Hurricane Ivan hits southeastern Caribbean countries
Hurricane Ivan rampaged through the tiny islands of the southeastern Caribbean on Tuesday, blowing off roofs, felling trees and forcing hundreds of people to evacuate from coastal areas.

Ivan, coming just days after Hurricane Frances, swept south of Barbados, over Grenada, brushed past Tobago and is expected to touch the eastern coast of Venezuela, according to the latest meteorological reports reaching here.

Hurricane warnings stretched from the French territory of Martinique in the north to Trinidad and Tobago in the south, and included Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Martinique.

Ivan was a powerful storm with sustained winds of 192 kph, and appeared set to cross the Caribbean Sea and bear down on Jamaica by Thursday, according to the US National Hurricane Center.

At 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT), the hurricane's center was about 32 km west-southwest of Grenada. It was moving rapidly west at about 35 kph with winds of 220 kph and could strengthen over the next day as it moves through the Caribbean, the center said.

Ivan could reach Category 4 strength by late Tuesday, with winds of more than 210 kph. It might head towards southeastern US state of Florida, which has already suffered two hurricanes, Charley and Frances, in a month.

The present hurricane season, from June to October, is expected to include no less than 14 hurricanes of this type passing through the Caribbean region.
 

Chile begins probe into Pinochet's bank account
The Chilean court has started an investigation into the several million US dollars the country's former dictator Augusto Pinochet deposited in Riggs Bank of the United States, La Tercera daily reported Tuesday.

Judge Sergio Munoz confirmed that the court had taken control of the 6 million dollars Pinochet's lawyers gathered into the same account in Bank of Chile to facilitate the investigation.

According to the lawyers of the 88-year-old army general, who ruled the country from 1973 to 1990 after seizing power in a bloody coup, all of the money owned by Pinochet was put into the account.

The investigation was launched after a US Senate committee found that Riggs Bank, based in Washington, had up to 8 million dollars in secret accounts in his name between 1994 and 2002.

"My father's asset was the result of his savings, it was the result of donations and, undoubtedly, it was also the result of profits from these investments," said Marco Antonio Pinochet, the youngest son of Pinochet.

"If you check stocks of some of Chilean companies in these past few months," you could find that "there are companies that have gone up more than 30 percent," he said, arguing that his father's money came from savvy investment.

In addition to gathering all of Pinochet's money in a single bank account for investigation, the retired general's lawyers also provided a report detailing on every investment he made that could increase his asset.

Meanwhile, stripped of immunity from prosecution he had rigged for himself before he left the presidency, Pinochet will have to face court questioning Thursday about the disappearance of opponents during his 17-year dictatorship.

According to official figures, some 3,000 people were killed or disappeared during his regime.

The lawsuit is one of hundreds pending in the court filed by victims' families accusing him of having kidnapped, tortured and killed leftist dissidents.
 

Colombia Says Army Killed Union Chiefs
The attorney general's human rights unit on Monday ordered the arrest of an army officer, two soldiers and a civilian who took part in the killings of Jorge Eduardo Prieto, Leonel Goyeneche and Héctor Alirio Martínez on Aug. 5 in Saravena, a town long besieged by leftist rebels. Since 2002, American military trainers have been instructing Colombian soldiers there in counterguerrilla techniques, though it is unclear if the Americans trained the unit accused of killing the union leaders.

"The evidence shows that a homicide was committed," Luis Alberto Santana, the deputy attorney general, said at a news conference on Monday. "We have ruled out that there was combat."

The attorney general's announcement vindicated union leaders in Colombia and Europe who said the army had killed three defenseless union activists and then tried to cover the matter up.

"It's clear that we were never wrong, saying that they were assassinated by members of the Colombian Army," said Domingo Tovar, who coordinates human rights activities for the Central Workers Union, largest Colombian labor confederation.

The attorney general's announcement came days after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell warned the Colombian government that it must curtail rights abuses or risk losing aid. On Tuesday, Vice President Francisco Santos acknowledged that the government had erred in its initial characterization of the killings, saying, "Yes, we were wrong."

Colombia is by far the world's most dangerous country for union members, with 94 killed last year and 47 slain by Aug. 25 this year, according to the National Union School, a research and educational center in Medellín. Most of those killings were by right-wing paramilitary leaders linked to rogue army units. Worldwide, 123 union members were slain last year, according to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, a Brussels-based group.

The number of killings of union members has dropped in Colombia, from a high of 222 in 1996. But union leaders, foreign diplomats and political analysts say the government has done little to improve safety - underscored by the fact that the union leaders killed in Saravena had asked the government for better security.

Paramilitary organizations, which use death squads to erode support for rebel groups, have accused unions of working with guerrillas. Rebel groups have, to be sure, drawn some members from unions.

But union leaders have also made enemies of powerful forces in Colombia's highly stratified society, both for their leftist declarations and their harsh criticism of fiscally conservative governments bent on privatizing industries and holding down labor costs.