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Indigenous Justice In Ecuador, Luis Ángel Saavedra
Indigenous Justice In Ecuador, Luis Ángel Saavedra
NotiEn: An Analytical Digest About Energy Issues in Latin America
This articles discusses the challenges and tensions encountered between indigenous and national systems of justice in Ecuador. The article highlights some of the major issues surrounding indigenous systems, namely, how crime should be dealt with, as well as how indigenous justice has been negatively portrayed in the media. The article suggests that indigenous communities know how to structure their justice systems the best; thus, the national justice system should work with them in a collaborative effort.
Ecuadoran Government Will Modify Laws To Favor Mining, Luis Ángel Saavedra
Ecuadoran Government Will Modify Laws To Favor Mining, Luis Ángel Saavedra
NotiEn: An Analytical Digest About Energy Issues in Latin America
It has become customary for large transnational mining companies to pressure governments to modify national legislation to suit company interests. However, this was not expected to happen in Ecuador since its Constitution specifically protects the rights of nature and is very clear on the control the state must have of extractive activities as well as on the state's share of earnings from this industry. This is to the dismay of environmental and human rights organizations, who view the policy reforms as unconstitutional.
El Salvador's Government Sends General Water Law Into Legislative Pipeline, Benjamin Witte-Lebhar
El Salvador's Government Sends General Water Law Into Legislative Pipeline, Benjamin Witte-Lebhar
NotiEn: An Analytical Digest About Energy Issues in Latin America
For the million or so residents of greater San Salvador whose faucets run dry on a regular basis, the message they received in late April from the Administración de Acueductos y Alcantarillados (ANDA) was a familiar one: "It's going to be a while." Because of technical problems, the pumping station that supplies those homes is only operating at about half capacity right now, according to ANDA, El Salvador's state water regulator. Las Parvas, as the plant is called, draws water from the Río Lempa, El Salvador's largest river, and supplies between 45% and 60% of greater San Salvador's drinking water. …
Peruvian Government Targets Informal Mining, Elsa Chanduví Jaña
Peruvian Government Targets Informal Mining, Elsa Chanduví Jaña
NotiEn: An Analytical Digest About Energy Issues in Latin America
The rescue of nine Peruvian miners who were trapped underground for seven days in a horizontal shaft at La Cortada copper mine in the Cabeza de Negro area of the coastal department of Ica, 300 km south of Lima, shone the spotlight once again on informal and illegal mining, undertaken without security measures and outside the law. President Ollanta Humala has decided to stop such activities.
Mexican Congress Approves Far-Reaching Environmental Legislation, Carlos Navarro
Mexican Congress Approves Far-Reaching Environmental Legislation, Carlos Navarro
NotiEn: An Analytical Digest About Energy Issues in Latin America
The Mexican Congress made a bold statement this month by approving comprehensive legislation to reduce greenhousegas emissions and take other actions to help the country address global climate change. The ambitious plan—approved 12810 in the Chamber of Deputies and ratified unanimously in the Senate in April—only awaits the signature of President Felipe Calderón. The president has been an outspoken advocate of measures to address climate change, so his signature is virtually guaranteed. With the law's passage, Mexico would become the second nation to enact legally binding emissions restrictions. Great Britain is the only other country to take such a step.
Panamas Indigenous Protestors Block Roads In Dispute To End Mineral Exploitation On Their Lands; Clashes Leave One Dead', Louisa Reynolds
Panamas Indigenous Protestors Block Roads In Dispute To End Mineral Exploitation On Their Lands; Clashes Leave One Dead', Louisa Reynolds
NotiEn: An Analytical Digest About Energy Issues in Latin America
Anger against President Ricardo Martinelli's administration boiled over on Jan. 30, as members of the GnãbeBuglé indigenous tribe protested after the Asamblea Nacional (AN) took initial steps toward lifting a mining moratorium on their territories. The Coordinadora por la Defensa de los Recursos Naturales y el Derecho del Pueblo Gnãbe Buglé, which has called for all mining and hydroelectric projects on indigenous lands to be halted, decided to block a stretch of the InterAmerican Highway that joins Panama's western province of Chiriquí with Costa Rica. The next day, the protest had spread to the provinces of Boca del Toro and …
Chevron Trying To Avoid Historic Ecuador Verdict, Luis Angel Saavedra
Chevron Trying To Avoid Historic Ecuador Verdict, Luis Angel Saavedra
NotiEn: An Analytical Digest About Energy Issues in Latin America
Judge Nicolás Zambrano of the Corte Provincial de Justicia in Sucumbíos, Ecuador, handed down a historic ruling ordering oil giant Chevron-Texaco to pay US$9.5 billion for environmental damages incurred during 28 years of oil exploitation during which the company used obsolete technology and deliberately released more than 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into the northern Amazon region of Ecuador. Sucumbíos province has a long history of plundering of its natural resources, beginning in the 1940s with the exploitation of rubber and lumber. But it was oil, discovered in the early 1970s, that caused the greatest devastation in the region. …
President Felipe Calderon, Center-Left Opposition Parties Differ On Energy Policy, State-Run Oil Company Pemex, Sourcemex
NotiEn: An Analytical Digest About Energy Issues in Latin America
President Felipe Calderon's administration and the opposition parties have different ways of observing the 72nd anniversary of the expropriation of Mexico's oil industry, which many also mark as the birth of the state-run oil company PEMEX. In a ceremony marking the milestone decision by President Lazaro Cardenas (1934-1940), President Felipe Calderon and members of his administration used the occasion to announce the discovery of new reserves in the Gulf of Mexico and to present a cautiously optimistic view of the future. This is in contrast to the center-left opposition parties, which are pushing for a stronger PEMEX. They warned that …
Brazil: Preparing For Post-Copenhagen Economy, Notisur
Brazil: Preparing For Post-Copenhagen Economy, Notisur
NotiEn: An Analytical Digest About Energy Issues in Latin America
After the failure of the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, which was unable to reach a consensus regarding measures needed to fight global warming (see SourceMex, 2009-12-16), Brazil began to prepare for the challenges of a carbon-free economy and other sustainability issues that cannot wait for large international decisions to become a reality. One of the most important pieces will be to implement the Politica Nacional de Mudancas Climaticas, in accordance with the climate-change law (Lei de Mudancas Climaticas) signed Dec. 29 by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Congress had been debating the bill since 2007. The lawmakers …
British "Black Gold" Prospectors Fawn Over Falklands, Notisur
British "Black Gold" Prospectors Fawn Over Falklands, Notisur
NotiEn: An Analytical Digest About Energy Issues in Latin America
An aged North Sea oil rig known as the Ocean Guardian is making a snail's-paced journey from northern Scotland to the Malvinas/Falkland Islands, where its pending arrival promises to put the isolated archipelago the site nearly three decades ago of a brief but bloody war between Great Britain and Argentina very much back in the public eye. Known in South America as Islas Malvinas and in Britain as the Falklands, the territory is a collection of rocky islands some 450 km off the coast of Argentina, which, despite losing the 1982 war, continues to claim the tiny territory as its …
Ecuador: Lawsuit Filed Against Texaco, Notisur Writers
Ecuador: Lawsuit Filed Against Texaco, Notisur Writers
NotiEn: An Analytical Digest About Energy Issues in Latin America
A US legal team filed a billion-dollar lawsuit in an Ecuadoran court on May 7 against US oil giant ChevronTexaco. The plaintiffs, a group of Ecuadoran Indians, accuse the company of destroying large areas of rain forest in Ecuador and contaminating local land and rivers. They say the pollution has increased the incidence of cancer among the local population. ChevronTexaco rejects the allegations and says the company met all its obligations under Ecuadoran law. The suit was filed in the Corte Superior de Justicia in the Amazonian town of Lago Agrio, 185 km northeast of Quito. Attorneys said the trial …