The Andes
Peru: no global warming skeptics in Huaraz
As international experts gather in Lima to debate the impacts of global warming on the Andean region, local campesinos are already feeling its effects in Huaraz.
Author: Bill Weinberg
The Amazon
Peru: Hunt Oil contract to re-ignite Amazon uprising?
Harakmbut leaders in Peru’s Amazon region of Madre de Dios issued a statement imposing a one-week deadline for Hunt Oil to quit their territory before indigenous communities physically expel them.
The Amazon
Peru: veteran guerilla fighter Hugo Blanco speaks on Amazon struggle
Hugo Blanco, who led Peru’s first armed resistance struggle of the radical left in in the 1960s, is today a leading voice in support of the indigenous movement in the Amazon.
The Andes
Peru: bus travel reveals stark class divisions
This reporter ran into his first bit of trouble since arriving in Peru two weeks ago while leaving Arequipa for Lima the morning of Sept. 1. The only bus that left at the time I needed to go was also… Read morePeru: bus travel reveals stark class divisions
Afghanistan
Taliban don’t read Koran, do they?
Like their counterparts in Pakistan, Afghanistan’s Taliban demonstrate once again that they aren’t above blowing up their cannon fodder at mosques—during Ramadan—to enforce their supposedly purist version of Islam. Now didn’t we hear somewhere, “Do not fight them at the Holy… Read moreTaliban don’t read Koran, do they?
The Andes
Arequipa: peasant cooperatives march for land and water
Peasant cooperatives marched in the Peruvian city of Arequipa to protest government plans to sell state lands to agribusiness interests.
Whither World War 4 Report?
This upcoming 9-11 anniversary will mark eight years that World War 4 Report has been publishing. We have only kept it going because nobody else is doing it, and we consider it vital: a daily digest of the GWOT news… Read moreWhither World War 4 Report?
Palestine
Hitler-Mufti confab political football in battle for Jerusalem
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has ordered embassies to use a photo of Hitler’s 1941 meeting with the Mufti of Jerusalem to counter criticism over a Jerusalem settlement project.
Iraq
Iraq: opposition slate charges fraud in Kurdish elections
One day after the vote, an opposition party claimed there had been violations in the presidential and parliamentary elections in Iraq's self-ruled Kurdish region.
Central America
LA Times op-ed: “non-coup” in Honduras
An LA Times op-ed by Miguel A. Estrada, “Honduras’ non-coup,” is the latest in a barrage of legalistic sophistries in defense of the Honduran putsch being assembled by the political right.
Planet Watch
“Peak Oil Day” dodges political roots of crisis
World oil prices peaked at $147 per barrel one year ago today—but the geological determinism of the “peak oil” theorists ignores the global political struggle for control of oil.
Central America
HOND
Guatemala’s special anti-corruption Court for High Risk Crimes sentenced former vice president Roxana Baldetti to prison for 15 years and six months for her role in the so-called "Magic Water" scandal. The case concerned the awarding of an $18 million dollar contract to decontaminate Lake Amatitlán, an important water source for peasant communities. The contract went to Israeli firm M. Tarcic Engineering Ltd, which claimed it had a "special formula" that could clean the lake within months. An investigation revealed that the "formula" consisted of water, salt and chlorine. The Authority for the Sustainable Management of Lake Amatitlán (AMSA), establsihed to oversee the clean-up, documented illegal dumping of agricultural and municipal waste into the Río Villalobos, which empties into the lake. The UN-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) supported Guatemalan prosecutors in the conspiracy case against Baldetti. (Photo via EmisorasUnidas)