Seven Mapuche activists went on hunger strike to protest what they consider the Chilean government’s repression of struggles by the indigenous group to regain ancestral lands.
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.
A Brazilian judge ruled that permits for more than 120 proposed hydro-electric dams in the Upper Paraguay River Basin cannot be issued without impact assessments.
A panel of UN human rights experts urged Chile to make sure that people who have been convicted of enforced disappearances all serve their sentences.
Chilean high school students occupied at least 10 public high schools in a continuation of protests for educational reform that started more than a year ago.
Students occupied public high schools in Santiago in the latest protest against the privatization of Chile’s educational system that started under the Pinochet dictatorship.
Brazil has mobilized nearly 9,000 military troops to its borders with four neighboring countries as part of an operation aimed at interrupting narco-trafficking networks.
Contract workers occupied the San Ambrosio Church in Vallenar, Chile, to protest labor conditions at the Pascua Lama open-pit gold mine in the high Andes.
A federal court in Brazil ordered Chevron and drilling company Transocean to suspend all oil drilling in the country within 30 days in the wake of two spills off Rio de Janeiro.
Jamie Sokalsky, CEO of the Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation, announced on July 26 that major problems were delaying the opening of the company’s controversial Pascua Lama gold and silver mine, located in the Andes on both sides of the border… Read moreArgentina: gold mine problems spook Barrick investors
Some 200 carabineros militarized police violently removed about 60 Mapuche on July 23 from land the indigenous people had occupied hours earlier near their homes in the Temucuicui community in the southern Chilean region of Araucanía. The carabineros threw tear gas grenades and fired… Read moreChile: Carabineros attack Mapuche children
The Chilean Catholic foundation Sisters of the Good Samaritan announced on July 6 that it was turning down an offer from the Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation to donate 800 million pesos (about US$1.64 million) to build a shelter for the sick and disabled in… Read moreChile: Catholic charity rejects Barrick Gold donation
