World Watch

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Summer Of Fear
SPAIN Officials worry that a series of three bombings, which injured 14 people, mark the launch of a summer campaign by the Basque terrorist group ETA. The first two explosions happened at tourist hotels in the Costa Blanca resorts of Alicante and Benidorm. After a phoned warning to a Basque newspaper by a man claiming to speak on behalf of ETA, police evacuated more than 100 staff and guests from the hotels. Four policemen were wounded in the Benidorm attack, while the nine injured in Alicante were mainly foreign students and their teachers at an adjacent language school. Police named their main suspect in these incidents as Jon Joseba Troitiño, 23, who they believe booked rooms in the two hotels and left a bag containing explosives in each. Interior Minister Angel Acebes said that the terrorists had deliberately given the wrong time in the warning. The third bomb went off outside a courtroom in

COLOMBIA Soft Drink, Hard Times Activists launched a consumer boycott of Coca-Cola products to protest killings, kidnappings and torture of union members working at the company's Colombian bottling plants. The campaign, titled "Unthinkable, Undrinkable," has been endorsed by labor activists in Europe, the U.S. and Australia. Organizers claim plant managers called on ultra-right paramilitary death squads to bully and assassinate workers from Colombia's Sinaltrainal food industry union, silencing demands for better working conditions. SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES SOFT DRINK, HARD WORDS: Colombians against Coca-Cola They allege that nine Coca-Cola bottling employees have been murdered over the past 12 years. Union leaders accuse bosses of allowing paramilitaries access to the plants to scrawl graffiti on the walls and intimidate workers. "We're living in anguish and terror," says Sinaltrainal president Luis Javier Correa, himself the target of death threats. "Coca-Cola has an ethical and moral commitment to its workers and we're trying to make it accountable." Coca-Cola denied any responsibility for the violence. "We and our bottling partners operate in accordance with local laws, and contribute to the communities we serve," the company said in a statement. The assassination of union members is not uncommon in Colombia: according to cut, the country's umbrella union, 42 members of labor movements have been killed so far this year, most by suspected paramilitaries. — By Ruth Morris/Bogotá

the northern province of Navarre, injuring a passing van driver, again after a telephoned warning from someone claiming to represent ETA — By Jane Walker

Kremlin Controversy
RUSSIA The confrontation between the Kremlin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky turned uglier, with the nation's richest man warning that hard-liners might level more charges against his Yukos oil corporation. Lawyers for Alexei Pichugin, the senior Yukos official detained on suspicion of murder, claimed investigators had spiked his coffee with drugs during interrogation. Meanwhile, a judge ruled to keep a key Khodorkovsky business associate, billionaire Platon Lebedev, in prison pending an investigation into embezzlement charges. Reflecting the growing concern in business circles about the case, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said those accused of economic crimes should not be held in preventive custody, and added that the case "harms the country's image and investor sentiment." President Vladimir Putin has remained silent throughout the affair.
Linked: Going For The Oligarchs

Al-Qaeda Bust
SAUDI ARABIA The government announced the capture of 16 al-Qaeda suspects and the seizure of an arsenal of weapons, including antitank launchers, rockets and more than 20 tons of chemical substances used for manufacturing explosives. The detentions bring the number of terror arrests to more than 200 since the May 12 suicide bombings in Riyadh that killed 35 people. Authorities blame al-Qaeda for that attack. Although the government hailed the arrests as a major strike against the network, Interior Minister Prince Nayef warned there was still a threat of terrorism.

It's Over Already
SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE A bloodless army coup ended as President Fradique de Menezes returned from Nigeria after signing an accord granting amnesty to the troops who toppled him a week earlier. Under the deal, de Menezes will stay on as President, but has promised to replace the government. Coup leader Major Fernando Pereira, who said the takeover was meant to highlight the island nation's impoverished state, warned the military would rebel again if the government violated the agreement.

High Hopes
SOLOMON ISLANDS An Australian-led peacekeeping force in Honiara appeared to meet early success in restoring order in the capital. The first 1,000 troops and police out of an expected total of 2,250 arrived in response to a request by the Islands' parliament to try to end a four-year civil war that has brought anarchy and poverty to the Pacific nation. Islanders lined the streets to welcome the peacekeepers, shown above, whose first task was to disarm the militant gangs responsible for much of the fighting.

MEANWHILE IN THE U.K. ...
Next: Straight Bananas
Spectators at a performance of the Moscow State Circus in the English town of Folkestone were bemused by the unfamiliar sight of acrobats wearing sequinned leotards ... and hard hats. The circus' insurers said that because of new E.U. regulations governing workers employed at heights "greater than the average step ladder," the performers' cover would be withdrawn if they failed to don protective headwear.