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When Alvaro Noboa, Ecuador’s richest man, won enough votes during the October 15 first round of the presidential election to advance into the final runoff on November 26, rural and urban social movements throughout the Andean nation mobilized in a campaign against him. The prospect of the presidency falling into the hands of the Bonita banana magnate, notorious for the violent repression of workers’ attempts to unionize and even for the use of child labor on his plantations, sparked a nationwide mobilization by indigenous, environmental, youth, anti-militarist, and other social justice groups-not necessarily out of a belief in electoral politics, but in repudiation of Noboa’s neoliberal platform plans to establish free trade agreements with the United States. read more

Frozen, Like a Photograph: Injustice in Vietnam’s Central Highlands

Xaigon My December 21, 2006 Xaigon My

I am sitting before my uncle. His eyes rove over documents typed on an archaic machine with a wild menagerie of Vietnamese punctuation-- squiggles, dots, and tiny circles-scrawled in by hand with black ink. The thin onionskin paper of the documents crinkles audibly with the rise and fall of his breath. We are in a single-story, door-less box that serves as the local police station in Vietnam's Central Highlands, tucked into lushly green coffee plantations of the foothills that surround for miles.

Who’s confused about alternative medicine?

Robert Verkerk MSc DIC PhD December 20, 2006 Robert Verkerk MSc DIC PhD

Professor Edzard Ernst, the UK's first professor of complementary medicine, gets lots of exposure for his often overtly negative views on complementary medicine. He's become the media's favourite resource for a view on this controversial subject. Yesterday's report by Barbara Rowlands in the Daily Mail (Complementary medicines are useless and dangerous, says Britain's foremost expert, 12 December 2006) is par for the course.

Darfur: Do We Need More Facts?

Rene Wadlow December 19, 2006 Rene Wadlow

The UN Human Rights Council has decided to send a fact-finding mission of five "highly qualified persons" plus the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Sudan to make recommendations to the government of Sudan and the Darfur insurgencies. This is an important step to bring to an end a conflict which began in 2003 and is growing more destructive each day.

Save The Internet: Independence Day

FreePress, Matt Thompson December 18, 2006 FreePress, Matt Thompson

Video: With the 109th Congress now over, the telecom bill HR 5252 has now been defeated. We now have a historic opportunity to take Internet Freedom to the next level in the new Congress. However, the companies are launching a counter attack in the New Year, taking the fight state by state instead. We need to raise the alarm now to protect neutrality nation-wide, and to campaign for a faster, more open and accessible Internet in 2007.

Thailand and Myanmar at Odds over Salween Dams

Will Baxter December 13, 2006 Will Baxter

Signaling a potentially momentous change in its foreign policy toward Myanmar, Thailand's new Energy Minister Piyasvasti Amranand has said he intends to reassess, and possibly abandon, the previous Thai government's controversial joint-plans with Myanmar's military junta to build five hydroelectric dams along the Salween River. More recently, Thailand's new Foreign Minister Nitya Pibulsonggram echoed those sentiments, telling news reporters in Bangkok that Thailand's 'cosy' commercial relationship with Myanmar is at an end. However, Nitya went on to say, "Some of the discussions relating to energy cooperation probably will continue," though he declined to give further details.