Impoverished, in debt and dependent on petro-dollars for revenues, the Ecuadorian government has put some 80 percent of its oil-flush lands up for international grabs, according to Amazon Watch, a California-based watchdog group. Oil companies are given subsoil rights by the government, but by law must negotiate with the pre-industrial societies that hold title to jungle lands -- tribes like the Huarani, the Achuar and the Shauar tribes, some of which have only come into contact with the modern world in recent decade-Kelly Hearn/AlterNet

The news that companies can access any cell phone customers' records and sell them to third parties online has provoked a flurry of criticism and calls for investigation, not to mention legislation restricting the practice.News reports are focusing on the possibility of rogue employees within telecommunications companies who may be selling the records to third parties.The truth may be a bit more complex, however -Consumer Affairs

President Bush said a few years ago that it was one of his goals that America become cashless by the year 2007. It may not happen that soon, but the new "beast" system is definitely a leap in that direction.-Cass Swenson/Raiders News Service

More than 18 months after the Pentagon disbanded the Coalition Provisional Authority that ran Iraq, neither the Justice Department nor a special inspector general has moved to recover large sums suspected of disappearing through fraud and price gouging in reconstruction.The inspector general's office said it doesn't plan to ask the Justice Department to file lawsuits or to conduct widespread audits of individual contracts to look for fraud -Scot J. Paltrow/Wall Street Journal

The man in the middle of the escalating tensions between Iran, Europe and the United States is Mohamed ElBaradei, Director-General of the United Nations´ International Atomic Energy Agency. ElBaradei and the IAEA, recipients of last year´s Nobel Peace Prize, are charged with verifying Iran´s compliance - or lack thereof - with international safeguards against nuclear-weapons proliferation

When the government spends more than it takes in through taxes or other methods of acquiring funds (such as printing money or auctioning off federal land), it must make up the difference by borrowing. This shortfall between current revenues and current expenditures is the deficit.We are now in a position to examine some of the cliches concerning government debt -Robert Murphy/LewRockwell.com

Evo Morales's installation as Bolivia's first Indian president may well prove to be a classic case of not wishing for what you want least you get it. By stepping up from the moderately radical Left opposition of the MAS, Evo and his bookish veep Alvaro Garcia will soon find themselves enmeshed in a baffling tangle of "arrangements" with the usual suspects--the World Bank, the IMF, the World Trade Organization, and the White House -John Ross/CounterPunch

Outgoing President Eduardo Rodriguez fired Bolivia's army chief on Tuesday over his decision to have 28 Chinese shoulder-launched missiles destroyed in the United States. Gen. Marcelo Antezana later appeared on Bolivian television to say Rodriguez had made a "bad interpretation" of his role in the October destruction of the missiles, which led to charges of treason by Evo Morales, then a presidential candidate

Investors spooked by a raid on an Internet company and weaker U.S. tech earnings dumped Japanese shares Wednesday, sending the Nikkei plunging and prompting the Tokyo Stock Exchange to suspend trading on the world's second-largest market.The TSE halted all trade 20 minutes early at 2:40 p.m. (0540 GMT), as the number of trades neared the 4-million capacity limit of the exchange -CNN

OK, everyone who has studied the Unitary Executive Theory of the Presidency, raise your hand. Anyone? Anyone? If you are not raising your hand, you're not alone. Not having heard of this concept, and thinking perhaps that I had missed something in Constitutional Law, I decided to survey a random sampling of attorneys about it. The group included civil practitioners, prosecutors, a federal judge, a former federal prosecutor who has a PhD as well as a J.D., defense attorneys, and a U.S. magistrate -Elizabeth de la Vega/TomDispatch.com