Ecuador // Current TV

Ecuador army rescues captive President Rafael Correa

Soldiers in Ecuador have rescued President Rafael Correa from a police hospital after... more

GoldenHeart
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Coup in Ecuador

Police and Military are revolting against President Rafael Correa.

joshuaheller
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36 MUERTOS EN ECUADOR! Bus Crash in Ecuador 36 Dead

A bus ran off a highway and overturned on Sunday, killing at least 36 people,... more

eduardoquezada
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Why You Should Quit Your Job and Leave the Country

Quitting your job may seem insane in this economy, but the truth is that finding work... more

Mulcahey
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BP Gulf gusher endemic to global oil problems

The deepwater blowout is fouling marshes and beaches in four states and laying waste to fisheries that employ thousands. The disaster also is confounding the U.S. government’s technical capacity to plug the leak, and setting new measures for calculating and collecting monetary damages.

Most importantly for the global environment, though, is that the BP PLC spill is just one of a growing number of environmental oil-related calamities that are scarring the earth, polluting the water, and threatening the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. Almost every continent is affected:

War on Water: Oil, Power and Poverty in the Niger Delta

After almost one year of a relative ceasefire, a clash between an aggressive guerrilla militia and the military has resumed this month in the Niger Delta over control of Nigeria’s oil revenues, thought to be hoarded by the wealthy and the southern region’s government.

Royal Shell Co., the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and Chevron all have stakes in the region’s lucrative resource, which as recently as 2008 produced 2.1 million barrels per day.

The river and streams serve as the primary fighting ground for control of Nigerian oil reserves, estimated at 36.22 billion barrels. Rebels are blowing up pipelines, destroying equipment and ransoming oil workers as a way of protesting the corruption. The attacks have unleashed a new torrent of leaking oil, adding to the accumulation of oil-related environmental damage over the years. The series of canals and tributaries that cross the Niger Delta have been completely devastated by petroleum pollution since oil was discovered in 1956.

The Nigerian Federal Ministry of the Environment says that anywhere from 9 million to 13 million barrels (380-550 million gallons) have spilled each year during the history of oil production in the Niger Delta—the equivalent in size of the U.S. Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, but occurring annually for the last five decades. Meanwhile the United Nations estimates that nearly 7000 spills occurred between 1976 and 2001–half of which were due to corrosion of pipelines and storage tanks, while 28 percent were caused by sabotage.

Tens of thousands of residents were forced to evacuate the region last year, left to wade through the world’s third largest wetland in search of safer homes. Their lives are endangered not only by the fighting, but also by the toxins, industrial wastes and oil-slicks that are poisoning their drinking water as well as contaminating their fish.

“There are no heroes in this fight,” Ed Kashi, photographer of Curse of the Black Gold: 50 years of Oil in the Niger Delta, told Circle of Blue in May 2009. “It is the equivalent of gang warfare over turf and control, and instead of crack cocaine it’s oil, and instead of being on the main streets of a city, it’s out on rivers and creeks on small boats.”

Water Pollution in Ecuador’s Amazon Rainforest Drilling Zone

After 17 years of waiting for a court decision, more than 30,000 rainforest dwellers in Ecuador continue to hang in limbo. The community has taken on one of the largest companies in the world, Chevron, for allegedly having polluted nearly 2000 square miles of the Ecuadorian Amazon—an area the size of Rhode Island—turning the lush vegetation into a cancer death-zone.
cont.The deepwater blowout is fouling marshes and beaches in four states and laying waste... more

JanforGore
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VIDEO Chevron Tries to Restrict 1st Amendment Rights of "Crude" Documentary Filmmaker

The ongoing saga of the class action lawsuit, Aguinda v. Chevron, originally filed in 1993 by the people of Ecuador whose rainforest land had been contaminated by oil production practices, and documented on film by Joe Berlinger in "Crude," has taken a new turn. Chevron's latest diversionary and delaying tactic is to engage in a widespread and unprecedented legal assault on the First Amendment in their attempt to force Berlinger, the celebrated independent documentarian, to turn over more than 600 hours of private film outtakes from "Crude."

Chevron's legal tactic has attracted widespread criticism from prominent individuals across the media community, including actor and filmmaker Robert Redford, journalist Bill Moyers, bestselling author John Perkins, documentarians Michael Moore and Ric Burns, the Director's Guild of America, the Writer's Guild of America, and others.

Virtually every major U.S. media outlet, including the NY Times, LA Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, Associated Press, Dow Jones, HBO, and others have opposed Chevron's action in court.

This latest action by Chevron is part of a worldwide, desperate litigation campaign by the oil giant to escape liability for what is thought to be the world's worst oil-related environmental catastrophe. The extent of the contamination is almost unfathomable - by Chevron's own admission they dumped at least 15.8 billion gallons of toxic 'produced water' in the region, and their own audits indicate that the number may actually be much higher - more than 18.5 billion gallons.

Of the 18.5 billion gallons of toxins, at least 345 million gallons of it was pure crude oil. To put this in perspective, as of June 15, 2010, U.S. government estimates have indicated that the BP spill in the Gulf has spilled somewhere between 73 and 126 million gallons of oil. At least the BP spill was not intentional. By contrast, Chevron's dumping was, by the company's own admission, a deliberate production decision to maximize profits. According to experts, a saving of approximately $1-3 per barrel of oil was achieved by dumping the toxins rather than disposing of them properly.

The end result of this has been incredible devastation of a formerly pristine section of Ecuador's Amazon rainforest. Though Chevron no longer operates in the area (having ceased Ecuadorian drilling operations in 1990), the pollution still remains.

The people living in that region do not have widespread running water or plumbing, and have had no access to water that has not been polluted by the oil operations for nearly four decades. I have seen firsthand the reality of the aftermath of Chevron's actions in Ecuador. I have seen some of the unlined, unfenced waste pits that Chevron left behind. I have met many people there who have lost their parents, their children, and who are losing heir own lives. The area is besieged with oil-related illnesses; families are plagued with extremely elevated levels of childhood leukemia, spontaneous abortions, birth defects, and other serious oil-related health impacts. Experts have estimated that at least 1,400 people have died needlessly from oil-related sicknesses due to the illegal dumping.

In 1993, the people in the region brought a lawsuit against the oil giant to force the company to clean-up the damage it caused on their land. An independent court-expert has estimated that the damage caused in the region could cost as much as $27.3 billion to clean up. However, even that amount will be insufficient to return the people to the lifestyles they knew before the Chevron showed up.

Small wonder Chevron are running scared. Without taking sides in the lawsuit itself, the enormous legal liability tied to all of these harms provides the context for why Chevron is so aggressively attacking its critics across the world.

Chevron has one animating principle in their attacks on Joe Berlinger, the Ecuadorean people, and anyone attempting to hold the company responsible for the pollution it left behind in Ecuador: to find some way of eliminating the legal liability to protect the company's bottom line.

But the time has come for Chevron to stop its attacks, and to stop trying to evade its responsibilities. The company should cease its futile attempts to force documentarians and journalists to open up their files to the company's lawyers, and instead focus on the essential issue: how they will remediate the damage it caused in Ecuador to the 30,000 affected people and their land.

http://www.crudethemovie.com/The ongoing saga of the class action lawsuit, Aguinda v. Chevron, originally filed in... more

captainplanet71
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Ecuador: DEA seize submarine quantum leap for narcos

“It is the first fully functional, completely submersible submarine for... more

Flare_Network
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2 years ago
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The Galapagos Islands: On the continuing extinction of species

Humans left their mark on the Galapagos even before Darwin turned up. Whalers... more

ampersand
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travelindave in Banos Ecuador bartering 2009

travelindave hooks up a deal getting lots of avocados for free from a local living in... more

travelindave
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3 years ago
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travelindave;s tour in ecuador and columbia 2009

travelindave norwoods touring ecuador and columbia to show it is safe fun and a... more

travelindave
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3 years ago
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WTF: Andean Meme supergroup sings for Israel

This video is crazy, and I'll guarantee it's the best video you'll see... more

joshuaheller
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3 years ago
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Bolivia Climate Summit, April 19-22: US Slaps Bolivia and Ecuador slicing millions of dollars in climate change funds

US Slaps Bolivia and Ecuador, the World is Watching Corporate vampire nations running... more

twohawks
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Struggle over water rights in Andes

Indigenous leader spearheads protests in Quito against privatization of water rights... more

PROJECTAMAZONIA
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Save the Amazon Forest today

For all those curious on how they can save the Amazon forest and its people, a visit... more

transreporter
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3 years ago
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Happy Outer Space

I was using the internet today, and there was all this talk about outer space.... more

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3 years ago
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around the blogs: the united nations are embedded in crude iphone festivals and dictators

News Over on the Current News blog, Andrew took a look at setback for MILF rebels in... more

mario_a
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3 years ago
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Project Censored: The news that didn't make the news

Fellow Bay Area journalists Project Censored have just released their annual book of "The News That Didn't Make the News": stories that weren't reported on, were misrepresented or were underreported by the mainstream media. The program teams college students and journalists to do in-depth investigative reporting projects.
Between 700 and 1000 stories are submitted to Project Censored each year from journalists, scholars, librarians, and concerned citizens around the world. With the help of more than 200 Sonoma State University faculty, students, and community members, Project Censored reviews the story submissions for coverage, content, reliability of sources and national significance. The university community selects 25 stories to submit to the Project Censored panel of judges who then rank them in order of importance. Current or previous national judges include: Noam Chomsky, Susan Faludi, George Gerbner, Sut Jhally, Frances Moore Lappe, Michael Parenti, Herbert I. Schiller, Barbara Seaman, Erna Smith, Mike Wallace and Howard Zinn. All 25 stories are featured in the yearbook, Censored: The News That Didn’t Make the News.
The list makes for great reading, but here are a few highlights.

2. US Schools are More Segregated Today than in the 1950s
In Latino and African American populations, two of every five students attend intensely segregated schools. For Latinos this increase in segregation reflects growing residential segregation. For blacks a significant part of the reversal reflects the ending of desegregation plans in public schools throughout the nation.
10. Ecuador Declares Foreign Debt Illegitimate
In November 2008, Ecuador became the first country to undertake an examination of the legitimacy and structure of its foreign debt. An independent debt audit commissioned by the government of Ecuador documented hundreds of allegations of irregularity, illegality, and illegitimacy in contracts of debt to predatory international lenders. The loans, according to the report, violated Ecuador’s domestic laws, US Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, and general principles of international law. Ecuador’s use of legitimacy as a legal argument for defaulting set a major precedent; indeed, the formation of a debt auditing commission sets a precedent.
21. Recession Causes States to Cut Welfare
Many states are in the midst of an aggressive action to push thousands of eligible mothers off Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), traditionally known as welfare. Families are being denied aid so that savings can be redirected in state budgets.
Part of our mission here at Current is to highlight and uncover untold or little-told stories as well. So, as always, if there are any stories you don't think are getting the coverage they deserve, let us know.

Some underreported stories we've covered:
- From Russia With Hate: Vanguard's award-winning look at the rise of neo-Nazis in Russia
- China's Wild West: Laura Ling covers the Uighurs in Xinjiang Province, ChinaFellow Bay Area journalists Project Censored have just released their annual book of... more

afitzgerald
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The Amazon vs. Chevron - An indigenous plea and a toxic legacy

Priscilla Queen of the Dessert, the bio-diesel bus, is whizzing down the freeway in the drizzle. About 20 activists in sopping fleece jackets sit inside on lumpy cushion seats that have probably carried protesters since the late 1960s. It’s about 7:30 a.m. and they sip coffee, pass around dried mango slices and sign over-sized cardboard petitions that, in a few hours, will hit the desks of Chevron’s top executives. Emergildo Criolo, who sits shoulder-to-shoulder with activists from Rainforest Action Network and Amazon Watch, has been up for three hours.
Criolo is an indigenous man visiting California from Ecuador's rainforest. He woke early to dress in his tradional Cofan garb and to paint his face with customary red markings. Then he sat and thought about his responsibility representing four Amazonian tribes. “I wanted to think about what we were going to do and make sure I was in the right head space,” Criollo says through a translator. He says oil drilling in Ecuador’s rainforest from 1964 to 1992 killed two of his sons and nearly took his wife.
Partnered with an Ecuadorean oil company called Petroecuador, Texaco left 17 million gallons of crude oil spills, 917 unlined crude pits and dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic waste, according to ChevronToxico, an environmental campaign for justice in Ecuador. Over the years, Texaco and Petroecuador produced about 1.7 billion barrels of oil. When Chevron bought Texaco in 2001, the company inherited the burden of tens of thousands of Ecuadorians claiming their water supplies are poisoned and more than 1,400 of their people dead because of the oil mess.
Today Criollo is going to the home of Chevron’s new CEO John Watson to deliver a petition with over 325,000 signatures of people from 150 countries urging Chevron to clean up the oil giant’s toxic legacy. John Watson took over the position at the beginning of this year. As part of his new job, Watson must also deal with the largest environmental lawsuit in the company's history. Thirty-five thousand Ecuadorans filed a $27.3 billion lawsuit against Chevron, but the oil company begrudgingly disputes this as a corrupt figure. Chevron recently produced information showing that, "the author of a report recommending that Chevron be ordered to pay $27 billion in damages is the majority owner of an oilfield remediation company that stands to gain financially from a judgment against Chevron."
“It’s been 16 years of legal process,” Criollo told San Francisco Chronicle. “People are still dying. They’re sick. So we’re really hoping this new CEO takes a new position.” Criollo exits the bus in Lafayette, CA and makes his way to the intersection of Deer Hill and Happy Valley Roads for a photo opportunity. A videographer from Rainforest Action Network and members of the press photograph a stoic yet unassuming Criollo as he stands in a cotton shirt and pants at the signpost in the light rain. The documentation is important so that Criollo’s people can witness his actions, one activist explains. But, critics argue these types of “camera-friendly” events are more stage shows than substance.
A swarm of activists and the press follow Criollo as he walks for about a mile over the wet road to deliver his message to Watson’s home. He rings the intercom doorbell at the CEO’s front gate. He stands for 15 minutes at the front gate, telling the intercom system of the havoc Chevron wrecked on his home.
To little surprise, Watson doesn’t invite Criollo in for a cup of coffee. By the time Criollo leaves a few voice messages, two cop cars speed onto Watson’s property and politely tell the group to leave.
Criollo was six years old when Texaco came to Ecuador. “They arrived in these big helicopters that looked like big birds,” he says. “We hid because we didn’t know what they were.” About three months later, young Criollo remembers walking into a Texaco worker’s camp while selling jewelry. He greeted the American senior oil executives and the oil drillers. They responded by lifting the flap of the traditional wrapping he wore around his waist in order to check his gender. From then on, Criollo gave up dressing in the customary garment and started wearing pants. This was his first encounter with the oil giants.
It’s approaching 10:00 a.m. and Priscilla is loaded up again and driving the few miles to Chevron’s headquarters in San Ramon, CA. Han Shan of Amazon Watch says he’s proud of the people on the bus. “I’m inspired by people like Emergildo and those from Ecuador’s rainforest who’ve sounded the alarm to ask for solidarity from us,” he says. “We’re trying to build a grassroots movement of support for something that ultimately rippled out of California,” Shan says of America’s responsibility in outsourcing oil drilling. “We need to take responsibility for this California company.”
By quarter after ten, everyone’s lining up in Priscilla’s center aisle to exit the bus. Armed with a loud speaker and big colorful photographs of Ecuadorans impacted in their oil-saturated rainforest, the activists are ready to take on Chevron.
Criollo, his interpreter Mario Ramos and Mitch Anderson from Amazon Watch are the last to get off the bus and they make their way to Chevron’s entry kiosk. Chevron has been expecting the group. Through the glass, the security guards are busy making phone calls and lots of exaggerated gesticulation.
Only Criollo and the two others are allowed into the headquarters' main building to talk with top officials. Security keeps everyone else outside. Meanwhile, the activists form a semi-circle on a grassy patch in front of the headquarters' entrance. They make cell phone calls to the executives inside, read off the names of petition signers and impacted Ecuadorean. Several belt their manifestos into the loudspeaker as passing cars honk in support.
Later, after returning from the trip inside, Mitch Anderson describes the Chevron executives’ “disingenuous” empathy during the meeting. After Criollo told his story, Anderson says Chevron said his problem was with Petroecuador and that Chevron had already cleaned up its portion of the mess “They won’t say Texaco did a bad job in Ecuador. Texaco was supposed to clean 40 percent of the spill because they owned 40 percent of the drilling operation. But they did a remedial job of covering oil with dirt.” Chevron didn’t respond to several requests for comment, but here is the section of their site that addresses their role in Ecuador and here is a video on Chevron's YouTube channel indicating a $3 million bribery scheme implicating the judge ruling over the lawsuit in Ecuador.
Summing up Chevron’s ethics and litigation strategy about the $27 billion environmental lawsuit, last May Chevron spokesman Donald Campbell told reporter John Otis that, if Chevron loses, they would appeal. “We’re going to fight this until hell freezes over,” he said. “And then we’ll fight it out on the ice.”
The lawsuit is playing out in an Ecuadoran court in Lago Agrio and the judge is expected to have a ruling by the end of the year. Priscilla Queen of the Dessert, the bio-diesel bus, is whizzing down... more

LilyBixler
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