A civil suit playing out between five American oil companies and the municipalities of Oakland and San Francisco started off poorly for climate change activists. 
The government of Ecuador organized protests that took place outside the building where a legal dispute between the South American nation and oil giant Chevron was being hashed out, documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon reveal. The International Criminal Court this week rebuffed efforts to charge oil giant Chevron with violations of international law, dealing another setback to environmentalists engaged in a decades-long legal and political battle against the company. 
A public relations firm representing the government of Ecuador sued Sharon Stone in federal court on Tuesday alleging that the actress absconded with a large speaking fee for work promoting that government’s long-running legal and political battle against oil giant Chevron. 
The government of Ecuador is attempting to prevent the release of information related to its contract with a New York-based public relations firm that may have violated federal law and is under investigation in the South American nation. Forget “all this bullshit about law and facts,” remarked Steven Donziger in 2007. “In the end of the day, it is about brute force.”
Donziger was a plaintiffs’ attorney attempting to extract billions of dollars from oil giant Chevron—by whatever means necessary. His observation on the role the “law and facts” played in his work nicely captured the character of the years-long campaign of fraud, bribery, and extortion he conducted on behalf of his clients. 
A New York City-based public relations firm touted the government of Ecuador as a client last month despite not registering as a foreign agent with the Department of Justice, raising legal questions about its relationship.
The firm, MCSquared, promoted protests at a May shareholders meeting of oil giant Chevron, which has squared off with the administration of President Rafael Correa over a long-running environmental lawsuit in Ecuador. Prominent Washington, D.C., lobbying firm Patton Boggs has agreed to pay Chevron $15 million in a settlement announced on Wednesday, the latest blow to efforts to enforce a multibillion dollar judgment against the oil company that critics have decried as fraudulent. 
A federal judge threw out a case brought against Chevron by a Washington law firm attempting to get the company to pay $18 billion for allegedly polluting an Ecuadorian oil field, on Wednesday. 
Observers wondering who would assume the mantle of Hugo Chavez as Latin America’s fiery, anti-American strong man did not have to wait long. That man is Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa.
Correa won a second term last February and promised to continue his “citizens’ revolution.” However, his record looks different beyond the rhetoric. 