■BRAZIL
Ecuador wiped off the map
Where’s Ecuador? Better not ask. A new geography text book for sixth-grade students doesn’t include the country on the map. The book distributed by Sao Paulo’s education department botches the location of most of Brazil’s neighbors. Paraguay is switched with Uruguay and a second “new” Paraguay is shown with a coastline at the southern tip of Brazil. Bolivia is fortunate enough to appear on the map, but the book misses its border with Paraguay — the Paraguay that sits where Uruguay should be, that is. About 500,000 of the books containing errors were distributed and will be replaced with corrected maps, to be paid for by the Vanzolini Foundation, which published the books, the Sao Paulo department said.
■UNITED STATES
Former guerrilla released
A former member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, an urban guerrilla notorious for the 1974 kidnapping of media heiress Patty Hearst, was released on Tuesday after serving seven years in prison, officials said. Sara Jane Olson, 62, was released from California’s Chowchilla prison to serve parole in Minnesota. She was arrested in 1999 for killing Myrna Opsahl inside the lobby of a California bank in 1975 and for trying to bomb police cars in Los Angeles. The Symbionese Liberation Army was a self-styled revolutionary army that committed bank robberies, murders and other acts of violence. Its members kidnapped 19-year-old Hearst to try to gain the release of two of members who had been tried and convicted a month earlier.
■MEXICO
City may ban plastic bags
Mexico City legislators have approved a bill that would hit store owners or operators with one-and-a-half days in jail and fines of about US$77,400 for giving customers plastic bags for their purchases. The bill would exempt biodegradable plastic bags. The bill must be signed into law by the mayor. The law would give businesses one year to adopt appropriate bags. In a press statement on Tuesday, the city legislature cited estimates that the average resident uses 288 plastic bags per year.
■UNITED STATES
PRC legislator open on lama
An ethnic Tibetan legislator in China on Tuesday indicated openness about the 23-year-old Karmapa Lama, who has been billed as a potential bridge between Beijing and Tibetans in exile. China has sent a delegation of Beijing-appointed Tibetans for talks in Washington. Delegation head Shingtsa Tenzinchodrak repeated China’s denunciations of the Dalai Lama, but declined judgment on the Karmapa Lama, often considered the third highest-ranking lama. “I feel it is still too early to judge him,” Tenzinchodrak, vice chairman of the Tibetan legislature’s standing committee, told a news conference at the Chinese embassy.
■CUBA
Wives appeal for dissidents
Mothers and wives of dissidents imprisoned since a March 2003 crackdown demanded their release on Tuesday, saying their loved ones were guilty only of loving their country. The demand, in a letter from the group known as “Ladies in White” to President Raul Castro and former leader Fidel Castro, was issued a day before the sixth anniversary of the arrests of 75 activists and independent journalists in what has come to be known as the “black spring.” Of the 75, 54 remain behind bars.
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