Los Angeles Times | Claremont - Prominent activists from around the world will gather at Scripps College this weekend to explore the history and impact of colonialism on indigenous people. Among the participants will be the leader of a Colombian tribe that once threatened mass suicide over a planned oil project near its ancestral home.
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U.S. Anti-Drug Strategy Accused of Killing Colombian Food Crops Narcotics Official Defends Quality of Satellite Intelligence, Says Spraying isn't Random
The Dallas Morning News | Colombia's national ombudsman has issued a stinging critique of a U.S.-funded drug-crop eradication campaign, saying that "indiscriminate" herbicide spraying had wiped out food crops across southern Colombia.
Financial Times Series on the 'Price of Oil' NGOs Take to Tools of Globalisation to Mobilise Resistance
Financial Times | With her backpack and duffle bag, she struggled aboard the aircraft, heading towards the cheaper seats in the rear. She inched past business travellers, who were settling in with drinks. Among them, she noted, were several World Bank staffers working on the deal she hoped to delay - the $3.7bn Chad-Cameroon pipeline.
Financial Times Series on the 'Price of Oil' Oil Find Turns Refuge into Battlefield
Financial Times | The battle between the principle of conservation and the need for more oil has thrust the Gwich'in people in the far north of the Americas into a political battle that reaches from the Arctic to Washington and Texas.
Colombia Strives to Strike Oil
Financial Times | Financial Times Series on the 'Price of Oil' Far beneath the snow-capped peaks of the Cocuy mountains, half-concealed groups of soldiers watch a helicopter as it flies into a narrow valley.
Amazon Watch is building on more than 25 years of radical and effective solidarity with Indigenous peoples across the Amazon Basin.
Financial Times Series on the 'Price of Oil' Colombia Strives to Strike Oil
Financial Times | Far beneath the snow-capped peaks of the Cocuy mountains, half-concealed groups of soldiers watch a helicopter as it flies into a narrow valley.
Financial Times Series on the 'Price of Oil' Energy Groups Under Pressure from All Sides
Financial Times | Last week Premier Oil of the UK held a seminar outside Rangoon for Burmese security and legal officials on, of all things, human rights.
Oil Rigged There’s Something Slippery about the U.S. Drug War in Colombia
Resource Center of the Americas | The public face of U.S. policy toward Colombia has long been the war on drugs. Colombia, according to widely reported CIA estimates, produces 90 percent of the U.S. cocaine supply and 65 percent of U.S. heroin imports. U.S.
A Plea for Peace
Miami Herald | I am a former governor of Choco, the most impoverished department of Colombia. In 1998, I tried to declare Choco a neutral zone, a territory of peace, free from the combat ravaging my country. Because of my work for peace, I was kidnapped by people who identified themselves as paramilitaries.
Colombia's Drug War Spills into Ecuador
Chicago Tribune / AFP | Lago Agrio, Ecuador - As the American-backed anti-drug offensive known as Plan Colombia pushes ahead, a rising wave of crime and violence is spilling into neighboring Ecuador.
Task Force Seeks to Help Ecuadorians Made Homeless by Colombian Rebels
AFP | Quito - Quito moved Monday to create a high-level emergency task force to address the plight of nearly 300 Ecuadorans, now "strangers in their own land," who fled their homes due to intimidation by Colombian insurgents.
Plan Colombia Gets Off to Rocky Start Peasants Complain that They are Suffering as a U.S.-Financed Assault on Coca Begins and Their Legitimate Crops are Killed
St. Petersburg Times | The Guamuez Valley, Colombia - The largest U.S.-backed counternarcotics offensive has gotten under way in a remote corner of southern Colombia. Tens of thousands of acres of coca fields have been sprayed dead.
Colombia's Drug War Must Be Won in the U.S.
Los Angeles Times | Bogota - Here in Colombia, the new U.S. film "Traffic" comes alive with a vengeance. While the movie is based on the Mexican drug trade, the corruption, kidnappings, terror and frustration of the U.S. war on drugs are even greater here.
A Foolish Drug War
New York Times | Tolima, Colombia - Secretary of State Colin Powell recently affirmed the Bush administration's support for Plan Colombia - the plan inherited from the Clinton White House that pledged $1.3 billion to fight drugs in Colombia.
After Deadly Protests, Ecuador Rolls Back Fuel Prices
Washington Post | Quito, Ecuador - The Ecuadorian government rolled back fuel prices today to quell an Indian uprising that resulted in four deaths in 10 days of clashes between demonstrators and police and caused an estimated $300 million in damages and lost revenue.
Fuel Price Cuts Follow Ecuador Protests Antonio Vargas Arrives for Presidential Talks AP
BBC | Weeks of violent protests in Ecuador have forced the president to cut fuel prices in an agreement with indigenous leaders. Clashes over fuel and transport price hikes have resulted in at least four deaths and dozens more injuries in the last two weeks.
Dying for Oil U'wa Leader Roberto Pérez Speaks about Indigenous Resistance to the Colombian Oil Rush
The Bay Guardian | Deep beneath the cloud forests of Colombia's northeastern highlands lie 1.4 billion barrels of crude oil, and Occidental Oil is poised to make a killing off of it. But the path to profits goes through the home of the indigenous U'wa, who, led by Roberto Pérez, are mounting fierce resistance.
Ecuadorian Government, Indians Sign Accord
AFP | Quito - Indian protesters were heading back to their communities triumphant Wednesday after securing a hard-fought deal in which the government backed down on a number of tough economic measures.
Ecuador, Indians to Cease Protests
Associated Press | Quito, Ecuador - Indian leaders met with Ecuador's president Wednesday and agreed to call off violent protests against government-ordered bus fare hikes and fuel subsidy cuts. Hundreds of Indians danced and sang in the streets surrounding Salesiana Polytechnic University near downtown Quito to celebrate.
Indians, Ecuadorean Soldiers Clash
The Associated Press | Quito, Ecuador - Indians opposed to price increases for fuel and public transportation battled soldiers Monday in clashes in a jungle province that left at least four civilians dead.
Ecuador Arrests Indigenous Leader The Arrest Comes a Day After Violent Clashes with Police
BBC | Police in Ecuador have arrested indigenous Indian leader Antonio Vargas as mass protests against government austerity measures continue to gather pace.
Roads to Ruin for Amazon Easier Access Accelerating Destruction of Tropical Rain Forest, U.S.-Brazil Study Shows
San Francisco Chronicle | Rio De Janiero - A $45 billion federal government program to build highways, hydroelectric dams, railroads and other huge projects in the Amazon River Basin could leave as little as 5 percent of the world's greatest tropical rain forest in its pristine state by the year 2020, a U.S.-Brazilian study concluded.
Death Sentence for the Amazon Scientists Say $40 Billion Project is Set to Destroy 95 Per Cent of Rainforest by 2020
Independent Digital | The most detailed investigation of the fate of the world's greatest tropical rainforest estimates that as little as 5per cent of the Amazon may remain in its pristine, wild state by 2020.
Environment-Finance: Activists Target Investors of US Company Drilling in Colombia
Inter-Press Service | Washington - Having had no luck convincing a US oil company to halt drilling on land in Colombia claimed by an indigenous tribe, opponents to the project are now declaring some success in targeting investors of the corporation.
Activism - Fidelity Gets Out
Boston Phoenix | Fidelity Investments is no longer the prime target of a campaign to halt oil drilling in the Colombian rain forest, but two other New England-based companies may soon take the investment giant's place.
Private Sector: He May Win the Pennant, but Easy on the Champagne Letter from a Surprise Visitor
The New York Times | Investment bankers know they are not immune to protests by shareholder activists who sometimes see Wall Street as an accomplice to social wrongs. But last week, when Roberto Perez, chief of the Uwa Indian nation of Colombia, paid an unannounced visit to the the San Francisco headquarters of the Sanford C.
Colombian Tribe Steps Up Battle against Occidental
Reuters | New York - Colombia's U'Wa Indians, a 5,000-strong tribe fighting to keep Big Oil out of their corner of the rainforest, have stepped up their campaign to bury California energy company Occidental Corp. (NYSE:OXY - news).
Plan Colombia: Fumigation Threatens Amazon, Warn Indigenous Leaders, Scientists
Inter Press Service | Washington - The spraying of chemical herbicides to destroy coca fields in southern Colombia could seriously threaten the rainforests and wildlife of the Amazon and the health of indigenous and small farming communities, warned scientists and indigenous leaders here.As part of a 1.6 billion dollar US emergency aid pack
U.S. Grows Killer Fungus to Fight Heroin
New York Post | A secret U.S.-funded biological weapon to wipe out the heroin trade is in the final stages of development, raising fears in the scientific community that a monster germ will wreak an "ecological catastrophe."For the past two years, scientists funded by the U.S.
