While the world media focused on the successful rescue of 33 Chilean miners, union leaders charge that persistent problems with safety in the country’s mines are being downplayed.
Ten indigenous Mapuche prisoners in Chile’s southern AraucanĂa region agreed to end a liquids-only hunger strike protesting the use of an “anti-terrorism” measure against indigenous activists.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that Paraguay must return lands to the Xákmok Kásek indigenous community—but the Paraguayan government has ignored such rulings before.
The National Refugee Commission of Argentina (Conare) granted political asylum to Sergio Galvarino Apablaza Guerra, a former leader of Chile’s rebel Manuel RodrĂguez Patriotic Front (FPMR).
A group of 12 Chilean activists began an open-ended “massive solidarity fast” to support indigenous Mapuche prisoners who have been carrying out a liquids-only hunger strike since July 12.
The UN expressed concern over forced labor in Brazil, asserting that businesses treat workers as virtual slaves with “impunity.” Days earlier, authorities rescued 95 forced laborers from plantations.
A Chilean anarchist cell claimed responsibility for a bomb blast that damaged airline ticketing offices in Buenos Aires, saying it acted on behalf of the Mapuche indigenous people.
Thousands protesters led by high school students marched on Buenos Aires’ Plaza de Mayo, following weeks of high school and college campus occupations to protest budget cuts.
The 33 trapped Chilean miners may not receive any wages while they are trapped underground, a union official has claimed. The miners are expected to be trapped until year’s end.
Indigenous community leaders staged a take-over of Santiago-based Radio BĂo-BĂo to protest the station’s failure to report on the hunger strike of 32 Mapuche activists.
After a heated 14-hour session, Argentina’s Senate voted 33-27 with three abstentions to approve a bill extending the right to marry and to adopt to same-sex couples.
Twenty-three imprisoned Mapuche indigenous comuneros in Chile are on hunger strike to demand dismissal of cases brought against them in military courts under a Pinochet-era anti-terrorism law.
