In a dramatic show of force, more than 3,500 Honduran campesino families occupied land in estates in different parts of the country early in the morning of April 17 to demand implementation of an effective national agrarian reform policy. The mobilization, the Honduran activity for the International Day of Campesino Struggles, was organized by a coalition of 10 campesino groups, including the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA) and the Honduran branch of the international rural workers' movement Vía Campesina. In a statement issued on April 17, the organizers said protesters had occupied a total of 12,000 hectares in eight of the country's 18 departments: Cortés, Yoro, Santa Bárbara, Intibucá, El Paraíso, Choluteca, Comayagua, and Francisco Morazán.

Campesino groups around the world planned more than 250 activities to mark the International Day of Campesino Struggles on April 17, according to the international rural workers movement Vía Campesina. The day of action—which was announced at the International Campesino Conference held in Mali last Nov. 14-17—was intended to bring attention to the need for carrying out agrarian reform, for stopping the concentration of land in the hands of wealthy landowners, and for maintaining agricultural production based on campesino farming and the principles of food sovereignty. A special focus this year was to be opposition to monoculture for export and to the production of bio-fuel crops.

UN Special Rapporteur on Rights of Indigenous Peoples James Anaya will visit the United States from April 23 to May 4 to launch the UN's first ever investigation into the rights situation of Native Americans. Anaya will be looking into the rights of Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians, and meeting with government officials throughout the nation. One main goal of his investigation is to determine how the Unites States' endorsement of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in December 2010 has affected the rights of these groups, and what improvements may still be needed. Anaya will report his findings and make recommendations to US federal and state officials during his trip.

President Ollanta Humala spoke April 20 on the new "expert review" of the controversial Conga gold mine project proposed for Peru's northern Cajamarca region, assuring local residents that they would be ensured an ample water supply. Echoing recommendations of the report, Humala said two high mountain lakes slated to be destroyed by the project—known as Azul and Chica—should not be drained and filled with mine waste. He added that his government will spend about $1.8 billion on infrastructure in Cajamarca. Minera Yanacocha, owner of the Minas Conga project, said it will seek technical "alternatives" in order to allow work to resume on the stalled $4.8 billion project. The company said in a statement: "The report by the international experts has ratified unquestionably the environmental impact study, or EIA, approved by the Peruvian government in October, 2010. While the experts have proven that the EIA meets with national and international standards, we recognize that every study can be improved." (AP, April 21; Dow Jones, April 20)

Laid-off workers from the Doe Run Peru metal smelting complex—closed due to toxic pollution—held a protest in front of the Labor Ministry in Lima April 19 to demand that Peru's government save their jobs by allowing the plant to re-open. The rally came in response to a decision April 11 by the smelter's creditors—including the Peruvian state, due to numerous unpaid fines—to reject a restructuring plan from Doe Run Peru, a unit of Missouri-based Renco Group, casting doubt on the future of the idled complex at La Oroya, in Junín region. Once one of the largest smelters in Peru, it has been shut since 2009 due to insolvency and a stalled environmental clean-up plan. A May 1 deadline for the company to come up with an acceptable clean-up plan—officially dubbed the Environmental Adjustment and Management Program (PAMA)—has been pushed back to June by the Ministry of Energy and Mines. But the case is now mired in multiple lawsuits—and the local community at La Oroya is bitterly divided.

See, this is the problem with movies like Avatar (and V for Vendetta and Rise of the Planet of the Apes and The Matrix and—much to this particular point—Total Recall). Avatar creator James Cameron was just recently in the Amazon, grandstanding against construction of the Belo Monte dam (a cause we of course support). Now the Wall Street Journal informs us that Cameron, along with Google heavies Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, is among the "investor and advisor group" of Planetary Resources Inc—which aims to start mining the asteroids. No, this isn't a joke. The company's press release boasts the scheme will "overlay two critical sectors—space exploration and natural resources—to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP" and "help ensure humanity's prosperity." Speaking to Forbes in less politically correct terms, company co-founder Peter Diamandis openly said, "I'm trying to start a gold rush." The idea being that "greed" is the "only way it's going to happen irrevocably."

It is a sign of just how far things have deteriorated in Mali that weeks after Tuareg rebels seized the northern half of the country—with its precious uranium deposits—no move has been made by the central government to try to take it back. What happened to the multinational intervention that was supposedly being planned? Some possible explanations for the delay: 1. They are waiting for the French elections to be over with, and to see if Paris will be as eager for military action after Sarkozy's now seemingly inevitable defeat; 2. They are waiting for the MNLA to consolidate greater control of the territory, sparing the central government, France and ECOWAS the trouble of putting down the Islamists; 3. The central government doesn't really exist.

UN agencies in the occupied West Bank said April 22 that Israel last week destroyed 21 homes of Palestinian Bedouin refugees—leaving 54 people homeless, including 35 children. A joint statement from the refugee agency UNRWA and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs condemned the April 18 demolition of the structures at Khalayleh north of Jerusalem, along with the removal the same day of refugees from two houses in East Jerusalem's Beit Hanina neighborhood. Ma'an News Agency reported that Jewish settlers moved into the homes the same day. A day later, Israeli forces demolished and confiscated emergency tents provided to the evicted Khalayleh families by humanitarian organizations, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the UN Relief and Works Agency said in a joint statement.