The dust is being blown off one of the more bizarre schemes to emerge from Washington's so-called "War on Drugs"—which is really a war on plants, on biotic life. Jeremy Bigwood writes for In These Times, June 6:

On April 16, the New York Times ran a full-page ad from contact lens producer Bausch and Lomb, announcing the recall of its "ReNu with MoistureLoc" rewetting solution, and warning the 30 million American wearers of soft contact lenses about Fusarium keratitis. This infection, first detected in Asia, has rapidly spread across the United States. It is caused by a mold-like fungus that can penetrate the cornea of soft contact lens wearers, causing redness and pain that can lead to blindness—requiring a corneal replacement.

Violent student protests in the historic town of Merida in Venezuela's high Andes seem to have accrued little international coverage. This very opinionated account from the very pro-Chavez Venezuela News Bulletin, May 31:

Riots and 'guarimbas' are running wild in southwestern Merida State, led by the delinquent student leader, United States CIA and "opposition" stooge Nixon Moreno.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

Some 5,000 people marched in Quito on May 9 to demand that the government cancel its contract with the US oil company Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) within 15 days, and end all negotiations on the Andean Free Trade Agreement which the US is promoting with Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. Most of the marchers came from Ecuador's Amazon region and were also demanding approval of a law that would increase oil revenues to the six Amazon provinces by $0.50 per barrel. A group of about 100 protesters broke through police lines at the Carondelet presidential palace and tried to sing the national anthem in front of Independence Monument. But 300 riot police agents attacked the group, shoving journalists and spraying several protesters with some kind of colored liquid tear gas. (El Diario- La Prensa, NY, May 10 from EFE; Altercom, May 9)

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On May 1, in a ceremony at the San Alberto oilfield in Carapari, Tarija department, Bolivian president Evo Morales Ayma signed supreme decree 28.701, ordering the nationalization of the country's hydrocarbons resources. "The looting is over," Morales announced as he ordered the armed forces to seize control of all the oil and gas fields. With the decree, the Bolivian state "recovers the property, possession and total and absolute control of these resources," said Morales. Foreign companies now have six months to renegotiate their oil and gas contracts with the government; in the meantime they must give up control of their facilities and channel all sales through the newly refounded state oil company, Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB). Morales also ordered the confiscation of the shares necessary to guarantee more than 50% state control of the oil companies operating in Bolivia. (Resumen Latinoamericano, May 1; New York Times, May 2)

A "Secret Formula" Against Colombia's Guerillas?

by Paul Wolf

The US State Department has developed the secret formula to dismantle the armed groups of Colombia's war. Or so it believes. It is believed that the demobilization of 28,000 members of the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) was the result of threatening its leaders—notably Salvadore Mancuso and Don Berna—with extradition to the US.

Fear of extradition, accompanied by promises of amnesty, convinced large numbers of paramilitaries to lay down their arms, confess their crimes, and put their faith in the government to restore order in Colombia.

Bolivian Gas in State and Corporate Hands

by Benjamin Dangl

Years before the arrival of the Spanish, Bolivia's indigenous people used "magic water" to cure wounds and keep fires going. With the invention of the automobile in the 1880s this black liquid took on a new importance. Since then, the oil and gas has been more of a curse than a blessing for the Bolivian people. On May 1 of this year, the history of these resources entered a new phase.

Bolivian President Evo Morales announced that the oil and gas will be nationalized and put into the hands of the state-run oil and gas company, Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos, (YPFB). Though what this nationalization plan truly entails may not be known for weeks, the move raises the question: will state control of resources be more beneficial to the Bolivian people than corporate control?

Bolivia's Nationalization by Decree

by Gretchen Gordon

The smell of gas hangs strongly in the air as a crowd of flag-waving Bolivians celebrate outside the Petrobras Gualberto Villaroel oil and gas refinery. A state worker clad in a tan work suit and hardhat props a wooden ladder against the front wall of the refinery just beneath the blue metal letters that read PETROBRAS, and ascends the ladder as the crowd looks on.

He carries a laminated banner with the name "Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos," or YPFB, Bolivia's former state oil and gas company, essentially privatized in the mid-1990s through a process called "capitalization."

On May 19, four Mapuche rights activists resumed their open-ended hunger strike at the Hernan Enriquez hospital in Temuco, in southern Chile's Region IX (Araucania). Mapuche activists Juan Patricio Marileo Saravia, Florencio Jaime Marileo Saravia and Juan Carlos Huenulao Lienmil and non-Mapuche supporter Patricia Troncoso Robles began their fast on March 13 in Angol prison; they suspended it on May 14 in the Temuco jail after Chilean legislators promised to consider a bill to allow their supervised release. As part of the deal, the four prisoners were transferred from the Temuco jail to the hospital. The four are serving 10-year prison sentences imposed under the terms of a widely criticized anti-terrorism law.