Short Takes: News From All Over: June 17, 2004

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Hot Party Game Trend: Cockroach Racing
By Staff, Saldo Grup?
Want to wow your guests with party tricks, the likes of which they've never seen? A Lithuanuan event management company offers unusual party games, including the time-honored sport of Madagascar Cockroach Racing. Every participant receives special race money that can be used to purchase one of six cockroaches. Other participants bet for the players and cockroaches they like the most and watch the competition on the big 4.5 x 1.5 meter table. -- Jacob Wheeler
http://www.saldogrupe.lt/vid.php3?mid=54&lang=en

Support Lynne Stewart
Lynne Stewart needs your help. The embattled lawyer is charged with terrorism for helping her client, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, communicate from prison with what prosecutors say are his terrorist followers. Abdel-Rahman was convicted of encouraging bombings in the United States. The terrorism charges against Stewart were dismissed last July. Instead of appealing the decision, the U.S. Justice Department filed a superseding indictment and Stewart again faces up to 40 years in prison. The trial begins Monday, June 21. -- Jacob Wheeler
http://www.lynnestewart.org/

Gypsies Get a Voice in the EU
By Staff, The Age
Eastern Europe's wandering Gypsies may finally have someone who can fight for their rights as equal citizens. Hungarians elected former radio announcer-turned-anthropologist Livia Jaroka to the European Parliament -- the first 'Roma' to sit in the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Jaroka pledges to put the concerns of Hungarian Gypsies on the European political agenda. 'Unemployment remains the biggest problem, but we must also urgently do away with Gypsy slums and improve access to education,' said Ms. Jaroka, who is finishing her doctorate at University College, London. -- Jacob Wheeler
http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/14/1087065081725.html

Like Water for Profit
By Hillary Lindsay, The Dominion
Rudolph Amenga-Atego won the Goldman Prize for, as Hillary Lindsay puts it, 'his struggle to secure safe and affordable drinking water for the people of Ghana,' a West African country that subsidizes the cost of water for its poor communities. But, like most developing countries, Ghana owes plenty of money to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and was forced to raise water rates by 95 percent in 2001 to help pay off that debt. Now Amanga-Atego is going to bat again to stop western policies from making Ghana's rural poor go thirsty. -- Jacob Wheeler
http://dominionpaper.ca/environment/2004/05/27/like_water.html

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