Ecuador

Could Ecuador become a major coca-growing country like its neighbors, Colombia and Peru? That fear was expressed this week by Ecuadorean and U.S. counter-narcotics officials as this Andean country reported an alarming increase in illegal coca crops destroyed this year along its northern border with Colombia.

Abel Garrido has just struck oil and he's not happy about it. Using a tree branch, the weathered farmer probed the edge of a pond that his cattle use for drinking water and soon turned up the smelly black sludge that he says has killed much of his livestock and sickened his family. "I've lost 30 cows," Garrido said. "I cut them open and their insides are black." Paying the medical bills to treat his three children for skin cancer has cost him his meager savings.

In a village high in the Andes, in a town of whitewashed houses and cobbled streets, lives a 72-year-old saddle maker called Luis Leopoldo Obando. The name of his village, Esperanza, means hope and it was with similar sentiment that we had split from the tourist path for a journey into the countryside to meet folk artists in their villages. We had left the capital city of Quito at dawn in search of him--his photo and the name of his village our only clues to his whereabouts.

Ecuador is trying to salvage its campaign to enlist international sponsors to protect a pristine nature reserve in the Amazon, after an initial drive ended in disarray and doubts about whether President Rafael Correa would leave the park's oil riches untouched. Correa recently appointed former Foreign Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa to head a new panel to seek donations from Arab and Asian countries for the 2.4-million-acre Yasuni National Park, one of the world's most biodiverse nature reserves.

A few weeks ago, 19 Ecuadorean citizens detained on these world-renowned islands were marched onto a plane and sent back to the continent under armed guard. Their crime? Illegal migration. So far this year, the government has expelled 1,000 of its citizens from the Galapagos -- a living laboratory of unique animal and plant species -- who were there without residency and work permits. It has also "normalized" 2,000 others, in effect giving most of them a year to leave.

For Mari, a 30-year-old Colombian mother of two small children, the choice was life or death: either flee to neighboring Ecuador or be killed by paramilitaries who were trying to extort $3,000 from her and her husband. So in October, she and her family fled their small farm in southern Colombia and became part of a rising tide of refugees streaming into Ecuador. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said last month that the number of Colombian refugees tripled in the last six months of 2009, compared with the same period the previous year.

The United States is battling a dangerous new front in its South American drug war -- just as a protege of anti-American leader Hugo Chavez comes to power in Ecuador vowing to shut down a U.S. base dedicated to narcotics surveillance. Officials have expressed growing concern that this Andean nation is being "Colombianized," illustrated by record cocaine seizures in the last two years, the destruction of a major cocaine-processing lab and a recent gangland-style killing. In recent months, U.S.

Two Ecuadoreans who have waged a 14-year fight to bring a U.S. energy giant to account for what they allege is massive oil contamination in the Amazon are among the winners of an international environmental prize. Pablo Fajardo Mendoza and Luis Yanza each will receive $150,000 today from the San Francisco-based Goldman Environmental Prize for organizing half a dozen indigenous communities to pursue legal action against Texaco and then Chevron Corp. after the two companies merged in 2001.

His seventh-grade teacher was discussing family values last month when Jaime Castillo startled his classmates by bursting into tears. They knew that the 13-year-old hadn't seen his father since he left for the United States three years ago and that he was depressed about it, but he wasn't the kind of child to cry in public. The next day, his friends' surprise turned to shock when they learned he had gone home and swallowed a packet of rat poison.

The Times' Dec. 3 editorial, "Trading with Ecuador," ignores evidence of Ecuador's hostility to the United States and misleadingly asserted that Chevron is calling for an end to beneficiary status for Ecuador under the Andean Trade Preferences Act. While more than one organization has called for "halting the trade agreement" with Ecuador, Chevron is not. Chevron is arguing that countries should not be unconditionally rewarded with unilateral trade...

Ecuador is trying to salvage its campaign to enlist international sponsors to protect a pristine nature reserve in the Amazon, after an initial drive ended in disarray and doubts about whether President Rafael Correa would leave the park's oil riches untouched. Correa recently appointed former Foreign Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa to head a new panel to seek donations from Arab and Asian countries for the 2.4-million-acre Yasuni National Park, one of the world's most biodiverse nature reserves.

For Mari, a 30-year-old Colombian mother of two small children, the choice was life or death: either flee to neighboring Ecuador or be killed by paramilitaries who were trying to extort $3,000 from her and her husband. So in October, she and her family fled their small farm in southern Colombia and became part of a rising tide of refugees streaming into Ecuador. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said last month that the number of Colombian refugees tripled in the last six months of 2009, compared with the same period the previous year.

Inventories fall 0.8% in December Inventories at U.S. wholesalers unexpectedly fell in December after the biggest increase in more than five years, indicating distributors had trouble keeping up with demand. The 0.8% decrease in stockpiles followed a revised 1.6% gain in November that was the largest since July 2004, figures from the Commerce Department showed. Sales climbed 0.8%. COURTS Chevron fights Ecuador report Chevron Corp. said a report proposing that the company pay $27 billion for alleged environmental damage in Ecuador should be thrown out because the court-appointed author owns a cleanup company and didn't disclose his conflict of interest.

The Times' Dec. 3 editorial, "Trading with Ecuador," ignores evidence of Ecuador's hostility to the United States and misleadingly asserted that Chevron is calling for an end to beneficiary status for Ecuador under the Andean Trade Preferences Act. While more than one organization has called for "halting the trade agreement" with Ecuador, Chevron is not. Chevron is arguing that countries should not be unconditionally rewarded with unilateral trade...

The mother of a Cal State L.A. student slain in Ecuador is pushing for an investigation, claiming that local police in the South American country and the U.S. Embassy are doing little about the case. Gloria Daniela Lopez, 26, was stabbed and her throat slit Sept. 9 in Ambato, Ecuador, where she had been on vacation since late June, said her mother, Gloria Lema of Los Angeles. A family friend, Meghan Kendal, said Lopez also was decapitated and possibly raped. Lopez was studying sociology at Cal State L.A. Lema, who immigrated to the United States from Ecuador 28 years ago, traveled to Ambato after the killing to identify her daughter's body.

"Crude" sounds like the standard "this is an outrage" environmental degradation documentary, the latest in a line that includes "An Inconvenient Truth" and films about the death of the ocean, the evaporation of water, the murder of dolphins, even the disintegration of dirt. "Crude" fits that bill, but it is something considerably more interesting as well. The outrage in question is the subject of a class-action suit filed by 30,000 citizens of Ecuador against Chevron, the world's fifth-largest corporation, alleging that 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater were dumped into the Amazon between 1972 and 1990, fatally poisoning the land and water and sickening inhabitants.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa on Saturday dismissed as a "sham" a newly released video in which a Colombian rebel commander discusses contributing money to Correa's 2006 election campaign. The video, whose existence was revealed by the Associated Press on Friday, appears to lend credibility to allegations that the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia contributed to the Correa campaign.

The United States and Colombia are poised to sign an agreement to transfer anti-drug flight operations from Ecuador to at least three Colombian air bases, a move that has drawn criticism here that it will leave the country even more dependent on Washington. Although the deal is not yet nailed down, Colombia's defense, interior and foreign ministers held a public forum in Bogota, the capital, on Wednesday to discuss details of the plan.

Abel Garrido has just struck oil and he's not happy about it. Using a tree branch, the weathered farmer probed the edge of a pond that his cattle use for drinking water and soon turned up the smelly black sludge that he says has killed much of his livestock and sickened his family. "I've lost 30 cows," Garrido said. "I cut them open and their insides are black." Paying the medical bills to treat his three children for skin cancer has cost him his meager savings.