Mayangna indigenous communities in northern Nicaragua are caught up in a life-and-death battle to defend their ancestral territory in the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve from the destruction wrought by invading settlers and illegal logging. “They shoot everything, burn everything, poison the water in the rivers, and chop down the giant trees that have given us shade and protection for years, and then they continue their advance, and nothing stops them,” said Aricio Genaro, president of the Mayangna indigenous nation.

The farmers are demanding cheaper inputs, a better price for their crop, and that payment be based on the quality of the product, rewarding growers for a higher quality product. "All we have is our land,” says a young woman named Senída. “And at these rates, we are losing it fast.”

Instead of dealing with land problems, the government’s attention will be on keeping social conflict from growing in the cities, for which they’ll invent new ways to criminalize the urban poor by creating job sources that do not lead to work security, but rather to things like encouraging the maquiladora sector and deregulating the workplace. The issues of land and farmworker resistance will be treated in the same way they have for decades; that is, through persecution and repression.

Mother’s Day in Mexico is considered one of the most important family holidays of the year. However, for many mothers throughout the country, the past several years of Mother’s Day have been “celebrated” with loss, grief, and a dignified rage that has manifested into a tradition of street protests. They are the mothers of victims of forced disappearances.

Center-left coalition leader and former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet looks for a second Presidential term, focusing on themes of inequality, universal education, and tax reform. But have lessons been learned from the previous coalition terms?

The Constitution of Ecuador adopted in 2008 establishes a broad range of rights for indigenous peoples and nationalities, including the right to prior consultation, which gives them the opportunity to influence decisions that affect their lives. But this right has yet to be fully translated into legislation, as the bill for a Law on Consultation with Indigenous Communities, Peoples and Nationalities is still being studied by the National Assembly.

With the world's attention focused on the on-again off-again genocide trial of former Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt and his head of military intelligence in Guatemala City, there has been little international reporting on other events in the Central American nation. Meanwhile, as the trial continues, conflicts involving rural communities and Canadian mining companies are escalating, to the point that a State of Siege was declared last night.

On April 28, 2012 journalist Regina Martínez was found strangled in the bathroom of her home in Xalapa, the capital of the southern Mexican state of Veracruz. Martínez was a renowned journalist with the Mexican weekly magazine Proceso, which for the past 36 years has been publishing articles about narco-trafficking, the war on drugs, and government corruption, among other topics.