The UK-based indigenous rights group Survival International on March 17 noted the 100th anniversary of an historic report submitted by Irish investigator Roger Casement finding that 30,000 Amazon Indians were enslaved, tortured, raped and starved in just 12 years during the rubber boom. Casement was sent by the British government to investigate crimes committed by British-registered rubber giant, the Peruvian Amazon Company. He found, "The crimes charged against many men now in the employ of the Peruvian Amazon Company are of the most atrocious kind, including murder, violation, and constant flogging." Agents of the company rounded up dozens of Indian tribes in the western Amazon to collect wild rubber for the European and American markets. In a few short decades many of the tribes were completely wiped out.

A spokesperson for the UK's Metropolitan Police Service last week confirmed the arrest of a 46-year-old Peruvian national on suspicion of crimes against humanity and torture. He is suspected of involvement with the Shining Path, a Maoist guerilla organization, believed to be responsible for the deaths of thousands in two decades of conflict in Peru. The man, whose name has yet to be released, was arrested on March 15 and is being held while police conduct searches of several addresses in the area linked to him. The man is the first to be arrested under the Coroners and Justice Act of 2009, which allows UK courts to hear cases of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by nonresidents between 1991 and 2001.

With global eyes fixed on the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, the Obama administration last week signed an accord with Chile to help the South American country develop a nuclear energy program. The accord focuses on training nuclear engineers, calling for cooperation in the areas of “operation and utilization of nuclear research reactors,” safety, radioactive waste management and scientific exchange. Chile’s Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno and US Ambassador Alejandro Wolff signed the accord March 14 days ahead of President Obama’s one-day visit to Chile.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster has not caused the Obama administration to rethink its commitment to "clean nuclear power." Obama’s 2012 budget calls for an additional $36 billion in loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants. "The administration’s energy priorities are based solely on how best to build a 21st century, clean energy economy," White House spokesman Clark Stevens said in a statement this week. "That policy is not about picking one energy source over another." Even as his administration has ordered a review of all US reactors, Obama last week called nuclear power an "important part" of his energy agenda.

Even as the world is gripped by the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, Russia announced it will build a reactor in neighboring Belarus—where large areas still remain closed off due to the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown. The Russian-designe plant is to be built near Ostrovets, just 50 miles from the capital city of European Union member Lithuania. The deal was announced March 15 at a meeting between Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk. Under the agreement, Russia's state-owned Atomstroyeksport will build the nuclear station, with the first reactor due to come on line in 2016 and as many as four more reactors operational by 2025.

Despite a temporary construction moratorium in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, China is still planning to move ahead with an ambitious thrust of nuclear development—with a new generation of supposedly meltdown-proof reactors. The technology in the works will be the "world’s first high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor," an official of the Huaneng Nuclear Power Development Co. told Bloomberg. The new Chinese reactor will not depend on external sources for cooling, but will instead use helium, an inert gas, in its cooling system, officials say. The reactor will be built to "withstand temperatures exceeding 1,600 degrees Celsius (2,912 degrees Fahrenheit) for several hundred hours without melting down," according to the China Business News.

Power was restored to the control room of the No. 3 reactor at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant late March 22, and the Tokyo Electric Power Co. plans to try to restart the cooling pumps. Engineers are now trying to reactivate monitoring systems, such as those measuring temperatures of the spent fuel rods. At unit No. 4, a construction vehicle designed to pour concrete for high rises is being used to pump water into the reactor building. International Atomic Energy Agency director general, Yukiya Amano, speaking from Vienna, noted "positive developments," while warning: "The crisis has still not been resolved and the situation at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant remains very serious," with "high levels" of radiation measured around the plant. (USA Today, NHK World, NYT, March 22) Hours after the announcement that power had been restored, TEPCO, said black smoke was rising from the No. 3 reactor building. The smoke gradually cleared after about an house, and TEPCO said that the radiation level at plant gate, one kilometer west of the No. 3 reactor, was unchanged at 265.1 micro-sieverts per hour. Gray smoke was seen rising from the same reactor building the previous day. (NHK World, March 23)

Yemen's Parliament enacted several emergency measures March 23 at the request of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in an effort to end anti-government protests. The new laws give the government greater power to arrest and detain protesters and to censor the media. The new laws follow Saleh's declaration last week of a 30-day state of emergency. The measure passed easily as many minority party members of the 301-seat parliament did not attend the session. Saleh warned that Yemen could face a civil war after opposition leaders rejected his offer to step down by the end of this year. The emergency laws expire in 30 days. despite an appeal from youths at the forefront of anti-regime protests that it could lead to a new "massacre." (Jurist, March 23)