In a setback to Chevron's campaign to evade a $9.5 billion liability owed to rainforest communities, Canada's Assembly of First Nations (AFN) and Ecuadoran indigenous leaders signed a protocol to hold the corporation accountable for dumping billions of gallons of… Read moreCanada First Nations back Ecuador against Chevron
In a setback to Chevron's effort to evade a $9.5 billion liability owed to rainforest communities, Canada's Assembly of First Nations (AFN) and Ecuadoran indigenous leaders signed a protocol to hold the corporation accountable for dumping billions of gallons of toxic oil waste and for ongoing violations of indigenous rights. The agreement was signed by AFN National Chief Perry Bellegarde and Jamie Vargas, president of Ecuador's indigenous federation, CONAIE.
European governments are knowingly "complicit" in the torture, abuse and exploitation of tens of thousands of refugees and migrants detained by the Libyan immigration authorities or criminal gangs in appalling conditions, Amnesty International charges in a new report. Dozens of migrants and refugees told Amnesty about collusion between detention center guards, the Libyan Coast Guard and smugglers. European countries and especially Italy have been aiding Libyan authorities in migrant interception, as well as striking deal with local militias.
Pope Tawadros II, leader Egypt's Coptic Church, has cancelled a meeting with US Vice President Mike Pence during his visit to Cairo later this month, in protest of the Trump administration's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Trump's decision "did not take into account the feelings of millions of Arab people," the church said in a statement, adding that it "declines to receive" Pence.
An estimated 5,000 Tzotzil Maya peasants have been forced to flee their homes in the municipality of Chalchihuitán, in Mexico's southern Chiapas state, facing threats by armed men in a land dispute with the neighboring municipality of Chenalhó. The local Catholic diocese said that an "atmosphere of terror" prevails in the area, and warned of a repeat of the 1997 Acteal massacre, when 45 were killed by paramilitary gunmen in a hamlet of Chenalhó.
Ngäbe activists standing in front of the Barro Blanco dam site in June 2015. Three Ngäbe indigenous leaders are on trial in Panama, facing years in prison for blockading a dam construction site. The Barro Blanco Dam on the Tabasará River… Read morePanama: criminalization of the Ngäbe
China is preparing to deploy elite troops to Syria in support of dictator Bashar al-Assad’s forces, fearing the presence of Islamist militants in its far western territory of Xinjiang, according to media reports in the region. China’s Defense Ministry intends to send two units known as the “Night Tigers” and the “Tigers of Siberia” from the People’s Liberation Army Special Operations Forces to aid the Assad regime. Damascus claims up to 5,000 ethnic Uighurs from Xinjiang are fighting in Syria.
A Chinese court sentenced Taiwanese democracy activist Lee Ming-cheh to five years in prison on charges of attempting to "subvert state power." Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council immediately denounced the sentence as "unacceptable" and "politically motivated." Lee was incriminated on the basis of social media content he posted on platforms including WeChat, QQ and Facebook.
Members of the Gavião, Gamella, Krenyê and Tremembé indigenous peoples blocked the main road through São Luís, capital of Brazil's Maranhão state, to press demands for long-delayed demarcation of their ancestral lands—now being overrun by illegal loggers and their paramilitary enforcers. The action, which halted traffic on the artery for several hours, came as some 100 indigenous activists had been camping for three weeks outside the São Luís headquarters of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI).
The summit of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) opened in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz—central hub of the country's hydrocarbon-rich eastern lowlands. President Evo Morales took the opportunity to boast of his "nationalization" of Bolivia's hydrocarbon resources. But in addition to pressure from his populist base for greater state control over the hydrocarbons, Morales faces ecologist and indigenist dissidents who reject continued reliance on an extractivist model altogether.
Peru and Australia signed a free trade pact that does away with 99% of tariffs on imported goods from Australia, while securing Peruvian exports greater access to Australian markets. The Peru-Australia Free Trade Agreement (PAFTA) was signed in Vietnam, at the 25th summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. Peru's President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, speaking at the summit, reiterated his support for free trade and warned about the dangers of protectionism–comments seemingly aimed at the Donald Trump administration.
The swearing in of Zimbabwe's new President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa is being hailed as opening a new era for the country that had been ruled by Robert Mugabe from independence in 1980 until his dramatic downfall this week. But some are demanding accountability over Mnangagwa's role in ethnic massacres against the country's Ndebele minority people in the 1980s.
