Some 100 Guarani activists launched an occupation of the Justice Ministry building in Brasilia, demanding action on demarcation of ancestral lands usurped by ranchers and agribusiness.
Indigenous people and advocacy groups charge the mega-project to build a transcontinental railway through the Amazon basin would mean "genocide" for isolated tribes.
Brazilian prosecutors called for authorities to halt the eviction of some 2,000 families living in an area of the Amazon rainforest where the huge Belo Monte dam is being built.
China's Premier Li Keqiang, on a tour of South America, is plugging a transcontinental railway project that would cut through the heart of the Amazon rainforest.
Mexican authorities busted another Zetas "narco-tank factory" in Nuevo Laredo on the Texas border—days after Brazilian police made a similar find in Sao Paulo.
Experts tell us the North American shale oil boom is responsible for low prices despite Middle East unrest. But the price slump serves Western aims of weakening Russia and Iran.
Brazil's Congress concluded work for the year, having failed to approve a constitutional amendment aimed at gutting the process of indigenous land demarcation.
Peru's government made much of its rainforest protection efforts at the Lima climate summit—but a new report names it as the fourth most dangerous country for ecology activists.
Brazil's National Truth Commission released a long-awaited report finding that the military regime engaged in massive human rights violations between 1964 and 1985.
Media reports in Brazil suggest that the crackdown on favela gangs in the prelude to this year's contentious World Cup was actually a police extermination campaign of favela youth.
A mass killing in several poor neighborhoods seems to be the work of an elite police unit. Based on Brazil's record, the police agents are unlikely to face criminal charges.
Amid the current UN climate talks, the New York Times runs an op-ed entitled "To Save the Planet, Don't Plant Trees"—filled with bogus science and dishonest claims.
