In Forbes yesterday, New York lawyer Steven Donziger, consultant attorney for Ecuadorian plaintiffs in the suit against Chevron, criticizes my article, “Toxic Revenge,” in the same publication:
[W]riter Silvia Santacruz rolled out the latest of Chevron’s counter-attacks: that Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa has publicly supported the plaintiffs and made a fair trial impossible; that plaintiff attorneys have made a career out of pursuing Chevron; and that this is really just a case of radical environmentalism at work. What Chevron doesn’t say is that…
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How is little Ecuador going to collect from big Chevron?
In 2007, investigative reporter Greg Palast posed the question to Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa regarding the $27 billion environmental remediation lawsuit against the American oil giant. The president’s answer: “The international community should impose upon Chevron-Texaco the moral duty to pay this money,” he said while showing his support to a group of indigenous Amazonian Ecuadorians suing Chevron in a national court. Go to Correa’s Interview
The Chevron-Texaco case made headlines…
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Abajo! (“Down!”) was the response given by the friendly, bronzed-skinned middle-aged Cuban man who chatted with my husband and me over Cuban coffee on Calle Ocho, downtown Miami, when asked about Fidel Castro. This discussion and our interaction with many other proud Cuban Americans occurred during a recent visit to Miami, just prior to the Fifth Summit of the Americas.
His sentiment against the 50-year-old communist dictatorship is the tenor among many Cubans living in Florida who disapprove of the Castro…
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Earlier today, Competitive Enterprise Institute President Fred Smith delivered an informative but lively, entertaining speech about the role of NGOs. The speech was delivered at the Washington-based Atlas Economic Research Foundation, an umbrella organization that sponsors the creation of free-market NGOs worldwide.
Smith acknowledged that the libertarian movement, although weaker than its opponents, is gaining ground through the Internet, online video sharing and other peer-to-peer technologies. The latest example of the successful usage of such technologies is yesterday’s landmark Tea Party…
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Environmentalists characterize themselves as petite Davids battling gargantuan corporate Goliaths in order to grab media attention. But hundreds of green activists demonstrated today to raise awareness of global warming and against coal production in front of the Capital Power Plant in southeast Washington D.C. The group had plenty of resources ranging from a raised stage with microphones, to trucks loaded with food and coffee, to green plastic helmets, all the way down to fluorescent caps and fancy colored anti-industry signs.
We,…
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Last night a charismatic President Obama delivered a forceful speech to a joint session of Congress, promising that his plan “will rebuild, will recover, and make the United States stronger than before.” However, there was little buy-in from investors, who remain skeptical about his plan’s effectiveness in stimulating the economy. The Dow Jones Industrial average fell 80.05, or 1.9 percent, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 8.05 point, or 1.07 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite Index also declined, 16.40 points or…
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Gold prices are skyrocketing—recently closing at over $1,000 an ounce, the highest in almost a year—while inflation fears continue rising and the dollar weakens. This is the news that the media is echoing, quoting several analysts. Many are blaming President Obama’s stimulus package for amplifying investors’ fears that his spending plan will only push the country deeper into recession.
Analysts’ forecasts, nonetheless, are a mixed bag. Some analysts are calling the gold rush a bubble that can burst, as the dot-com…
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As the Dow Jones Industrial Average approached record lows, gold prices shined on a seven-month peak, on Tuesday. Details of President Obama’s new stimulus package catapulted inflation fears causing investors to hurriedly divest out of their portfolios, dumping company stocks and demanding more gold – considered a safe haven asset – according to Bloomberg.
Gold rose for a second straight day on speculation the recession will deepen, boosting the appeal of the precious metal as a haven asset.
In fact, from some…
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After President Obama signs the controversial stimulus plan, which will add on average $8 per week to most paychecks, his administration will have to cross their fingers hoping Americans will spend it all, as they normally tend to do.
According to the Wall Street Journal article Plan Tries Slow, Steady Stimulus to Revive Spending the idea is to let money trickle out to consumers so it feels like a permanent income boost. When the government sent lump-sum checks for the 2001 and…
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Ecuador, the only Latin American country that lacks large-scale mining operations, is passing a new mining law that will lift a six-month ban on mining operations. However, a feared windfall tax (WFT) on mining profits — one of the biggest concerns among international investors — is not an issue that is open for debate in the Andean nation. As of this writing, it looks as though applying a WFT on mining profits will be a done deal.
Chatting with Maria Paula Romo, former…
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National Geographic magazine has published an article titled The Price of Gold focusing on the high price of gold and the high human costs of gold production. . Overall, the article leans firmly against India’s growing demand for gold and the metal’s global providers: 75% of the world’s gold comes from large-scale mining companies, and 25% from artisan…
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Last Wednesday, The New York Times ran an appealing story on the rise of an Ecuadorian Quichua community from a cocoa grower to a chocolate producer. The 850-families cooperative, located in the Amazonian rainforest, sells rich chocolate bars to American supermarkets without intermediaries.
This initiative is worth emulating, and should be followed by Ecuadorian agribusiness men who export fruits with no added value, such as bananas, mangoes, passion fruits, and coffee beans. Read NYT’s When Chocolate is a Way of Life
Wearing a…
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Today’s Washington Times features an article on Ecuador “Economic Crisis Starts to Show up in Ecuador”, in which author John Zarocostas writes:
“The global economic crisis that began in the United States has spread to several nations in Latin America - and Ecuador, an Andean nation dependent on oil exports, is among the hardest hit.”
Ecuador, is in fact, an oil-dependent economy. Over 60 percent of its $13.7 billion in exports consist of crude oil, according to the Ecuadorian Central Bank. Oil…
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Yesterday, Nelson Cunningham, one of the panelists at a Hudson Institute conference on Latin America’s “Radical Populism Challenge” commented that it is better that the presidential campaign and debates don’t even mention the region. He said that speaking of Latin America would only bring bad news: illegal immigration and drug-trafficking.
As a Latin American myself, I could not disagree more. The region is one of the United States’ most important commercial partners, with U.S. exports valued at more than $150 billion a year,…
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