As popular organizations called a one-day general strike July 9 to protest rising food and fuel prices, Peru’s President Alan García accused leftist opponents of plotting to overthrow him. “What we are seeing is a conspiracy that is underway,” García… Read morePeru general strike: land struggle or “conspiracy”?
US authorities could demand the extradition of two FARC guerilla leaders arrested by Colombian commandos during their rescue of 15 hostages, Justice Department officials said July 7. FARC leaders Gerardo Antonio Aguilar Ramírez AKA “César” and Alexander Farfán Suarez AKA… Read moreFARC leaders captured in rescue operation to face extradition?
The Matsés, a tribe of 2,500 people in the remote Peruvian Amazon, have rejected plans by the Peruvian government to explore for oil on their land. The government has created five exploration “lots” overlapping Matsés territory, and signed deals opening… Read morePeru: Matsés indigenous people say no to oil exploration
Uncontacted indigenous peoples in the Peruvian Amazon are being killed and having their houses burned to the ground by illegal loggers, according a statement from the International Indigenous Committee for the Protection of Peoples in Voluntary Isolation (CIPIACI). The loggers… Read morePeru: loggers attack “uncontacted” indigenous people
In the concluding event of ten days of anti-G8 protests, hundreds of activists from protest camps established in the area of the summit marched in a demonstration organized by the Ainu, the disenfranchised indigenous people of Hokkaido Island. The march… Read moreJapan: Ainu march on G8 summit
Police discovered the tortured and burned bodies of six men in an empty lot in Tijuana July 7, bringing the total found over the weekend to 11—including the corpse of a woman found in a barrel. The three-day tally pushed… Read moreNarco-killing spree in Tijuana, Culiacán
The families of two girls from Matamoros who drowned in the Rio Grande held a protest in the Mexican border city last month after authorities across the river in Brownsville, TX, ruled the death of a third girl in the… Read moreSurvivors demand justice after Matamoros girls drown in Rio Grande
On June 30 El Heraldo de León, a newspaper based in León in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, released two graphic videotapes showing police agents from León’s Special Tactical Group (GET) torturing other agents during training sessions. The victims,… Read moreMexican cops tape torture training
According to a July 1 press release from the Authentic Labor Front (FAT), an independent Mexican labor group, one of its affiliates has won a settlement in a two-month struggle with the Central de Abasto, Mexico City’s huge wholesale food… Read moreMexico City market union wins
Some 100 members of the 19th US-Cuba Friendshipment Caravan, an annual shipment of humanitarian aid organized by the New York-based group Pastors for Peace, arrived in Havana on July 5. Reverend Lucius Walker led the delegation, which was met at… Read moreCuba: US aid caravan reaches Havana
Latin American leftists expressed satisfaction at the release of 15 people held captive by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)—including French-Colombian ex-presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three US military contractors—in a Colombian military operation July 2. “Out of a… Read moreLatin American left reacts to release of FARC captives
On June 26, Palestinian professor Sami Al-Arian was charged in US District Court in Alexandria, Va., with two counts of criminal contempt for refusing to testify before a grand jury which is investigating whether Islamic charities in northern Virginia were… Read moreUS indicts Palestinian detainee Al-Arian
