Ecobreves – GLOBAL: Push for Sustainable Investment

New global measures for promoting sustainable consumption and clean production in sectors like water and energy management and agriculture are the focus of debate by some 300 experts in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, Nov. 15-16.

Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: Solar Energy for the Wayuú

The Wayuú indigenous community, whose home is on the Guajira Peninsula in northern Colombia and Venezuela will soon benefit from the tropical sun that shines down on them 12 hours of every day. For the first time, they will obtain electricity from the sunlight, with the installation of photovoltaic panels in Casuasín, one of the towns of the Guajira plateau.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Heat Generates Biodiesel

A device that converts vegetable oil into biodiesel through a thermal process, and is able to produce up to 250 liters of sustainable fuel per day, has been developed by the government agricultural research agency, Embrapa.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Towns Unite to Take Care of River

Eleven towns in the Honduran department of Choluteca, on the southern border with Nicaragua, have organized to protect the watershed of the Choluteca River, which supplies the communities with water.

Ecobreves – CHILE: : Promoting 'Green' Firewood

In southern Chile there has been progress in promoting sustainable use of firewood, according to a seminar organized by the National Environmental Commission and other agencies Nov. 11-12 in the city of Teuco, 670 km south of Santiago.

Ecobreves – CUBA: : Water Arrives by Train

The eastern Cuban city of Holguín is receiving 300,000 liters of water a day, delivered by train, to deal with the shortages caused by continued severe drought, reported the local government.

Ecobreves – GUATEMALA: Staking Bets on Natural Rubber

- Guatemalan producers of natural rubber are working to boost the 50,000 metric tons they harvest each year. They want to take advantage of the rising international price of synthetic rubber, a petroleum-based product.

The Galápagos: Enchanted Islands or Political Spoils?

Preservation of Ecuador's Galápagos Islands is threatened by the corruption and instability of the institutions entrusted with the archipelago's management, while over-exploitation of resources goes unchecked, say critics.

Workers Left Sterile by Pesticide Seek Justice

No chemical or banana company has been found guilty in U.S. courts for the continued use of a toxic pesticide in Central American banana plantations. But Costa Rican workers have filed a new lawsuit.

Electronic Garbage Poses Increasing Dangers

Chile is struggling with how to handle tons of old mobile phones, computers and other obsolete electronic items. It was not until this year that a law was passed to regulate management of this latest type of toxic waste.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Energy from Palm Trees

A group of Honduran investors built the first "clean energy" plant run on waste pulp from the African palm. Constructed in northern Honduras, it can generate 600 kilowatts per hour.

Ecobreves – ARGENTINA: Ecuadorian Indians Fight Oil Company

A delegation from Ecuador's Kichwa indigenous community, which is embroiled in a dispute with the Argentine oil company CGC in the Ecuadorian Amazon, will head to Buenos Aires this month to meet with civil society groups and officials to seek support for their cause.

Ecobreves – PERU: Demand for Disaster-Prevention Measures

Peru lacks an effect system for preventing extreme impacts from natural disasters, despite being one of the world's most seismically unstable countries and bearing the brunt of El Niño climate phenomena, including floods, drought and mudslides, says president of Red Cross - Peru, Edgardo Calderón.

Ecobreves – MEXICO:: No Funds for Measuring Pollution

Many types of air pollution in the Mexican capital, including many that cause cancer, cannot be monitored due to the lack of financial support from the government, which ''appears to be uninterested in research,'' complain scientists.

US EMPIRE PROMISES MORE OF THE SAME

Throughout the recently concluded US presidential campaign, the world has looked on in fear as violence raged in Iraq and President Bush responded with bellicose declarations, with his adversary Kerry not far behind, perhaps a shade less warlike. This violence is an integral part of the imperial spirit deeply rooted in western culture, which has always shown itself to be imperialist, imposing itself on all \'\'others\'\', those who are \'\'different\'\'. The re-election of Bush assures the continuity of this tragic policy if not an intensification of it, writes Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian theologian and environmentalist. In the name of national security, constitutional rights that were an integral element of the US are being suppressed. Those accused of terrorism are arrested and kept in secret locations, sometimes outside of their own countries, without access to family, lawyers, or even the International Red Cross. And as if this weren\'t enough, the superpower now practices pre-emptive military actions and cooperates with only those international organisations that serve its ends. This is the return of the-state-as-Leviathan envisioned by Hobbes, visceral enemy of any strategy for peace. His logic admits no future either for peace or for humanity.

THE WATERS OF OCTOBER

A few days before the election of the president of the planet in North America, in South America elections and a plebiscite were held a little-known, almost secret country called Uruguay. In these elections, for the first time in the country\'s history, the left won; and in the plebiscite, for the first time in world history, the privatisation of water was rejected by popular vote, writes Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and journalist and author of \'\'The Open Veins of Latin America\'\' and \'\'Memories of Fire\'\'. In this article, Galeano writes that it will not be easy. Reality will promptly remind us of the inevitable distance between the desired and the possible. The left is coming to power in a shattered country which in the distant past was at the vanguard of universal progress but today is one of the furthest behind, deep in debt and subjected to the international financial dictatorship. Today we have very little manoeuvring room. But what is usually difficult, even impossible, can be imagined and even achieved if we join together with neighbouring countries, just as we have joined together with our neighbours. The winners have a tremendous burden of responsibility, for those who voted and those who they voted for. This rebirth of faith and revival of happiness must be watched over carefully. We should recall every day how right Carlos Quijano was, who said that sins against hope are the only sins beyond forgiveness and redemption.

THE NORDIC SECRET: MARKET ECONOMY WITHOUT A MARKET SOCIETY

Finland has, once again, been rated the world\'s most competitive economy, writes Erkki Tuomioja, minister of Foreign Affairs of Finland. The fact that not only Finland but Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden as well are usually in the top ten raises an obvious question: why have these welfare states defied the judgments pronounced over twenty years ago that they had outlived their purpose and were ripe for dismantling? This success can be attributed to four factors, the author writes in this article: knowledge and education, entrepreneurship, cooperation and solidarity, and the Nordic model of the welfare state. Is this approach sustainable in our globalising world? The success of the Nordic countries, which are all small economies highly dependent on global trade, indicates that it is, the author writes in this analysis. At the end of the day what will decide the future of our welfare states is still our own political will. If this is decided through democratic procedures, there should be no problem. But we are very much aware that well-financed lobbies are hard at work trying to introduce neoliberal policies to the Nordic countries as well.

Cubans Pin Hopes on Aqueduct

Residents of the Cuban city of Holguín are hoping that a waterworks project will save them from the drought they have been suffering for more than a year.

Traditional Foods in Fight Against Hunger

Farmers argue that amaranth, quinoa and sorghum are crucial crops for achieving food security.

THE CHALLENGE OF AIDS IN AFRICA

The devastation that HIV/AIDS is wreaking in Africa in the midst of abject poverty and abandonment is of a severity and scale found nowhere else. It silent, misunderstood, and overwhelming threat to peace and security on the continent, writes Wangari Maathai, recipient of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. We in Africa must encourage a freer and more enlightened debate on the HIV/AIDS threat, the author writes in this article. We must at the same time learn from our own successes in the fight against the disease. In Uganda 15 years ago the fear was that HIV/AIDS could destroy the whole society; today we see a dramatic improvement, largely because of the responsible political leadership of President Museveni. HIV/AIDS is a global challenge for both political and religious leaders. While we need the encouragement, support, and cooperation of the rest of world, we also need the respect and trust that some of the solutions will emerge from our own value systems.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Third Nuclear Plant on the Way

The Brazilian government will decided towards the end of the year whether it will build Angra III, the country's third nuclear power plant.