Indonesian death threat
Arief Budiman, an outspoken intellectual and sociologist from the Satya Wacana Christian University in Salatiga, central Java, has complained to local security authorities after receiving anonymous death threats.
According to the Jakarta Post, Arief told reporters on August 14 that people claiming to be students and local administration officials had sent two letters telling him to leave town or risk being killed. He said he received the threats following his opposition to the Salatiga municipal administration's plan to appropriate rice fields belonging to 20 families.
Ecuador oil spill
CORDAVI, an Ecuadorian organisation practising public interest environmental law, has reported a major oil spill in July in Sucumbios province, part of the traditional territory of the Siona Secoya and Cofan native peoples. It is also the home of various communities of the indigenous Quichua people.
CUBA will join Tlatelolco treaty
HAVANA — Cuba has reaffirmed it is willing to sign the Tlatelolco treaty banning nuclear weapons in Latin America as soon as all countries in the region do the same. Among the Latin American nations which have yet to sign the treaty are Argentina, Brazil and Chile.
Although it was drafted in 1967, the treaty has not yet gone into effect because it has not been ratified by all Latin American states. Last October's Fourth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party formally reversed Cuba's earlier objection to signing.
Collor tottering
Pressure is mounting for Brazilian President Fernando Collor de Mello to resign or face impeachment, after a special parliamentary commission of inquiry investigating allegations of government corruption revealed that Collor used his privileged position to avoid the effects of his own economic measures.
On assuming office on March 15, 1990, Collor imposed a freeze on bank accounts and financial transactions, in an effort to combat hyperinflation. The bank account from which the president's private household expenses were paid was emptied of the equivalent of US$40,000 on march 13, leaving only US$2000.
Collor's friend and former campaign treasurer, businessman Paulo Cesar Farias, withdrew more than US$150,000 from his bank accounts just before the freeze.