A Brazilian federal judge blocked a move to try retired army colonel Sebastiao Curio Rodrigues de Moura AKA “Dr. Luchini” for abuses committed during the military dictatorship, as more human remains were unearthed at a barracks in Uruguay.
Leaders the Isiboro Sécure National Park Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS) in Bolivia’s eastern lowlands voted to hold a new cross-country march on La Paz to oppose construction of a road through their territory.
A Colombian judge overturned the conviction of FARC commander “Grannobles,” finding he could not be held responsible for the deaths of civilians in a Colombian air force strike on a village where he killed captive soldiers.
Colombia’s armed forces boast of wiping out FARC guerilla forces on the eastern plains, winning international coverage. But ongoing paramilitary terror against campesinos seeking restitution of usurped lands gets no coverage outside Colombia.
Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón, constitutionally barred from re-election, will meet with Obama in the White House this week for his final NAFTA summit—with his country’s bloody cartel wars topping the security agenda.
The head of Libya’s Toubou people called for international intervention after deadly clashes at the southern oasis of Sabha. Issa Abdel Majid Mansur said the Toubou Front for the Salvation of Libya was being revived, and broached secession.
Tuareg rebels of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) launched an attack on Mali’s northern city of Kidal—following through on a promise made in the wake of last week’s coup d’etat to advance on government-held towns.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed the nation’s first Clean Air Act standard for carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants. But ecologists protest that existing plants are grandfathered in, among other loopholes.
The former head of the Polish intelligence services, Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, may face charges for his assistance to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in operating a secret prison where torture reportedly occurred.
Peru’s Nobel Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa addresses an elite right-wing confab in Lima, intoning against the threat of “populism” and warning that “the radical left has found in ecology a new banner.” He also boasts that he has no cell phone.
On World Water Day, the “March for Water, Life and Dignity,” more than 1,000 strong, reached Ecuador’s capital after a two-week, 700-kilometer cross-country trek to oppose plans for large-scale mining projects on indigenous lands.
The UN’s International Labor Organization released a report finding that the Brazilian government violated the rights of indigenous people by moving forward on the massive Belo Monte dam without consulting native communities.
