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Two Cuban Boats Hijacked, Three Dead *** The ministry said the hijackers Francisco Lamas Caron, 29; Luis Alberto Suarez Acosta, 22; and Yosvani Martinez Acosta, 27, shot themselves for unknown reasons. All three had criminal records for stealing cattle, the statement said. But their families said police shot the men after they tried to flee Cuba to avoid being arrested for stealing a pig. "The police killed them. They killed my son. There was no need to do that," said Maria Acosta Valdes, mother of Suarez.

The families said police gave them only two hours to mourn their dead, brought in coffins to their homes on Tuesday morning for quick burial. Armed hijackings are rare in Cuba but have increased this year as economic crisis makes more Cubans want to leave. Two domestic passenger planes were hijacked to Key West, Florida, in March. In April President Fidel Castro's government executed three men who tried to hijack a Havana Bay ferry. The firing squad executions brought wide international condemnation.***

Captive Nations Week: Bush slams Myanmar, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Belarus, Zimbabwe [Full Text] DALLAS, Texas (AFP) - President George W. Bush hit out six regimes on a US blacklist he said were guilty of oppression and human rights abuses in Myanmar and Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Zimbabwe and Belarus. In a proclamation issued to mark "captive nations week" first observed in 1959 as a statement against communism, Bush hit out at a familiar gallery of US foes.

"Millions of people still live under regimes that violate their citizens' rights daily," Bush said in a statement issued as he made a day-trip to Dallas from his Texas ranch. "In countries such as Burma and Iran, citizens lack the right to choose their government, speak out against oppression, and practice their religion freely," Bush said. "The despot who rules Cuba imprisons political opponents and crushes peaceful opposition," he said, in barbed remarks aimed at Fidel Castro.

There were also harsh words for North Korea, with which Washington has been locked in a nuclear showdown since October. "Hundreds of thousands languish in prison camps and citizens suffer from malnutrition as the regime pursues weapons of mass destruction," Bush said. "Violence, corruption, and mismanagement reign in Zimbabwe and an authoritarian government in Belarus smothers political dissent."

But Bush lauded his ouster of the "brutal regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq," during a US-led war earlier this year. "The Iraqi people are no longer captives in their own country," Bush said. "Their freedom is evidence of the fall of one of the most oppressive dictators in history," he said, claiming that Iraqis were now meeting "openly and freely" to discuss the future of their country. [End]