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Groups urge bank to deny Enron loan for Bolivian pipeline

Czechs hand security
over to the Pentagon for two-day NATO summit

White House anxious for war on Iraq

Thousands across Canada rally against war

UN: states use ‘war on terror’ to target human rights defenders

Groups urge bank to deny Enron loan for Bolivian pipeline

Groups opposed to the Yabog pipeline base their concerns partly on impact assessments of former projects, such as the Cuiaba pipeline, which cuts through the middle of the largest intact area of Chiquitano Tropical Forest and Pantanal wetlands.

By Emad Mekay

Washington, DC, Nov. 15 (IPS)— Civil society groups are urging the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to think hard before giving shamed energy giant Enron and oil and gas producer Shell millions of dollars to finance expansion of a controversial gas pipeline in Bolivia.

Amazon Watch, Friends of the Earth, and the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies say that the IDB could be moving to give a $125 million loan to the two companies to finance work on the questionable Yabog pipeline, despite their “egregious social and environmental track record in Bolivia.”

In a joint study released late Thursday, the groups say that environmental and economic problems associated with previous similar pipeline projects should be warning enough to the IDB not to give taxpayers’ money to Enron, whose shady accounting practices are still being investigated in the United States.

“The evidence presented in this report, which is based on our audit of the former [Cuiaba and Bolivia-Brazil] pipelines, is an overwhelmingly sufficient basis to prove that the Inter-American Development Bank would be negligent to finance the Yabog pipeline, even if Enron sells its stake in the company,” said the report.

The groups called on the US government — which controls 30 percent of the IDB — to rebuff Enron’s request for public money.

Enron and Shell hold 25 percent of Transredes, the company seeking the loan from the IDB for the expansion of the Bolivian gas pipeline. They jointly have administrative control.

This week, President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, of Bolivia, who brokered the partial sale of the national state oil and gas company to Enron and Shell, is in Washington meeting with US President George W. Bush and IDB officials to win backing for the Yabog project, for plans to exploit Bolivia’s gas reserves, and for a proposal to export vast quantities of gas from Bolivia to California.

The shamed Enron, a now bankrupt firm with dubious off-balance sheet transactions, continues to operate internationally and is still seeking public funding for its non-scrutinized global projects, activists warn.

According to the Institute for Policy Studies, Enron’s assets in Latin America include concerns in a pipeline in Colombia, gas and electricity companies in Venezuela and Brazil, and other operations in Panama, Guatemala, and Puerto Rico.

Public institutions, including the World Bank and the European Investment Bank, have provided Enron with financing of about seven $7 billion, the Institute said.

This time around, activists are hoping that public money will not be used for a project they say will further destroy ecosystems.

“IDB’s rejection of this loan will send an important signal to Enron and others that they can no longer count on public coffers to underwrite the devastation of globally treasured ecosystems,” said Atossa Soltani, executive director of Amazon Watch.

In their report, the groups say that Enron and Shell’s Cuiaba pipeline gained international notoriety for degrading the last most intact dry tropical forest in the world.

The companies made a bad decision by building the pipeline through the Chiquitano Forest and Pantanal wetlands and then later implementing what the report calls a “botched conservation program.”

It says the companies also failed to “mitigate” impacts, such as illegal hunting and logging along the pipeline route. Such activities also accelerated deforestation, the report adds.

The IDB’s upcoming vote on the Yabog pipeline comes after the US government’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) canceled a $200 million loan for the Cuiaba pipeline, and asked the Department of Justice to investigate Enron for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Enron was OPIC’s largest client.

In their report the groups also warn that a second proposed gas pipeline, the Camisea Project in Peru, is just as flawed as Yabog and the previous two projects.

They say that the IDB and the US Export-Import Bank are currently considering financing for Camisea, a massive gas field and pipeline project proposed by small energy companies, even though the firms have poor environmental records and limited technical capacity.

Camisea is globally renowned as a biodiversity hotspot and is home to up to 1,000 indigenous peoples who have little contact with the outside world and to 7,000 traditional Machiguenga people.

The proposed project violates World Bank policies on the environment and indigenous peoples and also contravenes indigenous rights, says the report.

Czechs hand security
over to the Pentagon for two-day NATO summit

By Ian Traynor

Prague, Czech Republic, Nov. 16— Czech President Vaclav Havel has signed into law a bill handing responsibility for his country’s security to the Pentagon during the two-day NATO summit next week, amid mounting fears of terrorist attacks and street violence.

Prague police have arrested five Czechs on suspicion of plotting sabotage during the first NATO meeting of its kind since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The unprecedented surrender of responsibility to a foreign power comes as normally circumspect European intelligence and law enforcement officials have issued a wave of stark warnings echoing United States fears that another terrorist attack may be on the way, including the possibility that al-Qaida could employ chemical or other weapons of mass destruction against European targets.

The FBI on Thursday warned that this week’s taped message from Osama bin Laden, intelligence reports, and recent overseas strikes by al-Qaida had raised the threat of “spectacular attacks” in the US.

“In selecting its next targets,” the alert said, “sources suggest al-Qaida may favor spectacular attacks that meet several criteria: high symbolic value, mass casualties, severe damage to the US economy, and maximum psychological trauma. The highest priority targets remain within the aviation, petroleum, and nuclear sectors as well as significant national landmarks.”

The first detachments of an estimated 250 US troops were expected in Prague yesterday to play a central role in ensuring security during the summit.

Under the special legislation, US troops and aircraft patrolling the area will be under US command, but the Czech Defense Minister has to give the green light for any US use of force.

Havel cut short a holiday to sign the bill on Thursday after it was endorsed by the Czech Senate. The bill easily passed the lower house last week.

Thousands of anti-corporate globalization protesters turned central Prague into a battlefield during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank summit in the city two years ago. The Czech authorities and the Americans appear determined to prevent a repeat performance now, when tensions are greater.

“All intelligence experts are agreed that al-Qaida is preparing a major terrorist operation, simultaneous attacks that would not target the United States alone but several countries at the same time,” Ronald Noble, the head of Interpol, has told the French newspaper Le Figaro.

Hans-Josef Beth, head of Germany’s international counter-terrorism unit, told a meeting of the German-Atlantic Society in Berlin last week that Abu Musab Zarqawi, an al-Qaida leader trained in the use of toxins, could be planning an attack in Europe.

“Something big is in the air,” Beth said, noting that Zarqawi “has experience with poisonous chemicals and biological weapons.”

A suspected terrorist detained in Brussels, Nizar Trabelsi, admitted in a television interview broadcast on Thursday that he had worked with the al-Qaida network to plan an attack — which never took place — on a US NATO base at Kleine Brogel, in north-west Belgium.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

White House anxious for war on Iraq

Compiled by Eamon Martin

Nov. 20 (AGR)— Tensions in the fragile United Nations consensus on Iraq have emerged over the United States government’s insistence that Saddam Hussein is already violating the Security Council resolution on weapons inspections by firing on British and US warplanes patrolling “no-fly” zones in Iraq.

As chief weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed El Baradei had their first full day of work in Iraq on Tuesday, coalition planes fired on Iraqi air defenses in what the US said was retaliation for an Iraqi attack.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Sunday that such attacks are violations of the UN’s resolution 1441. It was “up to the Security Council” to determine whether the attacks were technically in “material breach” of Iraq’s obligations.

However, US officials were quoted as saying that Washington had already determined that they were, an interpretation not even close ally Great Britain shares.

It was the second day in a row that US warplanes have struck Iraqi air defenses after coming under anti-aircraft artillery fire, and the fifth time since the passage of the latest UN Security Council resolution on November 8.

Iraq has said the US and British raids over no fly zones have killed civilians. On Friday, it reported seven deaths.

A Security Council diplomat characterized Rumsfeld’s remarks as part of generalized rumblings of frustration from “Washington hawks who never liked the UN route anyway.”

Iraq has announced that its air defense will keep aiming at invading US and British warplanes flying over the zones, which it has never recognized.

Radio Baghdad quoted Iraq’s Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying: “The US officials’ comments on the need to yield fully to resolution 1441, including Article 4 that bans shooting at US and British warplanes over the no-fly zones, is only an excuse for Washington to start its military attack against Iraq.”

The spokesman added that, “Washington tries to justify its invasion against Iraq under the cover of Resolution 1441.” He said that the establishment of no-fly zones was a unilateral move on the part of the United States and Great Britain and an obvious violation of Iraq’s territorial integrity, against the UN Charter and international laws. The Iraqi official also criticized the UN, saying that, “its continued silence over the logic of American hegemony has become unacceptable.”

On Monday, Blix and El Baradei led advance teams of about two dozen UN officials who returned to Baghdad to resume the weapons inspection program that ended abruptly four years ago. Additional inspectors arrive next week, and their first field operations are expected by Nov. 27.

The latest Security Council resolution calls the inspections a “final opportunity” for Iraq to meet its post-Gulf War obligations to give up any weapons of mass destruction. President George W. Bush has threatened a massive military invasion if the Iraqis don’t disarm.

On Monday, Blix accused hawks in Washington, who are bent on going to war with Iraq, of conducting a smear campaign against him. At the back of all the inspectors’ minds is the knowledge that the nation with the world’s most powerful military -- which is already pouring troops and equipment into the region -- is just waiting for them to fail. Hawks surrounding Bush have made it clear that they would not be disappointed if Blix and El Baradei fail in their mission. Indeed, they would be happiest of all if the full inspection teams never made it to Iraq.

It was a position summed up by a senior Pentagon official last week: “The inspections cannot work. Period. Military power works. Period. All this is a sideshow which, the longer it drags on, the greater the need to break the cycle becomes and the need to get involved militarily.”

The US has said it will not provide Blix or El Baradei with all the intelligence it holds, suggesting that it will reach its own conclusions. This perception was amplified when, on the day of the inspectors’ arrival, in Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the Iraqi anti-aircraft fire “appears to be a violation” of the latest UN Security Council resolution.

But Iraq’s firing on the US and British aircraft is not a violation of the latest Security Council resolution, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Tuesday.

Contradicting the United States’ interpretation of Resolution 1441 on Iraq adopted two weeks ago, Annan indicated that the Security Council would not see such action by Iraq as a trigger for war.

On Tuesday, key Security Council member Russia also dismissed the US claims.

“Recent claims that Iraq’s actions in the ‘no-fly’ zones can be seen as a violation of the UN Security Council resolution 1441 have no legal grounds,’’ the Russian foreign ministry said.

The United States is alone among the 15-member Security Council member states in insisting that the no-fly zones are included in the resolution and that firing on the aircraft policing the two zones is therefore a breach of 1441.

This has raised concerns over whether Washington could use this as an automatic trigger for war.

Hans Von Sponeck, a former UN assistant secretary-general and ex-UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, said that “the US government is proceeding with war preparations as if resolution 1441 does not exist.’’

The Security Council has never specifically approved the flights over northern and southern Iraq, which Baghdad considers violations of its sovereignty.

Neither the zones nor the patrols are mentioned in any Security Council resolution.

“I think [the US] believe[s] in the long run they will have their chance,” said Ellen Laitson, president of the Henry Stimson Center, a Washington-based think-tank. “If you look at the deployment in the region, and how the bureaucracy is gearing up, they are putting a lot in motion militarily even though there may be this temporary lull of the inspections.”

In the meantime, the United States has asked Canada and other allies what they could contribute to a possible military coalition against Iraq, a spokesman for Prime Minister Jean Chretien said on Tuesday.

Earlier that day, Bush urged NATO allies to “come with us” and help disarm Saddam Hussein, even as summit diplomats said the alliance would not take up arms collectively against Iraq.

“Everybody can contribute something,” Bush told Czech TV.

US training Iraqis to run post-Saddam government

The Bush administration has been quietly training scores of civil servants to oversee the transformation of the Iraqi economy in the aftermath of military strikes. The effort is said to have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

A private consultancy firm, contracted by the State Department, has been training Iraqi exiles in economics, accountancy and finance in preparation for restructuring the country’s state-controlled system into a Western, market-driven economy.

The preparations, entitled the “Future of Iraq Project,” have led to the establishment of more than 15 working groups.

British and US defense sources revealed this week that US military chiefs are planning a “massive onslaught” on Iraq designed to show Hussein’s soldiers that they must “surrender or die.”

One source with knowledge of the plans said: “When the coalition troops go in they will go in hard. If it’s wearing a uniform and isn’t surrendering it will be killed.”

On Sunday, Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, gave his clearest warning yet that Baghdad would launch strikes against Israel if it was attacked by the US and Great Britain.

“If the US and UK wage a war against Iraq, the consequences will be very bad to them and their friends in the region,” Aziz warned. “If they don’t care about their friends, then that gives you an idea about their real intentions. This is going to be devastating, not only to Iraq, but to them also. The aggressors will also suffer a great deal of losses.”

Aziz said he was not convinced the return of weapons inspectors would save Iraq from attack. “I have to be objective and honest in saying that we in Iraq do not feel that the possibility of the American aggression on Iraq has been totally removed,” he said.

War could plunge world into deep recession

A war against Iraq could cost the US hundreds of billions of dollars, play havoc with an already depressed domestic economy and tip the world into recession because of the adverse effect on oil prices, inflation and interest rates, an academic study released this week has warned.

According to William Nordhaus, Sterling professor of economics at Yale University, the best-case scenario of a short, “clean” war is likely to incur costs for which no amount of increased Iraqi oil production could compensate.

“The Bush administration has not prepared the public for the cost or the financing of what could prove to be an expensive venture,’’ Professor Nordhaus said. “Perhaps the administration is fearful that a candid discussion of wartime economics will give ammunition to skeptics of the war; perhaps it worries acknowledging the costs will endanger the large future tax cuts, which are the centerpiece of its domestic policy.

Professor Nordhaus’s analysis, part of which was published in this week’s New York Review of Books, is based on estimates from the US government as well as private research by Washington think-tanks.

Sources: Associated Press, Boston Globe, Guardian (UK), Independent (UK),
Inter Press Service, Observer (UK), Qatar News Agency, Reuters, Times (UK)

Thousands across Canada rally against war

In Montreal, around 4,000 people marched
against war on Sunday, Nov. 17, 2002.

UN: states use ‘war on terror’ to target human rights defenders

By Thalif Deen

United Nations, Nov. 11 (IPS)— The global war against terrorism is jeopardizing the work of human rights activists, who have become the new victims of state repression, says a senior UN official.

“Some human rights defenders have been killed, while others have either disappeared or been arrested and detained arbitrarily,” said Hina Jilani, UN special representative for human rights defenders.

Jilani said that in some countries — which she refused to name — existing national security laws that had undermined human rights in the past have been strengthened and more enforced in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.

In one country, people fighting and struggling against land evictions were being charged under anti-terrorist laws, and in another, media laws were amended to make it a crime to report statements made by “so-called terrorists,” putting journalists and human rights defenders at risk.

“I am afraid that these laws and policies are affecting human rights in general, and have resulted in gross violations of the rights of human rights defenders,” she added.

The official said that human rights defenders, and in some cases their families, were targets of intimidation and harassment.

“As a result, many of those human rights defenders had to flee their home countries,” she told reporters last week.

In a 15-page report released here, Jilani complained that UN member states are not cooperating with her, either blocking on-site visits or dragging their feet over requests to investigate complaints.

At least 14 countries have not responded to her request for visits: Bhutan, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Tunisia and Uzbekistan. More recently, additional requests and reminders were sent to six countries: Belarus, Chad, Nigeria, Togo, Turkey and Zimbabwe. But there have been no responses to date.

Jilani said that the “most serious conditions” she found during her visits were in Latin America, where there had been a dramatic increase in threats to the security and safety of human rights defenders.

“The militarization of public security has increased noticeably in the region. This has promoted the dominance of military logic, military legislation and military practices in approaches to social control,” the study noted.

In many African countries, on the other hand, a common trend is to target those who strive for democratic rights and criticize undemocratic governance, or who expose corruption and abuse of power. African governments also tend to use the judicial system as a means of harassing and punishing human rights defenders, says the report.

In several Asian countries, national security laws have been imposed in the “severest forms.” Repressive anti-terrorist or security laws existed in some of these nations before the Sept. 11 attacks, “but (Asian) governments are using the present circumstances to justify these practices.”

“These laws are being used in a manner that has further eroded due process and the rule of law,” the study said.

In June, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson called for an independent expert or a new international body to monitor the impact of anti-terrorism measures on human rights worldwide.

Robinson regretted that no international institution was assessing whether measures taken by member states to combat terrorism are in violation of human rights standards that those states have accepted.

She said that a new counter-terrorism committee created by the UN Security Council late last year does not believe it has a mandate to monitor these excesses.

“The great concern now is that where mature democracies blur the lines or set a bad example, undemocratic regimes consider they are given a green light to pursue repressive policies, secure in the belief that any excesses will be ignored,” Robinson added.

Several nations, particularly the United States, Britain, Germany and Canada, along with Egypt, Russia and Uzbekistan, have introduced far-reaching anti-terrorism measures, some of which are deemed in violation of basic human rights.

These include detention of non-citizens, tightening of immigration laws, electronic surveillance without court order, deportation of those overstaying their visas, and monitoring of mail and communications between a prisoner and an attorney.

The new restrictive measures also cover privacy rights, fair trial, the right to seek asylum, political participation, freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

Robinson said that the post-Sept.11 environment “is reinforcing a fortress mentality within Europe,” as controls are tightened and there is a coarsening of debate and of language used in speaking of asylum seekers and immigrants.

Jilani told reporters last week that she was also “very concerned” that governments were using the war on terrorism “to justify the policy of detaining asylum seekers.”

She said that far too many governments were formulating new laws defining ordinary forms of civil disobedience as “terrorism” by creating new offences related to “incitement,” restricting rights of assembly and suspending normal legal guarantees by extending the period allowed for detentions without trial.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has also warned member states that there should be no “trade-off” between the fight against terrorism and the protection of human rights.

Although Annan refused to identify countries by name, he said that the anti-terrorism measures now being adopted by some countries should “not unduly curtail human rights or give others a pretext to do so.”

In its annual report this year, London-based Amnesty International (AI) specifically criticized the United States and Britain for undermining human rights in its fight against terrorism. AI Secretary-General Irene Khan said that the US-led coalition was riding “roughshod” over international humanitarian law and principles.

AI also listed several “significant human rights failings” by the United States, including authorization of military tribunals to try alleged terrorists; selective application of Geneva Convention guarantees for Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners held at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay; and indefinite detention of foreigners held without charge or access to lawyers.

Apartheid victims sue international businesses

By Emad Mekay

Washington, DC, Nov. 12 (IPS)— Lawyers of victims of the former apartheid government in South Africa are suing several international companies and banks that allegedly backed and aided the racist regime in its crimes against humanity.

In a press conference in Washington on Tuesday, lawyers said that the case would seek to hold those companies accountable for helping the former white rulers of South Africa commit crimes that included forced labor, extra-judicial killing, torture, sexual assault, and unlawful detention.

The case, filed Monday before a New York court, argues that IBM, for example, provided the computers that enabled South Africa to create the much hated “pass book system” — a law forcing non-whites to carry documents stating their legal residence and workplace — and to control the black South African population.

Car manufacturers like Ford and General Motors provided the armored vehicles that were used to patrol the townships. Arms manufacturers violated United Nations embargoes on sales to South Africa, as did oil companies, says the suit.

Foreign banks provided the funding that enabled South Africa to expand its police and security apparatus, it adds.

The white regime had designed grand “social engineering schemes,” which segregated the races and forced hundreds of thousands of non-white people to relocate.

To prove that black rule led to chaos, white governments also promoted instability in neighboring countries. They went so far as to poison and bomb opponents, according to the suit.

The apartheid era ended in 1994 with the election of black president Nelson Mandela but many victims of apartheid in the country of 44 million people have complained that government reparations have been slow in coming.

The case, filed before a New York court, is based on a US statute that grants US courts jurisdiction over certain violations of international law, regardless of where they occur, said Agnieszka Fryszman, a lawyer with the US law firm of Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll, P.L.L.C.

Recent successful suits under this statute include the Doe versus Unocal case, which held that the oil and natural gas producer was responsible for human rights abuses perpetrated by the Myanmar military in connection with the company’s $1.2 billion oil pipeline project there.

In the Unocal case, the court held that a corporation that aided and abetted human rights violations by a sovereign foreign state can be held liable for those abuses, said Fryszman.

The case also echoes liability principles first imposed on corporate participants in crimes against humanity by the Nuremberg Tribunal, which followed the Second World War. At Nuremberg, the bankers that financed Germany’s Third Reich government were held answerable for crimes against humanity.

Fryszman, who was also involved in reparations cases launched by Holocaust survivors, said that her firm also represents the South African Khulumani support group, which has 33,000 members, along with 82 individual victims of the former regime.

According to the case summary, “extra-judicial killings, torture, and arbitrary detention are recognized violations of international law and all of these were practiced by the apartheid regime in South Africa between 1960 and 1993. Apartheid itself was recognized as a crime against humanity.”

Lead counsel Michael D. Hausfeld said in a statement that “apartheid was an institutionalized system of racial disenfranchisement, forced labor, and criminal domination. It sought to and did exploit and degrade the black South African population for a criminal purpose, through criminal means.”

When asked how much money the suit seeks, Fryszman said “it would be up to the jury.”

The case also comes only months after US attorney Ed Fagan sued Swiss banks UBS and Credit Suisse on behalf of South African clients for similar charges. Fagan said he modeled his case on claims by Holocaust survivors, which netted a whopping $1.25 billion.

If successful, the case could deter companies and international banks from doing business with governments and regimes known for exploitation, human rights abuses or racist policies — long a central demand of anti-corporate globalization activists.

The corporations named in the suit include weighty banks in Switzerland, Britain, Germany, and the United States, and companies headquartered in the Netherlands and France.

They are: US-based Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, ExxonMobil, Caltex Petroleum, Fluor Corporation, Ford Motor Corporation, General Motors and IBM; in Germany, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, DaimlerChrysler, and Rheinmetall; Switzerland-based Credit Suisse and UBS; in Britain, Barclays Bank, British Petroleum and Fujitsu ICL; French company TotalFinaElf; and Royal Dutch Shell of the Netherlands.

WORLD BRIEFS

Activists see Argentina’s World Bank default
as positive

Argentina defaulted on its $805 million debt to the World Bank on Nov. 14, paying a token $79.2 million and blaming the default on “savage” policy recommendations by the IMF. The country may already be benefiting from the default decision, since it will have more cash on hand for social and health programs.

“This unique challenge to the power of the World Bank and IMF to dictate both macroeconomic policy and debt repayment terms could change the perception of their infallibility,” said Soren Ambrose of 50 Years Is Enough. He added that it would give governments and civil society forces more room to plan and to begin to whittle away at the overwhelming power wielded by the IMF and the World Bank which have caused so much unnecessary poverty, death and suffering over the past few decades.

A report from the anti-debt group Eurodad argues that the World Bank might be harmed by the high-profile default, which could call into question the Bank’s own creditworthiness and reputation. (IPS)

1 in 3 say Bush
is biggest threat

President George W. Bush is seen by a third of Britons as a bigger threat to world safety than Saddam Hussein, according to a poll conducted by the polling agency You.Gov to which 3,200 people responded. The poll found that a third of the British public have no trust at all in Bush and many actually fear him. Almost half see Prime Minister Tony Blair as Bush’s lapdog. Almost two-thirds of people said the only reason the US has targeted President Hussein is because he threatens US control of the Middle East – only a quarter feel it is because the Iraqi leader is a threat to world peace. (The Guardian UK)

US fears
prosecution
of President
in World Court

A senior US official said a principal motive for US opposition to the newly created International Criminal Court was fear that the court might prosecute the president or other civilian or military leaders. That fear, which US officials have rarely if ever articulated in public, explains why the US opposed a compromise offered in September by the European Union, which is strongly in favor of the new court. The international court came into being on July 1, with a mandate to prosecute genocide and crimes against humanity. The US has refused to cooperate with the court and is trying to persuade other countries to sign bilateral agreements giving US personnel immunity from prosecution. So far 13 countries have signed such agreements and a state department spokesperson said the US would soon have negotiations on agreements with countries in the Middle East and South Asia. (Reuters)

Police kill
Mapuche activist

Edmundo Alex Lemun Saavedra, a 17-year-old indigenous Mapuche activist, died on Nov. 12 in a clinic in the city of Temuco, capital of La Araucania in southern Chile. Lemun had been in a coma since Nov. 7 when he was hit in the head with a bullet during a clash with agents from the militarized Carabineros police, who were trying to forcibly remove a group of Mapuches occupying ancestral lands on the Santa Alicia estate – claimed by the Empresa Forestal Mininco lumber company – in Angol Province, near Ercilla.

Lemun was a member of the Arauco Malleco Coordinating Committee; his death was the first to arise from longstanding land conflicts in the region. Angry Mapuches and their supporters protested Lemun’s death with a march in Santiago on Nov. 13. The march ended with some 20 arrests after demonstrators smashed windows of businesses, including those of the telecommunications company Entel and of Smarkom, an affiliate of Endesa, which is building the Ralco dam on the Biobio River against Mapuche opposition. (Weekly News Update on the Americas)

NATO soldiers
storm film set

NATO soldiers burst into a bazaar in Skopje, Macedonia and held actors for two hours at gunpoint as they were performing in Labina Mitevska’s movie, How I Killed the Angel, about the murder of a NATO soldier. The local news agency SRNA reported officers launched the action after seeing banners plastered across the market reading: “NATO go home.” A NATO spokesperson said: “We feared they were terrorists.” He added that NATO forces had previously seen local underworld crime gangs driving around the area with similar messages painted on their cars. (Ananova)

NATO strike force
to bypass states in hunt for terrorists

A new US plan for an allied force capable of being deployed within five to fifteen days is expected to be agreed upon at next week’s NATO summit in Prague where western leaders are also due to increase membership of the organization from 19 to 26. The response force will be a “find and strike” unit targeting terrorist organizations such as al-Qaida who may be building up new bases.

Under the plan NATO could respond quickly to a request to disrupt camps or places where it was suspected that terrorists were hiding biological or chemical weapons, sources said. However, they made it clear that NATO would strike even without a request from the government of the country where the target was located. US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld told his colleagues at a meeting in Warsaw in September that NATO must set up a rapid response force that would go “any time, anywhere, at very short notice” to attack the enemy. The force would consist of some 20,000 troops, backed up by air and naval support. (Guardian UK)

Opposition to
US blockade
of Cuba grows

In a near-unanimous vote, 173 countries of the 185-member United Nations General Assembly called on the US to end its 42-year embargo against Cuba. The vote marked the 11th consecutive year the General Assembly has adopted a resolution in favor of lifting the embargo. There were four abstentions and only the US, Israel and the Marshall Islands voted against the resolution. Delegates from country after country expressed serious concern over the US blockade, which they said violates international law, infringing on Cuba’s sovereignty. The resolution itself charges the US with violating the “purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.” (IPS)

Blair ‘is arming
tyrants’ to beat terror

David Mepham, who was the International Development Secretary’s special adviser, said that Tony Blair has abandoned his “ethical foreign policy” and has shown “serious inconsistencies” over arms exports, deliberately loosening controls to encourage customer-nations to unite against al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. He said that “open” export licenses had been granted to Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other United Arab Emirates “despite serious concerns about human rights in all these countries.” Mepham made these claims in a think-tank report of which he is co-author, published by the Institute of Public Policy Research. (Observer UK)