At least four people died in an unsuccessful effort by the Haitian National Police (PNH) on July 23 to remove some 140 families from the La Visite National Park, south of Port-au-Prince in the Southeast department. The police operation–which included… Read moreHaiti: four killed in police raid at national park
Jamie Sokalsky, CEO of the Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation, announced on July 26 that major problems were delaying the opening of the company’s controversial Pascua Lama gold and silver mine, located in the Andes on both sides of the border… Read moreArgentina: gold mine problems spook Barrick investors
Some 200 carabineros militarized police violently removed about 60 Mapuche on July 23 from land the indigenous people had occupied hours earlier near their homes in the Temucuicui community in the southern Chilean region of Araucanía. The carabineros threw tear gas grenades and fired… Read moreChile: Carabineros attack Mapuche children
At an unusual joint press conference in Mexico City on July 19, the presidents of Mexico’s governing center-right National Action Party (PAN) and the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) called on the federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR) to… Read moreMexico: money laundering scandals multiply
Thousands of people marched in Mexico City on July 22 to protest what they called the “imposition” of Enrique Peña Nieto, the official winner in the July 1 presidential election, and his party, the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Signs and… Read moreMexico: more protests planned against ‘imposition’
The situation in northern Honduras’ Lower Aguán Valley, where land disputes have led to as many as 70 deaths in the past three years, remained tense and confused as of July 20, with prior agreements and court rulings apparently being contradicted… Read moreHonduras: more evictions, more occupations in the Aguán
The Chilean Catholic foundation Sisters of the Good Samaritan announced on July 6 that it was turning down an offer from the Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation to donate 800 million pesos (about US$1.64 million) to build a shelter for the sick and disabled in… Read moreChile: Catholic charity rejects Barrick Gold donation
On July 20 soldiers, police and supposed “pro-mining activists” broke up an encampment that environmentalists and area residents had set up at Cerro Negro in the northwestern Argentine province of Catamarca to protest open-pit mining. The environmentalists–who came from Córdoba,… Read moreArgentina: activists continue struggle against ‘mega-mining’
Environmentalist Alberto de Jesús is on a 1,100-mile journey from Venezuela to Puerto Rico by kayak to publicize the situation of Oscar López Rivera, an independence fighter who has been imprisoned in the US for 31 years.
A new wave of murders indicates that violence in the Lower Aguán Valley of Honduras is not subsiding despite several agreements aimed at ending the region’s longstanding agrarian conflict.
With chants of “Fraud, fraud, fraud, fraud,” thousands of Mexico City residents responded to the country’s July 1 presidential and legislative elections with a massive and apparently spontaneous march repudiating the results.
In a closer-than-expected race, Enrique Peña Nieto of the centrist PRI won the presidency with 38.22% of the votes, according to officials, followed by center-left candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador with 31.57%.
