By Daniel Politi
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) --Movie director James Cameron says he feels he "walked into an ambush" this week during a visit to Argentina in which he believes there was an attempt to use his image as an environmentalist to give a positive spin to lithium mining operations despite Indigenous opposition.
Cameron, the director of "Avatar" and "Titanic," said Friday he would now devote attention and money from his Avatar Alliance Foundation to support Indigenous communities opposing lithium operations in South America.
"Ironically, the outcome of this is that I am now aware of the problem and we will now assist through my foundation with the issue of Indigenous rights with respect to lithium extraction," Cameron told a group of journalists gathered in his hotel room in the capital of Buenos Aires Friday evening.
Cameron came to Argentina this week to speak at a sustainability conference in Buenos Aires on Friday.
"I believed that I was coming here to make a kind of motivational speech about environmental causes," Cameron said.
As part of the visit, Cameron traveled to northern Jujuy province Thursday to visit a large solar power plant with Gov. Gerardo Morales and says he was never told lithium would be part of the discussion.
After Cameron's visit, Morales wrote a message on social media thanking Cameron for the visit, writing that the province was looking to "transform the energy matrix" through projects such as the solar power plant and "lithium extraction."
The director received a letter that a group of 33 Indigenous communities from the area had written to him a few days earlier asking him to either cancel his trip or meet with them so they could explain their long-held opposition to lithium mining projects they say affect their land rights and negatively impact the environment.
"I feel like I walked into an ambush," Cameron told journalists after meeting with local environmentalists, saying he was unaware of controversy involving lithium projects. "I feel like I was put into an optic that had meaning that I wasn't aware of."
Although Cameron says he "doesn't know the exact architecture" of how the "ambush" happened, he feels there was an effort to use his image not just because of his support for environmental causes but also because of the overarching message of "Avatar."
"'Avatar' is the highest grossing film in history. It is about the conflict between an extraction industry and the rights of Indigenous people," Cameron said. "If you could generate an optic where I appear to be approving of lithium mining, then you have a mandate of some sort or an approval of some sort."
In their letter to Cameron, representatives of the Indigenous communities made a direct reference to "Avatar" to appeal for the director's support.
"Jujuy is Pandora, and it is under the threat of the greed of the mining industry, and we are the Na'vi," reads the letter, referring to the fictional world where "Avatar" takes place and its inhabitants who battle against colonizing miners.
Before leaving Argentina, Cameron met with Verónica Chávez, the representative of one of the Indigenous communities from Jujuy.
Argentina is the fourth-largest producer of lithium and is part of what is known as the "lithium triangle," an area that contains a large share of the world's proven reserves of the metal and also includes neighboring Chile and Bolivia. Demand for lithium is soaring amid the transition to renewable energy around the world and the growth in electric vehicles that are powered by lithium batteries.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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