Year: 2009
Rock Bottom Mining: Unemployment and Crisis in Peru
The mining bubble in Perú has popped. With world demand at it’s lowest, international metal prices have cascaded and as of November 2008 more than 8 thousand mining workers have joined the ranks of the unemployed. […]
Ecuador: Mining and the Right of Way
Indigenous leaders delivered a lawsuit in Quito last Tuesday before Ecuador’s Constitutional Court asking that the country’s new mining law be declared unconstitutional. The case is the next step that the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) is taking to try to put the brakes on large scale metal mining which has achieved unwavering support from President Rafael Correa’s administration. […]
Historical Archives Lead to Arrest of Police Officers in Guatemalan Disappearance
Following a stunning breakthrough in a 25-year-old case of political terror in Guatemala, the National Security Archive today [March 17,2008] is posting declassified U.S. documents about the disappearance of Edgar Fernando García, a student leader and trade union activist captured by Guatemalan security forces in 1984. The documents show that García’s capture was an organized political abduction orchestrated at the highest levels of the Guatemalan government. […]
Ecuador: La lógica del desarrollo choca con los movimientos
Fuente: Programa de las Américas Pese a proclamarse socialista y defender el "buen vivir", el presidente Rafael Correa impulsa la gran minería a cielo abierto, que en toda la región viene provocando graves daños ambientales […]
Peru: Few Benefits from Boom for Poorest Mining Districts
(IPS) – The poorest district in Peru is in an area of intense mining activity, in a country where the mining industry accounts for nearly 60 percent of all export revenues. But the people of […]
Ecuador: The Logic of Development Clashes with Movements
President Rafael Correa
In spite of proclaiming himself socialist and a defender of the general "well being," President Rafael Correa has been promoting the open-pit mining industry, which has provoked serious environmental and social damage throughout the region. […]
El Salvador: Voting in Rebel Territory
Voting at table 4
Morning always comes early in the country side, but on Sunday, March 15, it comes even earlier to Arcatao. Poll workers are to show up at to begin their work, but by FMLN militants are already present at the municipal building on the square. Polls are not supposed to open until , but local activists are so eager for the outcome of these historic elections that voting begins 15 minutes early. […]
El Salvador: Crisis, Poverty Huge Challenges for Leftist President
Credit:FMLN (IPS) – The main challenges faced by El Salvador’s leftwing president-elect Mauricio Funes are forging understandings with other political sectors, adopting measures to deal with the economic crisis, and especially its effects on the […]