Sudanese security forces are searching for nine Chinese oil workers kidnapped in Southern Kordofan on Oct. 19. The men were working for the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) at an oilfield run by the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC), a consortium of four oil companies from China, India, Malaysia and Sudan. It produces more than 300,000 barrels of crude per day. The government initially blamed the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), a Darfur rebel group. Chinese diplomats, however, said the captors were probably local tribesmen.

Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), co-chair of the House Bipartisan Task Force on Non-proliferation and a vocal opponent of the recently approved US-India nuclear deal, held President Bush responsible for undermining international arms control efforts. "By destroying the nuclear rules for India, President Bush has weakened the rules for everyone else. Pakistan and China will be the first, but almost certainly not the last, to take advantage of this weakened system," Markey said in reaction to reports that Islamabad will seek nuclear technology from Beijing.

A week after the close of the Third Plenary Session of the 17th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing, officials announced Oct. 19 that new rules have been issued allowing China's 800 million farmers to "lease their contracted farmland or transfer their land use right." The long-anticipated reform is officially intended to double rural incomes by 2020, the official news agency Xinhua reports. The reform is portrayed in the Western media as a response to the growing tide of peasant unrest in China. But Xinhua also made clear the ultimate aim is actually a de-emphasis of agriculture. "This breakthrough is necessary," said Xu Xianglin, an economics professor at the Party School of the Central Committee. "It meets the need of industrialization and urbanization in the current stage."

In response to Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz in the event of a military attack, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is planing to build an inland canal to bring Persian Gulf oil to world markets. "Our oil revenues will be jeopardized if we don't find an alternative to using the Hormuz Strait for exporting oil," Dubai Chief of Police Lt.-Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim told the UAE daily Gulf News. The canal, passing through the northern emirate of Ras Al-Kheima, would be big enough to accommodate super-tankers.

A gas pipeline owned by EnCana near Tomslake in northern British Columbia was bombed for a second time in a week Oct. 16. Neither that explosion nor the earlier one on Oct. 11 significantly damaged the pipeline, which carries sour gas, natural gas that contains toxic hydrogen sulfide. The second blast created a small leak and forced a shutdown of the pipeline. Last week, news organizations in the region received anonymous letters demanding that local oil and gas projects be shut down.

No more paras in Colombia?On Oct. 15, a group calling itself the Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia (AGC) shut down the entire region of Urabá, ordering all businesses from Mutata to Necoclí to close, and prohibiting transportation between these communities. This is the zona bananera, the focus of a US court case against Chiquita Brands, and for the last ten years one of the strongholds of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC).

Since Oct. 12, indigenous and other social organizations in southwestern Colombia have been protesting the militarization of their lands, the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, and the failure of the government of President Alvaro Uribe to comply with agreements relating to indigenous land, education, and healthcare. [Minga de Resistencia Social y Comunitaria, ONIC, Oct. 14] Over 12,000 indigenous activists and other social justice activists are congregated on the Territory of Peace and Coexistence in La Maria Piendamo, in Cauca, resisting the hostile and massive presence of state security forces who have been ordered to remove them. On Oct. 13, the communities participating in the indigenous protest blocked a portion of the Pan American Highway in Cauca, in an act of civil disobedience meant to force the government to meet with them to discuss their demands.

From Human Rights Watch, Oct. 16:

The administration of President Álvaro Uribe is jeopardizing efforts to secure justice for crimes committed by paramilitaries and their accomplices in Colombia, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The 140-page report, "Breaking the Grip? Obstacles to Justice for Paramilitary Mafias in Colombia," assesses Colombia's progress toward investigating and breaking the influence of paramilitaries' mafia-like networks. It also describes government actions that pose serious obstacles to continued progress. The report is based on interviews with prosecutors and investigators, case files, witness testimony, and other material collected over the course of more than one year of research in Colombia.