line up for aerobics and push-ups to try to drop a few pounds.
He said stress, sedentary lifestyles and junk food have made the capital's police officers put on unwanted weight. Registration that began last week has already enrolled nearly 300 heavy officers, and anyone deemed too fat will be required to exercise at least twice a week. He added that there are
Anyone over 100 kilograms (220 pounds) must follow the weight-loss program started because of the growing number of overweight officers and the perception that they are unable to provide public protection, Jakarta police spokesman Col. Rikwanto said Wednesday. Like many Indonesians he uses only one name.
plans to expand the program nationwide.
No one will be punished for not losing weight, but the officers are not allowed to skip the exercise sessions. They can work at their own pace and are not required to follow strict diets.
A similar program was started last month by police in Tangerang, a city on the outskirts of Jakarta with 1.470 police officers. They hired trainers to help 132 overweight officers get into shape. The program also involves a medical team that helps to monitor diets and health issues.
"The fat and paunchy cops can't expect to catch fleeing criminals," said Tangerang Police Chief Col. Wahyu Widada, while joining Tuesday afternoon's exercise session along with hundreds of other officers, including obese cops. "This program is aimed at changing their unhealthy lifestyles."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Indonesian police officers do exercise Tuesday during a new diet program in Tangerang, outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia. The program started because of the growing number of overweight officers and the perception that they are unable to provide public protection.
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