The Chinese firm Camc Engineering (CAMCE) was awarded the contract to build a major oil facility on Nicaragua's Pacific coast—a key project of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA). The contact was announced in a Managua press conference April 27 by representatives of CAMCE and ALBA Nicaragua SA (ALBANISA). The complex to be built at Miramar outside Puerto Sandino, León department, is a centerpiece of the Venezuela-led ALBA, but has languished since being first announced in 2007. The facility will have a storing capacity of 1.8 million barrels of oil, and a processing capacity of 150,000 daily barrels. In addition to a refinery, it will include 15 tanks for fuel oil, diesel, jet-al (aviation fuel), gasoline and liquid gas. It is projected to double Nicaragua's oil intake capacity, as well as supplying other Central American nations. Venezuelan engineers will help oversee construction. (Inside Costa Rica, April 28; La Voz de Sandinismo, April 26; Downstream Today, Oct. 25, 2011)

Plans by Anglo-French oil and gas company Perenco to exploit oil deposits slated to transform Peru's economy have been slammed as a "1970s-era" project and forecast to cause huge unnecessary environmental damage to the Amazon. "The proposed 200 km long pipeline will have a 25 metre cleared right-of-way, big enough for a superhighway. There’ll be a permanent road along the entire length," says Bill Powers, chief engineer at US consultancy E-Tech International, speaking after the April 4 publication of a report he authored on oil industry best practices. "Perenco is following a 1970s-era project design format that is totally inappropriate for the Peruvian Amazon," says Powers, an expert on Peru. "The company is not proposing to use current technology to reduce impact."

Peru announced April 26 that it will implement its own climate change initiative, in light of the continued absence of an international treaty. While Peru is the source of only some 0.4% of the world's carbon emissions, it may be especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The government says the country is experiencing disturbing climactic changes. "If we don't do something we will have problems with water supplies along the coasts, we know there will be more droughts, more rains," said Mariano Felipe Soldán, , head of the government's strategic planning office. "We are already seeing temperature changes." A glacier on Peru's Huaytapallana peak (Junín region) is half the size it was just 23 years ago. A 2009 World Bank report warned that Andean glaciers could disappear in 20 years if no action is taken to slow climate change.* They are already reduced by 22%, resulting in 12% less fresh water reaching the coast—where the majority of Andean region's people live.

The Lima tabloid Perú21 April 25 airs claims that northern Peru's Cajamarca region—site of the civil struggle against the US-owned Conga gold mine project—is a "new center of cocaine production." Without giving his credentials, the newspaper cites "expert in themes of narcotrafficking" Jaime Antezana to the effect that Cajamarca's province of Celendín has emerged as a key coca leaf production zone, replete with labs for processing the leaf into paste. The neighboring province of Hualgayoc, and especially its capital Bambamarca, is identified as the trans-shipment point over the Andes towards the Pacific, and local center of money-laundering. The paper says this intelligence has been "confirmed" by National Police Anti-Drug Directorate (DIRANDRO) and the official coca eradication agency, the Special Project for Control and Reduction of Coca Cultivation (CORAH).

Cambodia's most outspoken voice against illegal logging was shot dead April 27 while escorting journalists near a protected forest in Koh Kong (Kaoh Kong) province, where he has repeatedly attempted to expose outlaw timber rackets that include military officials. Chut Wutty, director of the Natural Resource Protection Group, was killed after military police apprehended him at Veal Bei in Mondul Seima district—reportedly on behalf of a logging company that asked the officers to stop him from shooting photos of their operations. When Wutty refused orders to put down his camera, a solider opened fire with his AK-47. The solider then turned the gun on himself, committing suicide on the spot, authorities said.

Following Burma's democratic opening, with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) to take seats in parliament, India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is set to visit the country—the first visit by an Indian leader in 25 years. But India and Burma have been quietly cooperating on the Tamanthi and Shwezaye power projects on Burma's Chindwin River. The projects have been thrown into question following last year's cancellation of the Myitsone hydro project on Burma's Irrawaddy River, which was similarly backed by China, and would have mostly supplied electricity to the Chinese grid. The cancellation came after an activist struggle by local tribal peoples that would have been impacted by the project. (Indrus, April 23) The Tamanthi project is emerging as an obstacle to winning peace with the Naga, a people whose homeland is bisected by the India-Burma border, and have for decades waged an insurgency for independence from both countries.

Blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng on April 27 succeeded in escaping from house arrest, under which had been held since September 2010 at his hometown in a rural area of China's Shandong province. From an unknown location, he issued a YouTube appeal to Premier Wen Jiabao, making three demands: that authorities investigate and punish those responsible for threats and violence against his family; that the security of his family be ensured; and a general crackdown on corruption.

Thirty-three were arrested April 22 by Onondaga County sheriff's deputies for protesting at upstate New York's Hancock Field air base over the use of unmanned drones in Afghanistan. The Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones brought together activists from Veterans for Peace, Occupy Buffalo, the Western New York Peace Center and other groups for the protest. Activists planned to deliver a "war crimes indictment" to base personnel, but were "pre-emptively" arrested as they approached the base.