The DEA refuses to confirm claims by the Colombian National Police that top drug lord Javier Antonio Calle Serna AKA “Comba” turned himself in to US agents. Calle Serna’s “Rastrojos” gang is linked to both the FARC and paramilitaries.
World War 4 Report editor Bill Weinberg, just returned from Peru, speaks about the Quechua indigenous struggle against US-backed mining projects and in defense of land, water and autonomy in the Andes.
With lines drawn over the US-backed Conga mining project in Peru’s high Andean region of Cajamarca, the Lima tabloid PerĂş21 splashes explosive claims that the region has become a critical new zone for cocaine production and trafficking.
Thousands of Bolivian mine workers marched and blocked streets in the cities of La Paz and Cochabamba in a two-day strike, throwing dynamite at police who formed a cordon around the presidential palace.
President Ollanta Humala boasted a new “expert review” of the controversial Conga gold mine project in Peru’s northern Cajamarca region, but regional president Gregorio Santos charged Humala is “on his knees” before corporate power.
Amid rival protests for and against re-opening the idled US-owned metal smelter at La Oroya in the Peruvian Andes—one of the 10 most polluted spots on Earth—the owners are suing Peru’s government for violating terms of the FTA.
The special panel charged with conducting a review of the controversial Conga mining project in Peru’s northern Andean region of Cajamarca handed its findings in to the government—as anti-mine protesters occupy Cajamarca’s central plaza.
At the Summit of the Americas, President Obama announced approval of Colombia’s supposed progress in protecting labor rights, allowing the Free Trade Agreement to take effect next month—to protests of the country’s embattled trade unions.
Revelations that Secret Service agents protecting Obama at the Cartagena summit hired local sex workers puts Colombia briefly in the news—while the four car bombs that went off during the summit barely rate a mention.
Much of Peru’s northern Andean region of Cajamarca was shut down in a 24-hour civil strike or paro, the latest action in the protest campaign against the US-owned Conga gold-mining project.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is hearing a case involving a “dirty war” atrocity in which President Ollanta Humala was implicated—sparking a frenzy of conspiracy theories among Peru’s political class.
Over the past 10 years, more than 40% of Colombia’s national territory has come under the control of multinational corporations for oil, mineral and biofuel production—part of what critics decry as a global land-grab.
