Health officials in Brazil have launched an investigation after claims that at least 10 impoverished Brazilians from an Amazon village may have contracted malaria while being used as human “guinea pigs” during a study by an American university.

The $1m (£570,000) research project, funded by the National Institutes of Health and conducted by the University of Florida, was being carried out in three villages on the Matapi river in the northern state of Amapa. It intended to study feeding patterns among mosquitoes over a four-year period in order to help control malaria outbreaks.

But critics say villagers were manipulated into taking part in the project and that those who allegedly contracted malaria as a result were offered no medical treatment. Brazil’s Medical Council suspended the project last Wednesday following the allegations.

Villagers in Sao Raimundo da Pirativa, Sao Joao and Santo Antonio were paid between R$12 and R$20 (£3-£5) to collect mosquitoes on their bodies, while some were required to expose themselves to mosquito bites for periods of up to six hours.
commondreams.org

In his first news conference since claiming victory, he insisted he is opposed to drugs, but disputed Washington’s methods.

“The fight against drug trafficking is a false pretext for the United States to install military bases, and we’re not in agreement,” he told reporters.

“We support an effective fight against drugs. Neither cocaine nor drug trafficking are part of the Bolivian culture,” he said in his stronghold of Cochabamba, as the first official results from Sunday’s vote trickled in.

Washington considers Mr. Morales, who first rose to power as the leader of the country’s coca-leaf farmers, an enemy in its anti-drug fight in Bolivia, the third-biggest cocaine producer after Colombia and Peru.
theglobeandmail.com

Venezuela has given the world’s biggest oil company, ExxonMobil, until the end of this year to enter a joint venture with the state.

Failure to do so will almost certainly result in Exxon losing its oil field concessions in the country.

Venezuela’s socialist government has now signed new agreements with almost all foreign petroleum companies.

After months of pressure from left- wing leader Hugo Chavez most foreign oil firms working there have caved in.

They have agreed to hand over a controlling stake of their oil interests to the Venezuelan state.

This means that Venezuela now calls the shots in what the foreign guests can and cannot do.

In addition, the companies which have signed the new contracts – such as Chevron, BP, Shell and Total – will in future be presented with much higher tax bills by the government.

But Venezuela says it is only fair that the foreigners are made to pay up as they have got away lightly in the past.

Much of the oil revenue in Venezuela goes into social projects in shanty towns and poor rural areas.

But the US oil giant, ExxonMobil, is digging in its heels and is so far refusing to agree to the terms of the new deal.

Exxon risks losing Venezuelan operations if it fails to comply.

There is growing unease among foreign energy companies based Latin America that they may be forced to become junior partners by a string of left wing governments.

In the case of Bolivia and the apparent shift to the left there following elections on Sunday, it is possible that the new government will decide to follow Venezuela’s example and renegotiate oil and gas contracts with foreign investors.
bbc.co.uk

JUNEAU, Alaska — An antitrust lawsuit filed Monday against Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP PLC claims the two oil giants are restricting the nation’s supply of natural gas and keeping prices at record highs.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Fairbanks, says the two companies acted together to eliminate competition for the exploration, development and marketing of natural gas from Alaska’s North Slope to U.S. markets.
chron.com

On December 15, the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) inaugurated an oil pipeline running from Kazakhstan to northwest China. That pipeline will undercut the geopolitical significance of the Washington-backed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline which opened this past summer amid big fanfare and support from Washington. The geopolitical chess game for the control of the energy flows of Central Asia and overall of Eurasia from the Atlantic to the China Sea is sharply evident in the latest developments.

Making the Kazakh-China oil pipeline link even more politically interesting, from the standpoint of an emerging Eurasian move towards some form of greater energy independence from Washington, is the fact that China is reportedly considering asking Russian companies to help it fill the pipeline with oil, until Kazakh supply is sufficient. Initially, half the oil pumped through the new 200,000 barrel-a-day pipeline will come from Russia because of insufficient output from nearby Kazakh fields, Kazakhstan’s Vice Energy Minister Musabek Isayev said Nov. 30 in Beijing.

That means closer China-Kazakh-Russia energy cooperation–the nightmare scenario of Washington geopolitical strategists such as Zbigniew Brzezinski or Henry Kissinger.
globalresearch.ca

An aide to Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern told the Jewish Telegraph that Zionism was a religious issue and refused to take a position on “an Old Testament mandate”.

The Israeli government hit back, comparing the Republic to the hardline Iranian regime.

“I am very sorry that Ireland takes this position because in doing that they support [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad,” blasted a senior aide to premier Ariel Sharon.

Last month Ahmadinejad told a “World without Zionism” conference that Israel should be “wiped off the map”.

We are lifting the lid on these explosive comments after Mr Ahern refused to go on the record to denounce claims by former Irish minister Justin Keating that Jews have mounted a “self-serving and untruthful Zionist myth” to lay claim to Israel.
jewishtelegraph.co.uk

DUBAI, December 15, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Twenty-three years after hacking to death Palestinian refugees, six Israeli-backed Lebanese Christian militiamen show no remorse recounting the massacre in a new chilling documentary.

“With hanging or shooting you just die, but this is double,” recalls one of the men, explaining how he took an old Palestinian and held him back against a wall, slicing him open in the shape of a cross.

“You die twice since you also die from the fear,” he says nonchalantly of the act, describing white flesh and bone.

German director Monika Borgmann’s film “Massaker” shows the six speaking out for the first time about their role in the Sabra and Shatila massacre during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.

Though no definite figures are available, around 2,000 Palestinians were massacred inside the camps in September of 1982 by the Christian militia under the watchful eyes of their Israeli alley.

Unlike massacres in some other conflicts, the perpetrators of Sabra and Shatila have not been brought to justice.
islamonline.net

CONSERVATIVE religious parties have surged to a runaway lead in the counting of votes to appoint a government to run Iraq for the next four years.

With more than 60 per cent of votes tallied, Washington’s hopes that the former prime minister Iyad Allawi might pull enough support to build a secular administration have faded dramatically.

Instead, a religious alliance is in the box seat. These parties are already imposing a strict religious code on daily life across swathes of the country and are closely aligned with neighbouring Iran, one of George Bush’s “axis of evil” enemies.
smh.com.au

Whatever ‘the plan’ might be, this is part of it.

National Conservative Weekly: Israel Increasingly Likely to Attack Iran

Jerusalem Post: ‘Iran obtained 12 long-range missiles’

Reuters: Exiles say Iran uses tunnels to hide atomic work

Turkish Press: CIA’S GOSS REPORTEDLY WARNED ANKARA OF IRANIAN THREAT

The president was so desperate to kill The New York Times’ eavesdropping story, he summoned the paper’s editor and publisher to the Oval Office. But it wasn’t just out of concern about national security.
informationclearinghouse.info

Bush accuses leak instigators of helping enemy
Insisting that the spying by the highly secretive NSA had been essential in the war against terrorism, Mr Bush said: “It was a shameful act for someone to disclose this important program in a time of war.”

He added: “The fact that we’re discussing this program is helping the enemy.”

Lewis Calls for Bush Impeachment

Senator says she’s asked for opinions on Bush
impeachment

F.B.I. Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show
“New York Times” — — WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 – Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show.

F.B.I. officials said Monday that their investigators had no interest in monitoring political or social activities and that any investigations that touched on advocacy groups were driven by evidence of criminal or violent activity at public protests and in other settings.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, John Ashcroft, who was then attorney general, loosened restrictions on the F.B.I.’s investigative powers, giving the bureau greater ability to visit and monitor Web sites, mosques and other public entities in developing terrorism leads. The bureau has used that authority to investigate not only groups with suspected ties to foreign terrorists, but also protest groups suspected of having links to violent or disruptive activities.

But the documents, coming after the Bush administration’s confirmation that President Bush had authorized some spying without warrants in fighting terrorism, prompted charges from civil rights advocates that the government had improperly blurred the line between terrorism and acts of civil disobedience and lawful protest.

One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a “Vegan Community Project.” Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group’s “semi-communistic ideology.” A third indicates the bureau’s interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

bbc: Bolivian election