With Sudan and South Sudan already effectively at war, reports indicate that each are arming rebel movements in the other's territory. Last week the South Sudanese military—officially the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA)—took the oil-producing enclave of Heglig from the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), ostensibly in retaliation for SAF raids across the border. Sudan's President Omar Bashir on April 20 threatened to teach the South "a final lesson by force" if it doesn't withdraw from the enclave. (LAT, April 20) Amid the stand-off, the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey released a report finding that the SPLA is arming the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLMN), which is fighting to liberate South Kordofan state—where Heglig is located—from Khartoum's control. The report similarly charged that the SAF is arming the South Sudan Democratic Movement (SSDM) and South Sudan Liberation Army (SSLA), which are fighting the SPLA in South Sudan's Jonglei, Upper Nile and Unity states. (See map.) The report also found evidence that Eritrea is cooperating with Khartoum in arming the SSDM and SSLA. The Small Arms Survey's Jonah Leff told Sudan Tribune that the support of rebels on both sides is "a symptom of the greater issue, which is oil and land." (ST, April 17 via AllAfrica)

Peru's Panamericana TV on April 18 broadcast an interview with the leader of the Sendero Luminoso guerillas who last week took hostage some 40 Camisea gas pipeline workers in the lowland rainforest of Cuzco—adding further confusion to the already extremely murky affair. In the interview, Martín Quispe Palomino AKA "Comrade Gabriel" boasts that his forces freed the hostages voluntarily and that the abduction served to lure more government troops into the territory so as to heat up the insurgency. A smiling Comrade Gabriel said: "We asked for a ransom but we knew they [the government] wouldn't pay. We did it so that these hopeless reactionaries would send in the armed forces and we could annihilate them. This was our objective." He added: "Let them militarize the pipeline. We'd have the upper hand and would annihilate the armed forces, right?"

The special panel charged with conducting a review of the environmental impact study for the controversial Conga gold mining project in Peru's northern Andean region of Cajamarca handed its findings in to the central government April 17, and the 260-page document was posted to the website of the Environment Ministry (MINAM). The review calls for "better guarantees" of protection of local watersheds, and states that "alternatives should be evaluated" to filling alpine lakes with mine tailings. But both Environment Minister Manuel Pulgar Vidal and the document's authors—three European experts, two Spaniards and one Portuguese—emphasized that the study's purpose is just to make "technical recommendations," not to determine the Conga project's viability; This is a reversal of how the review was portrayed for months prior to its release. (Reuters, April 18; Peru This Week, RPP, EFE, La Republica, April 17)

At the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, US President Barack Obama announced approval of Colombia's supposed progress in protecting labor rights, allowing the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement to take effect next month. US trade representative Ron Kirk said at a Cartagena press conference that the agreement provides "an opportunity to help stand up for the rights of workers... This is a significant milestone." Kirk said Colombia has taken a number of important steps to implement the "labor action plan" that was a prerequisite for putting the trade deal into place. The plan included enforcing laws recognizing the rights of workers to organize and prosecuting past cases of violence against labor leaders. "We believe this is an historic step in the development of our relationship with Colombia," Kirk said.

Colombia is topping news headlines in the United States for a change following accusations that members of President Obama's security detail at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena this week brought local sex workers back to their hotel rooms. Security clearance for 11 Secret Service agents has been revoked, and investigators believe that up to 20 Secret Service and military personnel were involved. Cartagena Mayor Campo Elias Teran said local authorities are investigating whether some of the sex workers involved in the scandal were minors. (Colombia Reports, April 17)

A Libyan military commander filed a lawsuit April 17 against former UK Justice Minister Jack Straw alleging that the minister was instrumental in his illegal rendition to Libya, where he was tortured under the regime of Moammar Qaddafi. Abdel Hakim Belhadj and his wife were transferred to Libya in 2004 as prisoners and were allegedly tortured at the hands of former Qaddafi officials. The lawsuit was launched in response to an April 15 Sunday Times report alleging documentation of Straw's involvement in the transfer of prisoners to Libya for torture. Papers served on Straw request access to documents from 2004 to 2010, including the documents referenced in the recent news article. Belhadj's lawyers maintain that his primary purpose is to seek an apology from the responsible parties.

The Canadian government released details April 17 of a plan to dramatically "streamline" (as press accounts put it) public oversight for big energy and mining projects, capping the timeline for federal reviews and ceding more regulatory oversight to the provinces. The "Responsible [sic] Resource Development" plan would impose a 45-day limit to decide whether federal environmental review is necessary after a new project is announced, and then limit such reviews to two years. The number of agencies allowed to participate in such reviews—now numbering 40—would be limited to three: the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, the National Energy Board and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. It would also allow the provinces to conduct such reviews in place of these agencies, if they meet the standards of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. Resources Minister Joe Oliver made clear that an intended beneficiary of the reform is Enbridge Inc's proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, which would ship oil from Alberta's tar sands fields to Canada's West Coast—and has been meeting stiff opposition from environmentalists and First Nations in British Columbia. (Dow Jones, CTV, April 17)

On March 29 the AFL-CIO, the main US labor federation, joined with two Honduran union federations to file a petition with the US Department of Labor's Public Office of Trade and Labor Affairs (OTLA) asking the US to push the Honduran government to address labor violations. Evangelina Argueta Chinchilla, representing Honduras' General Workers Central (CGT), and Francisco Joel López Mejía, deputy general secretary of the smaller Independent Federation of Workers of Honduras (FITH), traveled to Washington to file the petition.