Southern Cone
Chile: was Valparaíso fire a ‘natural disaster’?
Decades of uncontrolled urban growth in an area naturally prone to forest fires left Valparaíso's working-class neighborhoods vulnerable to devastation.
Tag: Southern Cone
Southern Cone
Rio de Janeiro: military operation against favelas
Brazilian Military Police backed by Marine troops occupied the massive Maré favela next to Rio de Janeiro's airport in a major clean-up operation ahead of the World Cup.
Southern Cone
Brazil: anti-terrorism law sparks rights concerns
A new anti-terrorism bill in Brazil in advance of the World Cup has raised concern among human rights groups, who say the law threatens free speech and peaceful assembly.
Southern Cone
Chile: water activist to be jailed for ‘slander’
Environmentalists accuse a former interior minister of diverting water illegally to his farming operations—so a local court punishes the environmentalists.
Southern Cone
Argentina: general strike targets Fernández policies
A general strike reveals fractures in the labor movement and in the center-left alliance that has dominated Argentina's government for the last decade.
Southern Cone
Squatter ‘mega-eviction’ rocks Rio de Janeiro
More than 1,500 Military Police were mobilized to evict thousands of squatters who had recently taken over an abandoned office complex in Rio de Janeiro.
Southern Cone
Paraguay: imprisoned campesinos on hunger strike
Five Paraguayan campesinos arrested during a violent squatter eviction in 2012 and held since then without trial are six weeks into a hunger strike.
Southern Cone
Paraguay: indigenous Aché people charge genocide
The Aché indigenous people of Paraguay brought suit in an Argentine court demanding reparations for "genocide" carried out under the late Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner.
Southern Cone
Brazil: Kennedy backed plan for 1964 coup
As Brazilians mark the 50th anniversary of a military coup, US documents show that plans for the action had the strong support of the liberal Kennedy administration.
Southern Cone
Paraguay: first general strike in 20 years
Paraguayans used their first general strike in two decades to protest everything from low wages to the lack of an agrarian reform policy.
Southern Cone
Brazil: Rio street sweepers win with wildcat
While the media focused on Rio's Carnaval celebrations, thousands of street sweepers went on strike in defiance of their union—and won.
Southern Cone
Chile: environmentalists declare ‘Glacier Republic’
Latin America has a new country: Greenpeace Chile plans to maintain an independent nation in the glacial regions until Chile finally passes laws protecting the glaciers.