Some 5,000 campesinos, students and activists marched in the eastern Salvadoran port city of La Union on July 15 to protest plans to build two electric plants near the Conchagua Volcano. The Virginia-based AES Corporation, which controls most of the electric power distribution in El Salvador, plans to build a coal-burning plant, while Houston-based Cutuco Energy Central America wants to build a plant using natural gas.

At least one million people—more than two million, according to some sources—marched in El Alto, Bolivia, on July 20 to call for national unity and to oppose proposals to move the executive and legislative branches of government from La Paz, the de facto capital, to the southern city of Sucre. Although no government officials spoke at the demonstration, in the evening President Evo Morales called the mobilization "historic"; analysts considered it the country's largest demonstration in recent years. The media nicknamed it the "Pacenazo" (from La Paz), while participants called it a cabildo (a public discussion, like a town hall meeting).

Global warming is drying up mountain lakes and wetlands in the Andes and threatening water supplies to such major cities as La Paz, Quito and Bogota, World Bank research reveals. The risk is especially great to the high-Andes wetlands known as páramo, which supplies 80 percent of the water to Bogota's 7 million people. Rising temperatures are causing clouds to condense at higher altitudes. Eventually this so-called "dew point" will miss the mountains altogether, said World Bank climate change specialist in Latin America, Walter Vergara. "We're already seeing a drying up of these mountain lakes and wetlands. We're seeing that the dew point is going up the mountain," he said of the World Bank-funded research at Colombia's Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies. (Reuters, July 20)

In a strange case of role-reversal, BBC July 20 takes the more Bush-friendly tack in reporting a new executive order on treatment of detained "terror suspects," writing in the lead that it bans "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment," while the headline states: "Bush bans terror suspect torture." Not until six paragraphs down do we get the requisite caveats from rights observers—and then in a quote from another news agency. Leonard Rubenstein, director of Physicians for Human Rights, told AP (BBC says): "What is needed now is repudiation of brutal and cruel interrogation methods. General statements like this are inadequate, particularly after years of evidence that torture was authorised at the highest levels and utilised by US forces." Meanwhile, the establishmentarian New York Times headline on the story reads "C.I.A. Allowed to Resume Interrogations," and the lead states: "After months of behind the scenes wrangling, the White House said Friday that it had given the Central Intelligence Agency approval to resume its use of some harsh interrogation methods in questioning terrorism suspects in secret prisons overseas." Gee, doesn't sound so good after all, does it? Is the BBC still so shaken over the scandal following the 2003 Hutton Report that they are determined to be more Catholic than the Pope?

Luis Hernando Gomez Bustamante—known as "Rasguño," or "Scratch"—alleged head of Colombia's Norte del Valle cocaine cartel, has been extradited to the US to face charges of drug trafficking and money laundering. He was flown by helicopter July 19 from the Combita maximum security prison to an air base near Bogota, where he was turned over to DEA agents. Norte del Valle rose to become Colombia's most powerful narco mafia after the dismantling of the Medellin and Cali cartels in the 1990s. Colonel Cesar Pinzon, head of Colombia's Judicial Police (DIJIN), called Gomez the "capo of capos." The DEA says he was the source up to 60% of all cocaine consumed in the US. Gomez got his nickname when he laughed off a bullet wound to his cheek as "just a scratch." He was first arrested in Cuba in July 2004 after entering on a false passport, and returned to Colombia six months ago. (BBC, July 20)

The carcinogen asbestos has been found in dust and debris hurled into midtown Manhattan by an evening rush-hour Con Edison steam pipe explosion July 18. The blast at 41st Street and Lexington Ave. opened a 25-foot car-swallowing crater in the asphalt and sent a column of steam hundreds of feet into the air—initially sparking fears of a terrorist attack. Said witness Debbie Tontodonato to Newsday: "We panicked. I think everyone thought the worst. Thank God it wasn't." But this statement just demonstrates how much horror New Yorkers have come to view as acceptable in this uneasy age. Forty-four were injured in the blast, and Lois Baumerich, of Hawthorne, NJ, died of cardiac arrest.

Turkey's military has waged a cross-border incursion into Iraq, bombarding northern areas of the country with artillery and warplanes, the Iraqi government charged July 19. The claim comes amid mounting Turkish threats to strike bases of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been launching attacks against targets in Turkey from sanctuaries in Iraq.

Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Gulerhas announced his government will invest $3.5 billion in Iran's South Pars gas field starting from 2008, a week after signing a deal to use Iran as a transit route for gas from Turkmenistan to European markets. Ankara also made clear that it sees Iran as a potential partner for the Nabucco gas pipeline project, conceived as a means of diversifying gas supplies to Europe. Washington has voiced its opposition to the memorandum of understanding between Turkey and Iran. In an interview with NTV news this week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan defended the deal, adding that "Turkey thinks of its own interests and the US will eventually understand this." (Press TV, July 19)