In brief: Yellow pages set to return to Cuba

Havana – The yellow pages are poised for a comeback – in Cuba, at least.

The back section of the phone book will soon provide much-needed advertising space to private entrepreneurs opening up shop under wide-ranging economic reforms being pushed by President Raul Castro.

State telephone monopoly Etecsa will charge $10 for a listing in a basic registry that includes a firm’s name, address and up to two phone numbers, the Communist Party newspaper Granma said Thursday. That’s not cheap in Cuba, a country where government salaries average $20 a month.

Up until now the yellow pages have been of limited utility in the Communist-run nation, as they list only state-run concerns and mixed government-private companies.

France sending Noriega to Panama

Panama City – Twenty-two years after American GIs invaded Panama and spirited away dictator Manuel Noriega, the former strongman will return on Sunday to a jail cell in his homeland.

Jitters over his arrival rippled through Panama, where Noriega, now 77 and ailing, still has allies who fear the secrets that he may reveal.

Noriega spent 20 years in a Miami prison on drug charges after the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama, and then was sent to France on charges he had laundered $3 million for the Medellin cocaine cartel. France has cleared Noriega’s return for Sunday.

Noriega faces at least two 20-year jail terms in Panama for the disappearance of political opponents during his 1983-1989 rule. But his future remains uncertain. Panama allows convicts who are 70 years and older to serve their sentences under house arrest.

Body of abducted peace activist found

Mexico City – Another member of a Mexican peace movement has been slain, the second such incident in less than two weeks.

Trinidad de la Cruz, a peasant activist, was kidnapped Tuesday by armed attackers in the state of Michoacan, his associates said. His body, with four bullet wounds and an ear sliced off, was discovered about 24 hours later, the Milenio newspaper reported.

De la Cruz, 73, was abducted as he rode with about 18 other activists in a caravan sponsored by the Movement for Peace With Justice and Dignity, an anti-violence organization led by poet Javier Sicilia. Members of the group said the attackers, whom they described as paramilitary forces, stole their cellular telephones, gaining access to data on scores of activists.

Although Mexico has seen a number of peace movements spring up in the last five years of escalating drug-war violence, Sicilia’s group, which he founded following the murder of his son, seems to have gained the most traction.

On Nov. 28, another member, Nepomuceno Moreno, was shot and killed by gunmen who intercepted his car in broad daylight in his home city of Hermosillo.