We understand why geopolitics practically mandate that Evo and Hugo do this, but it still rubs us the wrong way. We keep feeling like we have to belabor the rather obvious point that Ahmadinejad is no leftist. From AP, Sept. 27:

CARACAS — Iran's president opened his nation's wallet to Bolivia on Thursday and then visited Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, in a post-U.N. trip to boost ties with Latin American leftists who are increasingly embracing Iran as a counterweight to U.S. influence.

Milagros Salazar writes for IPS, via Upside Down World, Sept. 20:

For the second time in Peru, a mining project was rejected by local communities in a popular referendum. More than 90 percent of those who came out to vote in three districts in the northern province of Piura said "no" to the mining operations of the Minera Majaz company.

Colombian authorities have decided to hold a top drug lord and a former paramilitary boss, both wanted by the US, in prisons fashioned on navy warships. But authorities were embarrassed Sept. 14 when they picked up the wrong prisoner in the high-security transfer. Helicopters and troops were mobilized to move accused drug lord "Don Diego" Montoya and former para commander Carlos Jimenez from their prison cells to navy ships, in response to death threats against them and claims that they continued to run their networks from behind bars. Instead of picking up Diego Montoya, authorities moved Diego "Don Berna" Murillo to Bogota from Combita prison (Boyacá department). Murillo is another ex-para commander jailed under a peace deal with President Alvaro Uribe.

A US court in Washington DC Sept. 17 ordered Chiquita Brands International to pay a $25 million fine to settle charges that it underwrote a terrorist organization in Colombia. Chiquita had agreed to the fine when it pleaded guilty in March to paying protection money to Colombian paramilitaries from 2001 to 2004. US District Judge Royce C. Lamberth approved the agreement, which also places the company on probation for five years. The fine is the largest ever imposed under US counter-terrorism laws. The amount is slightly more than half the profits Chiquita earned from growing bananas in Colombia during that period. Company spokesman Michael Mitchell said Chiquita will pay the fine in five equal installments over five years.

Colombia's Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos announced Sept. 3 army troops have killed Tomas Medina Caracas AKA "Negro Acacio," a top commander in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), wanted in the US on drug trafficking charges since 2002. The US accuses Medina of being the top contact for the guerilla organization's globe-spanning drug deals—including receipt of some 10,000 AK-47s, purchased in Jordan by arms traffickers thought to be working with then-Peruvian spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos.

Fears of "Civil War" as Constituent Assembly Deadlocks

by Federico Fuentes, Green Left Weekly

The Colombian Army's Third Brigade, based in Cali, was deeply penetrated by drug trafficking mafia, according to a recent criminal investigation. "What the prosecutors' investigation has shown as it progresses," reported Bogota's Semana magazine Aug. 4, "is that 'Don Diego' [a drug mafia kingpin] didn't just buy these officers in exchange for one-time favors, but that many of them belonged to his organization. They were part of the mafia and put their jobs in the Army at its service." Brigade commander Leonardo Gomez Vergara resigned Aug. 16 as a result of the investigation, and a dozen other officers have been arrested or are under investigation.

Israel Corp., one of Israel's major holding companies, is evaluating the acquisition of Peruvian utility Electroandes' four hydroelectric plants, the government paper El Peruano quoted the Israeli company's president Idan Ofer as saying. The US-based Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) controls Electroandes, and is seeking to divest it. Israel Corporation has already completed the 180MW Kallpa thermo plant, which recently went on line (at Chilca, 65 kilometers south of Lima). Israel Corp. took over the Kallpa project form the UK-based Globeleq. "The principal motivation for investing in Peru is the stability and transparency of the electric market," Ofer said. The holding company also is looking at Peru's biofuels and port sectors. (Business News Americas, July 25, via BBC Monitoring)