briefs

(MCT) BAGHDAD – With U.S. forces imposing tough security measures to thwart car bombings,… (MCT) BAGHDAD – With U.S. forces imposing tough security measures to thwart car bombings, Iraqi insurgents are increasingly using women and teenagers as suicide bombers, a trend that on Friday led to the worst daily death toll in Baghdad since August.

At least 65 people were killed and nearly 150 were wounded when explosions ripped through two crowded Baghdad pet markets. The attacks, which occurred within 15 minutes of each other, appeared to be the sixth and seventh suicide bombings in Iraq by women or teenagers since Nov. 27, though there was some uncertainty about whether one of Friday’s blasts might have been caused by a roadside bomb.

Witnesses said the bombers were women who’d slipped into the markets without being searched, as Iraqi security forces include few women, and men aren’t allowed to search women. Iraqi police are trying to recruit more female members.

One Iraqi official who speaks for Qassim al-Moussani, the head of the Baghdad security plan, said the women might have been mentally retarded and forced to wear suicide vests that were detonated remotely. – Leila Fadel and Hussein Kadhim, McClatchy Newspapers

(MCT) URUAPAN, Mexico – Known as “green gold,” the avocado has taken on political importance as Mexican President Felipe Calderon faces renewed criticism of NAFTA’s role in undermining the livelihoods of farmers. The once-exotic fruit, meanwhile, has become a mainstream diet item on the U.S. side of the border. Exports of avocados from the state of Michoacan, the top source of the fruit, have risen fivefold since 2004.

And in a final twist of globalization, industry officials say transplanted Mexicans in the United States are fueling that booming avocado consumption and keeping export prices high back in their homeland.

After a bruising fight as part of the NAFTA debate, the United States has gradually let avocados enter its market. U.S. officials said the Mexican avocado presented health risks, forcing Mexico to implement a system of preventing diseases caused by fruit flies and other pests. The final barriers fell last year when Mexican avocados could enter California, the top U.S. producer and consumer.

The avocado boom comes at a time of discontent after NAFTA forced Mexico to remove its final barriers on corn and other key crops as of Jan. 1. Opposition lawmakers are urging Calderon to renegotiate the treaty, but he and U.S. officials have dismissed that idea.

After running a surplus just after NAFTA’s implementation in 1994, Mexico has consistently faced agriculture trade deficits with the United States that top $1 billion annually.

In his New Year’s address, Calderon cited avocado exports as one bit of proof that NAFTA, “in general, has been beneficial for Mexicans.” He also pointed to boosts for a resurgent auto industry while other proponents say Mexicans now enjoy lower prices on many consumer goods. – Oscar Avila, Chicago Tribune

(MCT) ELDORET, Kenya – Another opposition politician was gunned down in Kenya on Thursday, this time under dubious circumstances, in the second such killing in three days. The killing renewed fears of reprisal attacks in this country, which has been racked by post-election tribal violence.

A police officer shot and killed David Kimutai Too, a 40-year-old former teacher, in what government officials quickly labeled “a crime of passion” linked to a love triangle. Leaders of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement said it was an assassination aimed at stealing the party’s slim parliamentary majority.

News of the killing temporarily suspended negotiations between Odinga’s party and President Mwai Kibaki, whom Odinga accuses of stealing December’s deeply flawed election.

Police officials said that Too, one of a host of freshman opposition lawmakers elected to parliament in December, was with a woman in the western town of Eldoret when they were spotted by her live-in boyfriend, a traffic cop. The cop suspected that his girlfriend, also a police officer, was having an affair, and he shot both of them several times before fleeing on his motorcycle, police said. – Shashank Bengali, McClatchy Newspapers