Full Coverage: Latin America & Caribbean

30.07.2007 Is it possible to speak mostly Spanish and still assimilate into U.S. culture? Do you have to like hamburgers more than tacos? Activists and academics weigh in on what assimilation is, and whether U.S. Latinos have achieved it.
From: New America Media

27.07.2007 Although there is disagreement over how Puerto Rico should be governed -- as a U.S. territory, U.S. state, or independent nation -- there is consensus that Puerto Ricans themselves must play a major role in deciding the island's fate.

26.07.2007 More than 6,000 documented slaves were working in Brazil in 2005, doing much of the work that turns cane into sugar for food and ethanol fuel. As the agro-fuel market booms, a human rights group urges the Brazilian government to address the chronic problem of slavery.

26.07.2007 Developing countries can learn from the experiences of Brazil and Thailand when it comes to sustaining access to anti-HIV drugs, says Médecins Sans Frontières.

25.07.2007 Last year Colombia was praised for reducing violence in Bogota, formally one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Yet this new urban order has not resulted from the rule of law, explains Colombia specialist Garry Leech, but from the rule of private right-wing militias.

24.07.2007 Fifteen women gathered recently to help develop strategies to combat domestic and sexual violence in Colombia. Now they're working to spread the movement throughout the region.

23.07.2007 Kansalaisjärjestöt penäävät Väli-Amerikan hallituksilta vastuuta maquilloilla tapahtuvien ihmisoikeusrikkomusten suhteen. Työntekijöihin kohdistuvat lukuisat rikkomukset tulevat esiin järjestöjen Amerikkojen ihmisoikeuskomissiolle jättämässä raportissa.

19.07.2007 For Mexico's government, worries over the drug trade going north have been matched by concerns over the arms trade heading south. Louis Nevaer explains.
From: New America Media

18.07.2007 In a historic move, Bolivia's indigenous Chiquitano group have been granted permanent land titles over their ancestral territory.

18.07.2007 A major region of Peru has banned genetically modified varieties of a crop that has been grown there for thousands of years and which helped fuel the ancient Inca empire.

13.07.2007 After more than 20 years of waiting, communities in the highlands of Guatemala are finally able to bury their loved ones -- victims of some of the most brutal violence of the country’s 36-year civil war.

12.07.2007 Ahead of an announcement today by Peru’s state oil company of the results of an auction of 19 oil exploration lots - some in areas inhabited by uncontacted tribes - a company spokeswoman questioned the existence of such people in the Peruvian Amazon.

11.07.2007 JOHANNESBURG, Jul 11 (IPS) - What is a common factor in ensuring that women do not marry too young, do not have more children than they can cope with, do not die giving birth -- and contract HIV in smaller numbers? Men.

11.07.2007 The White House recently held a conference on "Advancing Social Justice in the Americas." Though the United States has typically focused on free trade, narcotics, and military policy in the region, the Bush administration should shift its priorities toward social justice, says a Washington-based non-profit think tank.

10.07.2007 Köyhimmätkään kehitysmaat eivät aina tee kaikkeaan köyhyyden vähentämiseksi, vaan ohjaavat niukkoja resurssejaan puolustusmenoihin. Costa Rican presidentti Oscar Arias ehdottama Costa Rican konsensus kasvattaisi kehitysapua ja velkahelpotuksia maille, jotka vähentävät puolustusmenojaan tai pitävät puolustusmenotasonsa alhaisena.

10.07.2007 World leaders and global business chiefs gathered last week to assess progress on a voluntary initiative aimed at promoting human rights standards for cooperate operations. Several non-profits are criticizing the seven-year-old "Global Compact" as a mockery and a failure.

06.07.2007 Brazilian authorities freed over 1,100 forced labourers from a sugar cane plantation in the Amazon in the biggest raid to date.

05.07.2007 Abbott Laboratories, the third-largest U.S. drug maker, agreed to cut the price of its new AIDS treatment drug by 30 percent in Brazil, two months after the country broke the patent on a similar drug made by Merck.

05.07.2007 NEW YORK, Jul 4 (OneWorld) - New alliances between activist communities in the Unites States and those involved in social justice movements across the Gulf of Mexico are in the offing.

04.07.2007 A sham paramilitary demobilization process combined with thousands of cases of threats and killings and a chronic lack of investigations and prosecutions makes Colombia one of the most dangerous places in the world for trade unionists, according to a new human rights report.
From: Amnesty International