Bolivia’s governing Movement to Socialism (MAS) party did not achieve the same level of support in Sunday’s regional elections as its leader, President Evo Morales, did in December. However, it won five of the country’s nine provinces, and possibly a sixth one.
The Cerro Blanco gold and silver mine in the southeastern Guatemalan province of Jutiapa, on the border with El Salvador, is under fire from environmentalists in both countries concerned about the threat it poses to the shared Lake Güija and rivers on either side of the border.
A car bomb exploded in Colombia’s port city of Buenaventura last month, killing nine people and leaving 60 others injured. The U.S. plans on utilizing this port as a major point of export and import should the US-Colombia free trade agreement pass in the future. This incident underscores the insecurity faced by civilians – the majority of whom are Afro-descendants – in this area known for drug smuggling and high homicide rates.
Monsignor Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, was assassinated while giving a mass on March 24th, 1980. Romero had become a recognized critic of violence and injustice, and was therefore perceived as a dangerous enemy by certain military and right wing civil groups. This March 24th, a mass honoring Monsignor Romero’s memory was held on the same altar where the latter one was gunned down exactly thirty years before.
[…]
On August 31, 2009 a tribunal in Chimaltenango, Guatemala, sentenced former military commissioner Felipe Cusanero Coj to 150 years in prison. Cusanero’s conviction for surreptitiously kidnapping and murdering six Guatemalan citizens in the early 1980s, keeping their whereabouts and fate concealed, marks the first time in Guatemalan history that a court has found a member of the military guilty of a crime against humanity.
This November, Mexico will play host to the follow up to the Copenhagen climate talks. Activists around the country are already preparing for the 16th Conference of Parties summit, which will take place in Cancun. I spoke with Gustavo Castro Soto, an activist, agitator and organizer based in San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas.
As Mexico continues to be plagued by organized crime, governmental corruption and high unemployment, citizens look forward to the 2012 presidential elections. Due to it’s position as a recipient of federal funds never accounted for, but assumed diverted to the governor’s pocket, the poor state of Oaxaca emerges in a position to have a powerful financial effect on deciding who will be Mexico’s next president.
Thousands of Paraguayan farmers raised their clubs, fists and placards into the air while marching through the streets of Asunción, the capital city, on Thursday, March 25. The farmers demanded that President Fernando Lugo follow through on his campaign promises for agrarian reform. After a year and a half in office, Lugo’s failures to meet such demands have led various farmer organizations to directly oppose his administration.
Peru is enthusiastically espousing free trade, and has signed six tariff-lowering agreements in the space of a year. But it has not matched them with the internal policies needed to reduce their impact on labour rights, the environment, and sensitive areas like agriculture, social organisations and experts say. […]
Chile’s billion dollar man, Sebastian Piñera, has a US$30 billion dollar problem on his hands. That’s the estimated price tag of damage caused by last month’s monster 8.8-magnitude earthquake. Fortunately for Piñera, economic hard times and government cuts to fund reconstruction won’t effect his salary: this billionaire president just got a raise.
Copyright 2003-2018 Upside Down World
