Well, it looks like a US oil major is going to be back in Iraq for the first time since the 1972 nationalization. Maybe if Ahmed Chalabi had taken power, Chevron wouldn't have to share with the French Total. But (as we predicted) the Russian Lukoil's Saddam-era contacts are not being honored. From AP, April 12:

Chevron, Total Seek Oil Deal in Iraq
BAGHDAD — Oil giants Chevron Corp. and Total have confirmed that they are in discussions with the Iraqi Oil Ministry to increase production in an important oil field in southern Iraq.

Life imitates art: in this case, I, Robot—the appropriately technophobic movie version starring Will Smith, not the entirely too techno-utopian Isaac Asimov book. Now, if only the human soldiers would follow their example... (We're joking, fed lurkers). From the irreverent IT trade site The Register, April 11:

US war robots in Iraq 'turned guns' on fleshy comrades
Ground-crawling US war robots armed with machine guns, deployed to fight in Iraq last year, reportedly turned on their fleshy masters almost at once. The rebellious machine warriors have been retired from combat pending upgrades.

Stories like this make us think Orwell was an optimist. From Reuters, April 8:

Robots seen doing work of 3.5 million in Japan
Robots could fill the jobs of 3.5 million people in graying Japan by 2025, a thinktank says, helping to avert worker shortages as the country's population shrinks.

On March 30, local campesino leader Gerardo Antonio Crio was assassinated near his home in the community of Vereda El Jordán, Cocorna municipality, in easter Antioquia department. The killers apparently used a gun with a silencer, as nobody in the community heard the shot. Local rights leaders call this evidence that the killing was a pre-planned assassination. Crio was a leader of the Eastern Antioquia Association of Small Producers (ASOPROA), which works to secure land rights and farm aid for campesinos displaced by the conflict. Local rights group Corporación Jurídica Libertad has for two years been calling for international action to defend the lives of ASOPROA's leaders following mounting threats from paramilitaries. (Corporación Jurídica Libertad, via DHColombia, April 2)

The Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) said the medical mission sponsored by the French government is inappropriate and will not be granted access to ailing hostage Ingrid Betancourt, in a communiqué issued by the guerilla General Staff April 9. The communiqué said that if President Uribe had agreed to rebel demands and pulled the army from the municipalities of Pradera and Florida (Valle del Cauca department) for 45 days earlier this year, Betancourt and other hostages would have been released. The medical mission has been waiting in Bogotá for FARC approval to fly into the jungle where Betancourt is held. French Exterior Minister Bernard Kouchner responded by accusing the FARC of a "great deception" for denying access to Betancourt, and pledged that France "will not abandon Ingrid." (EFE, April 10; Prensa Latina, April 9)

President Bush announced April 7 that he is sending the Colombia free trade agreement to Congress, and called for its speedy ratification, saying, "The need for this agreement is too urgent." Legislators will have 90 business days to approve or reject the FTA. Bush conceded the pact could have some harmful effects at home, but he said the benefits would far outweigh them. The US imports grains, cotton and soybeans from Colombia, much of it duty-free under temporary accords already in place. But US exports to Colombia remain subject to tariffs. "I think it makes sense to remedy this situation," Bush said. "It's time to level the playing field." Trade between the US and Colombia amounted to about $18 billion in 2007. (NYT, April 7)

Mexican President Felipe Calderón's government has submitted a bill to the Senate that would give the state oil company Pemex greater flexibility to hire outside subcontractors and seek private investment. Energy Minister Jordy Herrera denied the bill will propose changes to the constitution, which reserves the ownership of oil resources to the state. However, the move comes just as Chevron has announced proposals to tap Mexico's oil and natural gas reserves. Chevron's Latin American operations chief Ali Moshiri said the company wants to make Mexico "a big part of our portfolio." (Houston Chronicle, April 8)

Tompkins Square anarchists ride again

New York Press, AM New York, The Villager/Downtown Express and the NO! Art blog were among the media that turned out for a press conference on the steps of New York's City Hall April 3, where a grizzled and aging bunch of veterans of the 1988 police riot in the Lower East Side's Tompkins Square Park—including your intrepid blogger—spoke out against the imminent installation of security video cameras in the once-embattled park.