Gale A. Norton, who as secretary of the interior reopened Yellowstone National Park to snowmobiles and pushed for greater energy development on public land, announced yesterday that she will relinquish her post by the end of the month.

Norton won plaudits from business leaders but earned the enmity of many environmentalists during her often contentious five-year tenure. She said she has no immediate plans but expects to work in the private sector and spend more time in the West.

“I look forward to visiting a national park and not holding a press conference in there,” said Norton, who turns 52 today and has served at the Interior Department longer than all but six of her predecessors. “I look forward to being able to contemplate the wilderness without having reporters and their notebooks following me.”

Norton’s resignation comes as a federal criminal task force continues to investigate former GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s dealings with her department. The task force is examining, among other issues, former deputy secretary J. Steven Griles’s discussions with Abramoff at a time when the lobbyist was seeking departmental actions on behalf of his tribal clients. Abramoff has pleaded guilty to federal charges of political corruption.

Norton said the probe did not play a role in her decision to step down and added later: “I want to return to having a private life again.”
washingtonpost.com

A little down time before jail…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A group of lawmakers on Friday said an industrial bank owned by Wal-Mart (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the world’s largest retailer, could threaten the stability of the U.S. financial system and drive community banks out of business.

In a highly critical letter to the acting chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., obtained by Reuters, a group of more than 30 Congress members asked the bank regulator to reject Wal-Mart’s application to open a bank in Utah.

“Wal-Mart’s plan, to have its bank process hundreds of billions in transactions for its own stores, could threaten the stability of the nation’s payments system,” the lawmakers wrote.

“Given Wal-Mart’s massive scope and international dealings, it is not possible to rule out a financial crisis within the company that could damage the bank and severely disrupt the flow of payments throughout the financial system.”

The congressmen said the losses to the FDIC, which insures deposits at banks and thrift institutions, could be staggering if Wal-Mart begins to have financial troubles that bleed into its bank’s business.
today.reuters.com

President Bush said yesterday that the federal government gave more than $2.1 billion in grants to religious charities last year — a 7 percent increase from the prior year and proof, he said, that his administration has made it easier for faith-based groups to obtain taxpayer funds.

Speaking to a White House-organized conference of 1,200 charity leaders from across the country, Bush said the administration is creating “a level playing field” for religious organizations to compete with secular groups to run drug treatment programs, homeless shelters and other social services.

Government’s role is “to fund, not to micromanage how you run your programs,” he said. “I repeat to you, you can’t be a faith-based program if you don’t practice your faith.”

The speech, accompanied by a blizzard of statistics on federal grants, was partly an appeal to religious supporters and partly a response to rising criticism.

In recent months, a broad array of religious leaders, from Reform rabbis to evangelical ministers, have complained that the president’s proposed budget cuts would fall primarily on the backs of the poor by restricting food stamps, Medicaid and other social spending, while preserving long-term tax cuts.
washingtonpost.com

There is screaming, hugging, chanting, and many shhhs; the group takes a momentary pause in their celebration to hear the news. A delegation of 70 women from all over the world, including, India, Uganda, Guyana, the UK, and the US stand together in the community of La Padera, Venezuela, awaiting the details.

Juanita Romero, also known as Madre, explains that President Hugo Chávez has just given the news that we have all been waiting for: the implementation of Article 88 of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Constitution.

This diverse group, which makes up the Global Women’s Strike, has been visiting the grassroots projects that are the foundation of the Bolivarian Revolution. After three exhausting days of visiting medical clinics, land committees, food program houses, and educational missions, the Global Women’s Strike has been overwhelmingly reaffirmed, that it is the grassroots women who are building this process.

“Women are the ones that are leading the projects. They are always there and they are always the majority.” says Nicola Marcos from Guyana.

The Global Women’s Strike was formed to win economic and social recognition for unwaged caring work. Since the addition of Article 88 in the Bolivarian Constitution (1999), the Global Women’s Strike has built many relationships with grassroots communities in Venezuela.

Article 88 declares:The State guarantees equality and equity between men and women in the exercise of their right to work. The State recognizes work in the home as an economic activity that creates added values and produces social welfare and wealth. Housewives are entitled to Social Security.
upsidedown.org

Bolivia’s government plans to study how to buy back majority stakes in public service companies – including oil companies Chaco and Andina – that were partially privatized in the 1990s, development minister Carlos Villegas said in his ministry’s newsletter.

The government will search for a means to obtain 51% stakes in the privatized firms so it can name their board members, Villegas said.

The government of President Evo Morales is seeking to take control of 10 companies partially privatizedover the past decade, local press reported.

The companies include national carrier Lloyd Aereo Bolivia (LAB) and telecoms operator Entel.

Petrolero Chaco is currently controlled by Argentine firm Pan American Energy, in turn controlled by the UK’s BP (NYSE: BP) and Argentina’s Bridas, while Petrolero Andina is controlled by Spanish oil company Repsol YPF’s (NYSE: REP) local unit.
rigzone.com

There was little fanfare and much protest on March 1 as The Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) went into effect in El Salvador. The country is the first Central American nation to honor CAFTA and for the second straight day, thousands marched and traffic was snarled throughout San Salvador. Five other signatory nations have failed to meet US requirements necessary to join the agreement.

The day before, Salvadoran President Tony Saca proclaimed the start of CAFTA by announcing to George Bush (who was not present), “Come with your basket empty and take it home full.”

Today’s march started at the “Salvador del Mundo Plaza” and streamed for blocks to the Civic Plaza, in the heart of downtown San Salvador. Vendors of pirated CD’s and small farmers took to the streets next to unionists, students, and anarchists. All declared their opposition to CAFTA, or the “TLC,” as it is known in Spanish.
upsidedownworld.org

President-elect Chooses Free Trade Over Democracy
Oscar Arias, Costa Rica’s president-elect, has vowed to do everything in his power to push CAFTA through Congress despite widespread public opposition.

“You should not have the least doubt that in this, we will not cede,” said Arias, who won the election by a mere 1.1 percent against a candidate who ran on an anti-CAFTA platform.

The Bush administration breathed a sigh of relief with Arias’ narrow victory and it is hoped that he “can be a counterbalance against leftist movements springing up in South America.”

CAFTA opponents from different sectors of civil society have promised strikes and protests against the largely unpopular trade agreement.

“We are going to follow the strategy of the referendum of the streets,” said Albino Vargas, leader of the main public employees’ union.
upsidedownworld.com

“But the greatest doubt – considering that over half of all Garifuna communities are located in protected areas or their respective buffer zones – is if the dedication to environmental protection work really exists or if it can be reduced to a formula for territorial control, so that later the protected areas can be raffled off among the same old sorcerers as always.” (The Fraternal Black Order of Honduras)

On October 11, 2005, the day before the infamous October 12 anniversary commemorating 513 years of imperialism, colonialism and pillage in Latin America, the Fraternal Black Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) published a communiqué denouncing the ridiculous findings of an Environmental Impact Assessment Study, which proclaimed that the Los Micos Beach & Golf Resort—an enclave of a global tourist complex, which includes an 18-hole golf course, set inside a national park—is, in fact, sustainable. Although ridiculous, the distortion is far from surprising.

For decades, plans have been in the works for a luxury resort complex in the Tela Bay, located in the department of Atlántida on Honduras’ Caribbean coast. Over the years, the legal obstacles in its way began to disappear, while repression against Garifuna leaders and communities working to defend their communal territory, resources and culture from the destructive mega-project continues.
upsidedownworld.org

A group of about 2,000 rural activists invaded a eucalyptus plantation in southern Brazil this week causing millions of pounds damage to one of the country’s biggest paper producers.

The protesters, linked to Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement (MST), ransacked the grounds of Aracruz Celulose in the early hours of Wednesday, tearing up bulbs and destroying 15 years of genetic research, according to the company.

Yesterday, as Brazilian authorities condemned the attacks as “vandalism” and “banditry”, those responsible said they were opening up a new front in the fight for justice in rural areas and against multinational agricultural businesses.
guardian.co.uk

The Mapuche, Chile’s largest indigenous population, is forming a political party in an effort gain autonomy and self-government.

The Wallmapuwen (party) hopes to be legally recognized later this year so that it has the time to organize and prepare to field candidates in the 2008 municipal elections.

The group plans to “restore the Mapuche nation as a political and administrative entity, under a statute of territorial autonomy that enshrines the rights of its native people, and establishes Mapuzugun as an official language.”
upsidedownworld.org

One of Latin America’s most extraordinary political families is poised to produce another of the continent’s Left-wing authoritarian leaders with no love for Washington.

Ollanta Humala is one of two favourites to become Peru’s next president, a role for which, to believe his mother, he has been groomed from birth.

Ollanta Humala: ‘I am a nationalist and anti-imperialist’
“We have been preparing our children to take power since they were born,” Elena Tasso has said of her eight progeny. “If the boys are not successful this time, then it will be the turn of the girls.”

In fact two of her sons, Ollanta and Ulises, are standing as rivals in next month’s presidential election and a third, Antauro, is running for parliament.

Faced with not one but two sons to support, the head of the family, Isaac, backs Ulises.

But the father’s real enthusiasm is for the eccentric philosophy of “Etnocacerismo”.

This racist creed, which Isaac founded, calls on indigenous Americans, whom he calls “coppers”, to take on the “whites”, and their sidekicks the “blacks”, and keep the “yellows” at a safe distance.

“Isaac Humala should be investigated by child care agencies,” said a former interior minister, Fernando Rospigliosi. “God only knows what he put into his children’s heads during their formative years.”
telegraph.co.uk