World Briefs

Author: Derek Schlickeisen

POLICE SHOOTING
Mexican police shot and killed a man mistakenly identified as an illegal migrant worker Monday, infuriating local residents. Town residents rioted after the shooting, destroying two police vehicles and chanting slogans criticizing police for firing on fleeing workers. Many of Tultitlan's residents have the same darker skin color as workers who cross the Mexican-Guatemalan border looking for a train ride north to the United States. As a result, the town has been a flashpoint in Mexico's crackdown on illegal migrant workers as police mistakenly detain townspeople in their sweeps.
-CNN, Tultitlan, Mexico

HOLOCAUST HISTORY
Diplomats from the United States, the Netherlands and France are pressuring German officials to open Nazi archives to world historians. Documents containing the names of 17.5 million concentration camp detainees are being sought in particular by international Jewish groups and Holocaust historians to better catalog the tragedy that has come to symbolize the Third Reich. German officials contend that releasing the documents may violate victims' right to privacy.
-The Washington Post, Bad Arolsen, Germany

LOST VETERAN
A Japanese soldier who last saw his home when he left to fight American GIs 60 years ago has resurfaced in the Ukraine, according to a statement issued by Japan's Health Ministry. The soldier, Ishinosuke Uwano, was declared dead in 2000 when Japan issued a report taking a look back at its war veterans missing lost in overseas action. While a spokesperson for the Health Ministry would not provide details of how Uwano came to reside in the Ukraine, he did say that the long-lost veteran will spend 10 days reuniting with surviving relatives in Japan. Uwano is 83.
-The New York Times, Tokyo

GHOST TOWN
The international environmental organization Greenpeace has rejected as an "understatement" a recent United Nations estimate of deaths resulting from a nuclear accident at Chernobyl 20 years ago. While the U.N. suggests roughly 9,000 civilians within range of the nuclear leak have died of cancer, Greenpeace argues that the actual toll may reach 93,000. A Greenpeace spokesman said his group's estimate was much higher because the U.N. did not take undocumented cases into account.
-BBC, Moscow