Cuba’s leading dissident, Oswaldo Paya, threw down a new challenge to Fidel Castro’s government yesterday by delivering a petition with more than 14,000 signatures to the country’s parliament to demand a referendum for sweeping changes in the socialist system. “The campaign continues across the country.”Mr Paya was accompanied by his wife, Ofelia, and another Varela Project volunteer as he carried the large box filled with petition forms up the concrete stairs of the government building. He said the petition held 14,384 signatures, up from the first batch of 11,400 signatures collected last year. Mr Paya stayed inside for about 40 minutes before reporting that the petition had been accepted by the government.There was no immediate response to the demand from the authorities. Assembly members rejected the first package of signatures, describing the changes sought as unconstitutional.Earlier, Mr Paya had told a news conference that government repression of project workers had increased in recent weeks, with dozens of people who had circulated the petition being picked up for questioning. Although he complained of harassment, he said that none of them had been formally charged.The signature-gathering drive is seen as the biggest home-grown, non-violent effort in four decades to push for reforms to Cuba’s one-party system. The first petition was delivered days before the former US president Jimmy Carter visited Cuba in May last year when, during an uncensored speech broadcast live across the island, he told Cubans of the campaign.The petitions propose a referendum asking voters if they favour civil liberties such as freedom of speech and assembly, and an amnesty for political prisoners.Named after Felix Varela, a Cuban independence hero and Catholic priest, the signature drive was discussed by rights activists in Havana as early as 1996.

But not until 2001 did volunteers begin collecting signatures in earnest (AP). Courtney Love the rock star and widow of Kurt Cobain, was being treated for an alleged drug overdose in Los Angeles yesterday. She was admitted to a nearby hospital.The incident, early on Thursday, came less than an hour after Ms Love was briefly arrested by police for allegedly smashing four windows at a friend’s home in the same area of Los Angeles. She was charged and released after $2,500 (£1,500) bail was posted.Forty minutes after her arrest, police got a call to go to the other home where a women was said to be suffering from the effects of an overdose. Officers confirmed the identity of the woman to the Los Angeles Times.Ms Love, who founded her rock band, Hole, in 1989, has had drug troubles before.

She was arrested in 1994 in a Los Angeles hotel by police who were responding to reports that one of the guests had possibly overdosed. After that incident, she checked into a rehabilitation centre. She left the centre when she learnt of the suicide of her husband, who was lead singer in the rock band Nirvana.Ms Love was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in the film The People vs Larry Flynt in 1996. More recently, she sued Vivendi Universal Music Group for allegedly depriving her and other artists of their music rights. She and the label settled the case last year.Her reputation for rabble-rousing was reinforced earlier this year when she was arrested after allegedly making a disturbance on a Virgin Atlantic flight between London and Los Angeles.There was no comment on the latest incident or about her condition from her lawyer.. American air force pilots regularly practise “shooting down” hijacked airliners, the Pentagon has revealed.