Villich News
The Guardian - 24-May-2014

Companies could start extracting oil underneath key biodiversity reserve on Earth by 2016 Drilling for oil in a part of the Amazon rainforest considered one of the most biodiverse hotspots on the planet is to go ahead less than a year after Ecuador's president lifted a moratorium on oil drilling there. Last August, Rafeal Correa scrapped a pioneering scheme, the Yasuni Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini...

The Guardian - 09-May-2014

Government says only 359,762 of 756,000 signatures were legitimate, meaning petition fails to trigger national referendum Nearly two thirds of the signatures on a national petition to stop oil being exploited on a large scale in one of the most biodiverse parts of the Amazon rainforest have been rejected, leading to demonstations across Ecuador and accusations of bias and manipulation. Objectors to...

The Guardian - 01-May-2014

Civil society groups say enough signatures have been gathered to force a referendum but authorities are interfering Indigenous people, environment groups and others hoping to force a national referendum on whether one of the world's most biodiverse regions should be exploited by oil companies fear that the Ecuadorean government is manipulating the results of a petition in order to support the president....

The Guardian - 01-May-2014

Rafael Correa accuses Kichwa leaders of acting above the law in holding three opposition activists convicted of defaming him Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador, threatened unspecified consequences on Tuesday for an independent indigenous community in the Amazon that is harbouring three political opponents who face prison for defaming him. Correa angrily accused Sarayaku, whose 1,200 people belong...

The Guardian - 26-Apr-2014

All 20 Department of Defense employees at US embassy in Quito ordered to leave by the end of the month Ecuador has ordered all 20 Defense Department employees in the US embassy's military group to leave the country by month's end, the Associated Press has learned. The group was ordered to halt operations in Ecuador in a letter dated 7 April, said embassy spokesman Jeffrey Weinshenker. Continue reading......

The Guardian - 03-Apr-2014

Henry Nicholls introduces a carnival of amazing beings on the Galápagos islands In 1929, Friedrich Ritter abandoned his wife and Berlin dental practice and eloped with his patient and lover, a married teacher named Dore Strauch, to Floreana in the Galápagos Islands, 1,000km west of Ecuador. The couple became minor celebrities, feted in the international press for their rugged...

The Guardian - 27-Mar-2014

Juan Pablo Saenz is representing small farmers trying to force Chevron to pay damages for pollution in the Amazon The Ecuadorian lawyer representing small farmers trying to force Chevron to pay damages for pollution in the Amazon rainforest says he has received death threats. "People are constantly following us in Ecuador," said lawyer Juan Pablo Saenz, who told the Guardian he has received...

The Guardian - 20-Mar-2014

Chevron is reluctant to give ground to the people affected by the dumping of toxic waste. But they're not going to stop fighting for compensation "Their lives smell of oil." These are the words that Ecuadorian lawyer Juan Pablo Saenz used to describe the living conditions of his clients: 30,000 residents of the Oriente in the Ecuadorian Amazon who say that oil giant Texaco – since bought out by Chevron...

The Guardian - 08-Mar-2014

s Day, UNDP leader and former prime minister of New Zealand Helen Clark picks seven women who are leading positive change all over the world Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, chairperson, African Union In 2012, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was the first woman to be elected African Union (AU) chairperson since its inception in 1963. In this role, she is driving the AU's decade of the African Woman (2010 to 2020). She...

The Guardian - 22-Feb-2014

s plan to drill for oil in the Yasuni national park have collected more than 50% of the number of signatures required to force the vote, and are confident they will reach the total before the mid-April deadline. The collection of signatures is being led by Yasunidos, a newly formed group of volunteers seeking to overturn president Rafael Correa's abandonment of a plan to leave oil reserves unexploited...

The Guardian - 20-Feb-2014

99.9% intact'. But this promise is not being reflected on the ground A four-foot caiman lies belly-up in a still pool of water surrounded by a cluster of tall green cecropia trees. It has been dead for about five days and its white scaly body has become stiff and bloated. Nearby, behind a chainmail fence, a rusty network of pipes pumps cloudy residue into the Shiripuno river. The low rumble of a generator...

The Guardian - 20-Feb-2014

s constitution calls "voluntary isolation". The initiative – which was abandoned by Ecuador's government last year – is seen as a way to protect the Amazon, biodiversity and indigenous peoples' territories, as well as combat climate change, break Ecuador's dependency on oil and avoid causing the kind of social and environmental problems already caused by oil operations in the Ecuadorian rainforest....

The Guardian - 29-Jan-2014

s difficult for conservative candidates to move forward because inequality is such an entrenched issue," said Ana Quintana, a Latin America expert at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. "And it's hard to implement free-market, institutional reforms when you need to make sure a significant portion of the population can get enough to eat." Latin America's right could once identify itself as pro-business...

The Guardian - 01-Jan-2014

s Today programme. Assange, who has been granted asylum by Ecuador but faces arrest if he leaves the country's London embassy, will be giving his thoughts on the history of the control of information on Thursday. He has been chosen by the day's guest editor, musician PJ Harvey, to speak on the news show which will also feature contributions from campaigning journalist John Pilger and a Thought for...

The Guardian - 19-Dec-2013

s oil wealth – had powered the resurgence of the Latin American left in the 21st century. With Chávez gone, the crowds returned again and again during the following weeks either to support or condemn his successor, Nicolás Maduro, who was always going to find it difficult to fill the huge political space left by his predecessor. As some clashes turned violent, there were a handful of deaths. But despite...

The Guardian - 18-Dec-2013

s police commissioner. "Organised crime, and its corrupting influence, is at work in every single country in Latin America." Just look at the news. In the autumn, police in Ecuador seized three tonnes of cocaine, ready to cross the Pacific. Soon after, half a tonne was intercepted in a tanker truck on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. On the heels of that discovery, 1.5 tonnes was intercepted in the...

The Guardian - 30-Oct-2013

s presidential vote is a key test of whether Honduras can return to democracy after the US-supported 2009 coup Do the people of Honduras have the right to elect their own president and congress? That depends on whom you talk to. In 2009, the country's left-of-center President Mel Zelaya was overthrown in a military coup that was heavily supported (and, according to Zelaya , organized) by the United...


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