■ Peru
Coca growers march
Thousands of Peruvian coca growers marched to Congress on Monday at the culmination of a march to demand more aid and less eradication for their crop, the raw material for cocaine. "We're here to talk," coca leader Nancy Obregon told reporters after the banner-waving marchers arrived in central Lima. "They told us that if we wanted to talk, we'd have to come here, so we peasants have no option but to ask for an audience through our sacrifice," she added. The growers left Peru's central jungle region on April 20. An estimated 3,000 to 5,000 growers, guarded by some 300 police, presented a list of demands to Congress.
■ Georgia
Rebel region gives warning
Georgia's stand-off with its renegade region of Adjara may escalate into full-blown violence, Adjara's chief Aslan Abashidze warned overnight. "Unless Georgian President [Mikhail Saakashvili] heeds recommendations on avoiding bloodshed voiced by the European Union, the United States and our neighbor Russia, another conflict zone will appear on the world map," Abashidze said in comments broadcast live on local television. Abashidze also defended his order to his security forces to destroy bridges and roads leading into the region. Abashidze's troops also dismantled the rail link and used excavators to make minor roads impassable.
■ Kuwait
Al-Qaeda fingered in attack
Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz said yesterday he believed al-Qaeda was behind Saturday's deadly attack in the Saudi oil city Yanbu. Asked by reporters at Kuwait airport if he thought Osama bin Laden's militant network was behind the shooting spree that killed five Westerners, Nayef said: "Yes. But we need time to be sure of this matter." There was no claim of responsibility for Saturday's shootings, which killed two Americans, two Britons and an Australian.
■ United States
Anti-Muslim prejudice rises
Discrimination against Muslims in the US soared last year by 69 percent over the previous year, a US Muslim organization reported on Monday. The Council on American-Islamic Relations logged 1,019 complaints from Muslims last year, compared to 602 in 2002. Most complaints related to employment discrimination and refusals to accommodate Muslims who wanted to practice their religion, which requires five daily prayers. Incidents of physical violence against Muslims doubled to 93 last year from 42 in 2002, according to the council's report. It attributed the rise in discrimination to "a lingering atmosphere of fear" since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, tensions over the war in Iraq and anti-Muslim rhetoric in conservative radio shows.
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