Campesinos from Honduras’ sprawling and rugged department of Olancho protested outside the national electric company in Tegucigalpa to demand cancellation of the Patuca III hydro-electic project until land rights in the area have been clarified.
Miskito Indians in Honduras burned down government offices in angry protests over a DEA helicopter raid they say killed innocent villagers in a fishing boat. The fracas comes as the Pentagon has established three new bases in Honduras.
The Israel Corporation, with holdings in the energy sector across South and Central America, has especially targeted Peru for massive expansion—but found its holdings in Bolivia expropriated in President Evo Morales’ nationalization of the grid.
The Asháninka indigenous people helped beat back the now-resurgent Shining Path in Peru’s Apurímac-Ene River Valley, but now oppose a government hydro-electric mega-project that would flood their traditional territories.
Two ministers have resigned and the army chief has been sacked after charges that Peru’s armed forced abandoned stranded troops in a guerilla-controlled jungle. Local indigenous residents now charge a “dirty war” is being carried out in the zone.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by fighting in northern Mali and dozens have been subjected to arbitrary detention, extra-judicial executions or sexual violence including rape, Amnesty International reports.
Venezuela is demanding the US extradite ex-supreme court judge Eladio Aponte to face drug trafficking charges. Aponte was flown to Miami by the DEA after he accused high-ranking Caracas officials of links to drug-trafficking.
Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli facilities agreed to an Egyptian-brokered deal ending the strikes in exchange for improved conditions and a pledge to release the detainees at the end of their “administrative detention” terms.
Chile’s Supreme Court halted construction of the Cuervo hydroelectric dam in Patagonia pending further environmental studies. Chile needs to double its generating capacity to meet requirements of a planned expansion in the mining sector.
National Police in the service of Antamina company detained 16 campesinos in Peru’s Andean region of Áncash and are holding them at a post on company lands. The arrests follow protests against the mine’s contamination of local waters.
The US is to resume military sales to Bahrain, suspended due to human rights concerns during last year’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, the State Department announced. Rights groups says arbitrary arrests and torture continue.
The Pentagon is this week leading “Eager Lion 2012″—the largest multinational military exercises in the history of Jordan, with maneuvers planned along the Syrian border as well as in the Gulf of Aqaba, across from Israel.
