News Briefs

(IPS) – “Violence against women is not only domestic, it also happens in the streets. Not having the right to feel safe in a city square or at a bus stop without someone bothering us, […]

Source: Center for Economic and Policy Research Earlier this month, as the US loudly complained about Venezuela’s decision to purchase arms from Russia, South America’s ministers of defense came together in Guyaquil, Ecuador and put […]

Environmental health scientists from the University of Michigan find that a sample of Guatemalans who live near a controversial gold and silver mine in the country’s western highlands have higher levels of potentially toxic heavy […]

Source: Andean Information Network New Human Rights Ombudsman finally sworn in Congress swore in the new Human Rights Ombudsman (Defensor del Pueblo), emeritus Methodist Bishop Rolando Villena, on May 13. According to the 2009 Constitution, […]

Source: Haiti Liberte The Haitian government sold a 60% share of the country’s national telephone company, Teleco, this month to the Military Telecom Company, known as Viettel, a subsidiary of the Vietnamese Army, based in […]

(IPS) – The indigenous peoples of the Amazon region of Bolivia have declared themselves in a “state of emergency” and announced that on May 20 they will begin a 1,000-kilometre march to La Paz to […]

Kayapó Indian leader Raoni Metuktire arrived in Europe last week and has appealed for support for his tribe, which is campaigning against the Belo Monte dam on the Xingu river in the Brazilian Amazon. Raoni […]

Amnesty International has called on the Mexican authorities to protect an Indigenous community blockaded by more than 30 paramilitary gunmen with links to one of the country’s main political parties. The 700 people living in […]

(Tierramérica) – The longstanding debate between eviction or upgrading of Rio’s “favelas” or slums has gathered new force as this one-time capital of Brazil still shows the hillside scars left by rain-induced landslides in early […]

(IPS) – “Fuera Ecoltec!” (Get out Ecoltec!) protesters chanted in a demonstration Sunday in the Mexican town of Apaxco, one year after the start of a community blockade of a toxic waste processing plant run […]