On Jan. 21 the Colombian Attorney General's Office reported that Julio César Ardila Torres, the former mayor of Barrancabermeja, Santander department, had been found guilty of ordering the April 6, 2003 murder of local journalist José Emeterio Rivas. Judge Nelly Vallejo Aranda sentenced Ardila to 28 years and eight months in prison and ordered him to pay a fine of 1.192 billion pesos (about $530,000). The court also convicted two former municipal employees, Fabio Pajon Lizcano and Abelardo Rueda Tobon, and sentenced them to 26 years and eight months.

On Jan. 23, the day after a massive La Paz rally in support of Bolivia's new constitution that goes to a popular vote on the 25th, President Evo Morales signed a decree nationalizing Chaco Petrolera Ltd. Oil Company. The president said employees at the company would keep their jobs, but the board of directors would be replaced. The company is managed by Anglo-Argentine Panamerican Energy, and is a subsidiary of the UK's BP. Morales flew to a natural gas field in central Bolivia to announce the nationalization, accompanied by soldiers who seized Chaco's installations.

Peru is seeking to double investments in energy and infrastructure this year, including a $1 billion natural-gas pipeline. The government is targeting $2.3 billion from foreign and domestic firms, up from $1.1 billion in 2008, said Luís Carlos Rodríguez, director of Proinversion, the state agency that seeks private investment. The investments would be earmarked for power lines, ports, railways, roads and irrigation projects.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Jan. 23 praised US President Barack Obama only days after accusing him of "throwing stones" at Venezuela. "He is a man with good intentions; he has immediately eliminated Guantanamo prison, and that should be applauded," Chávez said in a televised speech. "I am very happy and the world is happy that this young president has arrived... [We] welcome the new government and we are filled with hope."

Two police officers were killed and four were seriously injured while evicting hundreds of peasant families from Bosque de Pómac nature preserve in northern Peru's Lambayeque region Jan. 20. Authorities said the peasants had been illegally occupying the reserve for more than a year, but advocates for the evicted families said many had been fraudulently been sold lands within the reserve and believed that they held legal title.

On Jan. 20, nation-wide protests over large-scale metal mining called by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) brought out some 12,000 people from indigenous, campesino, environmentalist and human rights organizations across eleven provinces of the small Andean nation. Although large-scale metal exploration has been ongoing since the early '90s, no project has yet reached production. Mining activities are currently suspended until a new law is passed.

Peruvian agricultural producers ended three days of mobilizations on Jan. 17 after Enrique Málaga, president of the National Users Council of the Irrigation Districts of Peru (JNUDRP), met with Prime Minister Yehude Simón and Agriculture Minister Carlos Leyton. "The strike has been suspended in consideration of our having reached an agreement for approval of the General Law of Water, which we were demanding," Málaga told the media. "This law is going to be promulgated next week." Málaga indicated that the agreement also included the formation of a commission for the solution of small agricultural producers' debt problems. (24 Horas Libre, Peru, Jan. 17; Univision, Jan. 17 from AFP)

Brazil agreed Jan. 15 to provide assistance to Bolivia to combat drug trafficking, taking up slack following the ouster of the US DEA from the Andean country last year. Meeting in the vast wetlands along the Bolivia-Brazil border, Brazil's President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva said he would grant Bolivian leader Evo Morales' request for helicopters and other support to patrol the porous frontier that is a major cocaine-trafficking route from the Andes. "I want us to fight drugs together," said Morales.