Protests at Rio+20

A brewing regional crisis also prompted South American presidents at the summit to hold emergency talks where they decided to rush foreign ministers to Paraguay in an attempt to shore up democracy in the troubled state.
On its penultimate day, UN chief Ban Ki-moon defended the first summit on sustainable development in a decade as “the beginning of a journey”.
The event “will lead to a more sustainable future for ourselves and for generations to come,” he said.
But the gathering came under fire from the leftist presidents of Bolivia and Ecuador, along with indigenous peoples, who said capitalist greed lurked beneath its promotion of the green economy.
Bolivian President Evo Morales described the green economy as “a new colonialism” that rich nations sought to impose on developing countries.
“Countries of the north are getting rich through a predatory orgy and are forcing countries of the south to be their poor rangers,” he said.
“They want to create intervention mechanisms to monitor and assess our national policies using environmental concerns as an excuse.”
Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, also pressed African countries to protect their mineral wealth from transnational companies.
President Rafael Correa of Ecuador accused rich countries of “looting the planet, consuming environmental assets freely.”
Indigenous peoples gathered for a counter-summit issued a declaration describing the green economy as “a crime against humanity and the Earth” by dollarising nature and stripping communities of their rights. — AFP.