WASHINGTON -- In the latest in a string of setbacks that could cost the U.S. oil giant Chevron billions of dollars in damages, President Barack Obama decided this week to extend trade preferences for Ecuadorean exports for another six months under the 1991 Andean Trade Preferences Act (ATPA).

LIMA -- Peru´s government has given the green light to an Anglo-French company to drill for oil in the Amazon, just thirteen days after more than 30 people died in protests against the exploitation of the rainforest.

AUCKLAND -- A ceremony in Turangi, New Zealand, on Saturday marking the transfer of approximately $450 million in land and cash to eight Central North island Iwi completes the largest single settlement of historical grievances by the Crown, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Christopher Finlayson said.

DHAKA, Bangladesh -- Indigenous people will continue to suffer land-related problems unless Bangalee settlers are withdrawn from the hilly region and camps of army, BDR, police and Ansar are removed, speakers at a seminar said on Wednesday.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- New Zealand should scrap a contentious 2004 law that angered indigenous Maori by making the nation´s coastline public property, a government review board said Wednesday. "It is a major victory," says Maori Party´s co-leader Tariana Turia.

LIMA -- Peru’s Interior Minister Mercedes Cabanillas attempted to promote 11 police officials for their performance in the brutal Jun. 5 crackdown on native protests against government decrees that opened up indigenous land in the Amazon jungle to oil, mining, logging and agribusiness companies.

MELBOURNE -- A government plan purporting to improve the lives of people living in isolated areas of Australia’s Northern Territory will be implemented at the expense of surrounding homeland communities and ignores the cultural and health benefits for people living on those traditional lands, warn critics.

WASHINGTON -- Capping a day of mixed signals, U.S. President Barack Obama said late Monday that he considered Sunday´s ouster and exile of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to be "not legal" and that Washington still considered him the legitimate president of the Central American country.

TEGUCIGALPA -- Honduras is caught up in a crisis following the dismissal of the head of the armed forces for refusing to provide logistics and security for a non-binding referendum called by President Manuel Zelaya for Sunday, the legality of which is disputed by the courts and the opposition.

MEXICO CITY -- The Mexican government spent time and money in 2007 to get the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza declared one of the "new seven wonders of the world" in a contest organised by a Swiss-Canadian businessman. But winning has failed to deliver the desired results.

WASHINGTON -- Amid furious lobbying on both sides, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly approved landmark legislation Friday designed to reduce the nation´s greenhouse emissions that contribute to global warming 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050.

TOKYO -- Environment Minister Tetsuo Saito talked to IPS about Japan giving technical and financial support to developing countries and its goal of cutting its greenhouse emissions by 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. Japan is the world’s fifth- largest greenhouse gas emitter.

KUALA LUMPUR -- After years of lobbying by rights activists and the international community, Malaysia passed an effective and comprehensive law in 2007 against human trafficking with provisions for protection, shelter and return of trafficked person to their home countries.

NUUK -- Greenland has welcomed a new era of self-rule after 300 years under Danish authority.

“The Inuit of Greenland are many steps farther along than we are,” said Marianne Balto, Norwegian Sami Parliament’s vice president.

LIMA -- The Peruvian Congress repealed Thursday two of the most controversial decrees that sparked protests by indigenous groups which ended in bloodshed early this month.

ASUNCIÓN -- Video camera in hand, Isidro Romero is getting ready for another day of classes in the Paraguayan capital. He is studying Communications as part of a programme aimed at breaking down the barriers that have blocked access to university level studies by the country’s small indigenous minority.

SANTIAGO -- Thanks to the growing number of films by and about indigenous peoples, over 90 movies, mainly from Latin America, will be screened and voted on by spectators at the First Chilean Indigenous Peoples´ Film Festival in the Pacific port city of Valparaíso.

LIMA -- At the initiative of the opposition parties, the Peruvian parliament approved the creation of a committee to investigate the clash early this month between indigenous protesters and the police near the town of Bagua in the northern province of Amazonas, which according to official reports left a death toll of 34.

BAGUA, Peru -- Sobbing, an indigenous woman dressed in black cries out as she sees us arrive: "My son, my son, they have killed my son!" She is Andrea Rocca, the mother of Felipe Sabio, a young man who died in a clash between police and indigenous protesters in the northern Peruvian region of Amazonas.

NEW YORK -- The United States government is coming under intense pressure from rights organisations and environmental groups to redefine its trade pact with Peru, a tool that they charge the government in Lima is using to justify oppression against the indigenous population.

GUATEMALA CITY -- Incomplete infrastructure works and development projects and dismissals of teachers and municipal employees are some of the consequences of the global economic crisis in rural Guatemala, due to the central government’s decision to cut the budget for the country’s 333 municipal administrations.

CAPE TOWN -- Inefficient production, bad infrastructure, poor access to markets, a lack of capital investment: the challenges facing smallholder farmers across Africa are many. A ´green revolution´ which appears to be gaining ground in Africa seeks to change all this.

OKLAHOMA CITY -- A member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma has been appointed by President Barack Obama to his domestic policy team.

LIMA – Peru’s Prime Minister Yehude Simon said Wednesday that he will resign in the coming weeks after a crisis over Indigenous rights in the Amazon has been settled and calm returns.

GENEVA -- The Special Rapporteur on the situation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people, Professor James Anaya, will visit Peru from 17 to 19 June 2009.

BAGUA, Peru -- The Peruvian government described the recent deaths of police officers in clashes with indigenous protesters in the country’s Amazon rainforest as "genocide" at the hands of "extremist savages."

GENEVA -- The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people, Professor James Anaya, expresses his profound concern over the confrontations that took place on Friday, June 5, in Bagua, Department of Amazonas, Peru, and subsequent occurrences, which have resulted in the deaths of an estimated 30 people, including indigenous individuals and members of the Armed Forces, and in dozens of wounded and missing.

KÁRÁŠJOHKA -- The Sami Parliament demands that all companies engaging in mining activities in northern Norway pay a special fee compensating regional Sami communities. The Norwegian government wants it otherwise.

SANTIAGO -- Although it is still in the process of being drafted, a "code of responsible conduct" promoted by the Chilean government to regulate public and private investment in indigenous areas has already drawn resistance.

LA PAZ -- Social organisations in South America are backing the struggle against opening up Peru’s Amazon jungle to mining and oil companies, which resulted in clashes in which at least nine indigenous people and 25 police officers died.