The Amazon
Brazil: protesters briefly reoccupy Belo Monte dam
Area residents carried out the fifth occupation in less than a year at a construction site for the $13 billion Belo Monte dam to protest environmental damage.
Tag: Brazil
Southern Cone
Argentina: provincial court blocks Monsanto facility
Monsanto encounters resistance in Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, where environmentalists and residents have at least temporarily blocked construction of a plant.
The Amazon
Brazil: Amazon peoples declare against hydro
The Munduruku indigenous people in the Brazilian Amazon charge that the government is militarizing their lands to quell opposition to mega-scale hydroelectric projects.
Southern Cone
Brazil: landless leader assassinated
CÃcero Guedes dos Santos, a leader of the Landless Workers Movement (MST) who led an occupation of unused property in Rio de Janeiro state, was shot dead by unknown gunmen.
Palestine
Latin America protests attack on Gaza
The Mercosur trade bloc expressed “strongest condemnation of the violence unleashed between Israel and Palestine,” while Cuba and Venezuela issued stronger statements.
Southern Cone
Brazil: crime wars rock Sao Paulo
Brazilian police launched "Operation Saturation" to crush the Sao Paolo criminal network known as the First Capital Command (PCC), flooding the favelas with paramilitary troops.
The Amazon
Brazil: Amazon native killed by federal police
A Munduruku indigenous man was killed in a gunfight with Brazilian federal police at a remote Amazonian settlement, in a conflict over outlaw gold-mining in the area.
The Amazon
Brazil: violence halts work at Belo Monte dam
Work on Brazil’s controversial $13 billion Belo Monte hydro-dam has been at a halt since workers torched buildings at three work sites in a wage dispute.
The Amazon
Brazil: Guarani threaten mass suicide?
A Guarani-Kaiowa tribe in Mato Grosso do Sul say their eviction from ancestral lands following a court order obtained by a rancher will mean their “collective death.”
The Amazon
OAS rights body presses for truth in Yanomami massacre claims
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights urged Venezuelan authorities “to conduct a thorough investigation” into claims of a massacre at a remote Yanomami setlement.
The Amazon
Venezuelan authorities deny Yanomami massacre
Venezuelan officials investigating the reported massacre of an isolated Yanomami community say they found no evidence of the attack—a claim dismissed by indigenous advocates.
Southern Cone
Brazil: judge agrees to first war crimes trial for members of dictatorship
A Brazilian federal judge in Pará agreed to conduct the first trial against members of the former dictatorship for war crimes during the military’s rule from 1964-1985.