Full Coverage: Latin America & Caribbean

31.01.2006 International agency Oxfam has said that rich countries must change their attitude to world trade negotiations and show leadership to deliver reforms that lift people out of poverty. It wants the EU and US to stop making excuses for not reforming agricultural trade rules and to end their unreasonable demands for developing countries to open industry and services markets.

30.01.2006 CARACAS, Jan 29 (IPS) - A day of international protests against the occupation of Iraq, on Mar. 18, will mark the start of a series of demonstrations and mobilisations organised at the sixth World Social Forum, which ended Sunday in Venezuela.

27.01.2006 Ben Terrall examines Haiti’s coup regime, human rights abuses, the sham of planned elections and the complicity of Washington on a military and diplomatic level.

26.01.2006 Brazil's president Lula is not coming to this year's World Social Forum, being held this week in Venezuela. He has a lot of work to do at home to prepare his beleaguered party for November's elections, and his role as champion of Latin America's left may be usurped by one of three local colleagues: Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Argentina's Nestor Kirchner, or Bolivia's Evo Morales.

26.01.2006 The Zapatistas launched an armed rebellion in the Chiapas region of Mexico over a decade ago; now they're on the campaign trail with the recently launched "Other Campaign." As Mexico's 2006 presidential campaign gets under way, the Zapatistas are crossing the country in an attempt to mobilize the millions of disenfranchised indigenous and working class people.

26.01.2006 Brazilian Indians have called on President Lula to dismiss the country's top Indian Affairs official, Mércio Pereira Gomes, who is visiting London this week, after he implied that Indians already have enough land and that future land claims may be restricted.

25.01.2006 MEXICO CITY, Jan 24 (IPS) - Indigenous leaders from Latin America are overjoyed at the inauguration of Aymara Indian Evo Morales as Bolivia's new president, which they are celebrating as a victory of their own. They are now hoping that the achievement will help catapult them into a more central role at the sixth World Social Forum (WSF), which opened Tuesday in Venezuela.

24.01.2006 The resounding victory of Michelle Bachelet as Chile’s first woman president represents an important social advance in a country where women are often treated as second class citizens. But few observers see the Chilean elections as reflective of the leftward trend taking place in much of Latin America.

23.01.2006 Ralph Lee Vieux was born and raised in Brooklyn, but as the situation deteriorated in Haiti--his parents' homeland, which he knew threw the culture and language imparted upon him since childhood--he answered the call to help set up law enforcement infrastructure and settle the country's unstable social situation.

20.01.2006 LA PAZ, Jan 19 (IPS) - With an Aymara ritual, an official ceremony and a mass celebration, Bolivia will see its first indigenous president, Evo Morales, take office this weekend, with around 10 Latin American presidents in attendance.

20.01.2006 Latin American and Caribbean nations have agreed to act together to increase the availability of HIV and AIDS drugs in the region.

20.01.2006 Sunday's inauguration of Evo Morales as President of Bolivia is a milestone for for indigenous peoples around the world, says an international women's rights organisation.

20.01.2006 Just days before Evo Morales is inaugurated as President of Bolivia, US multinational Bechtel has backed down after a major international campaign and dropped a legal suit for $50 million against Bolivia.

20.01.2006 Very low-cost electricity that is not just clean but potentially beneficial for the environment, and comes from a flexible source that can be set up on any river without altering its course is the promise a Canadian company made in Brazil this week.

18.01.2006 Illegal weapons are seemingly everywhere in Haiti, but Oxfam is ready to help bring the situation under control. The organization is preparing to launch a national campaign on the issue along with women's and human rights groups as well as the government and the United Nations.

17.01.2006 O ministro da Economia Popular da Venezuela, Elias Jaua, em palestra proferida na noite da última sexta-feira, 13, no Sindicato dos Comerciários do Ceará, defendeu que o nordeste do Brasil seja o epicentro de um novo tipo de integración em que todos sejam incluídos.

17.01.2006 It's official--physician and former political prisoner Michelle Bachelet has handily won Sunday's run-off election and will become Chile's first female president.

16.01.2006 The Colombia Solidarity Campaign is appealing for protests to be made over army murders of civilian activists in the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado, and indigenous communities in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.

15.01.2006 As Liberia prepares to install Africa's first woman head of state, Chile goes to the polls to decide whether a former political prisoner will become the first female president of a country where women did not win the right to vote until 1949.

13.01.2006 Chile's presidential runoff election will take place this Sunday and the female vote will play a decisive role in determining if front-runner Michelle Bachelet will become Chile's first female president. While this election has widened women's participation, resistance to cultural change has been evident throughout.