Full Coverage: South America

30.12.2005 CARACAS, Dec 29 (IPS) - While this year's record high oil prices are unlikely to come down in the near future, analysts are warning the world's traditional and emerging economic powers to curb consumption, saying that at the current rate, proven reserves will only meet demand up to 2030.

23.12.2005 SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 23 (OneWorld) - Newly elected Bolivian President Evo Morales plans to decriminalize coca production, nationalize energy production, and challenge long-standing neo-liberal economic policies--and there may be little Washington can do about it.

20.12.2005 The election of indigenous leader Evo Morales as president of Bolivia is being hailed by native leaders from throughout the region as a "sign of hope" for all impoverished and discriminated indigenous peoples in Latin America.

20.12.2005 Venezuela, Bolivia, Haiti, Iraq....Despite some of the Bush administration's best efforts--and big payouts--previously marginalized classes seem to be discovering their democratic clout, says the international human rights group MADRE.

19.12.2005 Bolivia's indigenous leader Evo Morales scorns US imperialism and promises social change, but will he be able to deliver after Sunday's election? Nick Buxton reports from La Paz.

16.12.2005 Over 100 federal police evicted the Guarani-Kaiowa of Ñanderú Marangatú, Brazil, from their land this week, although the area was officially recognised as the land of the Indian people in March.

16.12.2005 Bolivians will elect a president Sunday in what a former president has called "the most important election of our lives," but the Bush administration is up in arms over the likely ascendance of Evo Morales, an indigenous politician and leader of the country's coca leaf producers.

15.12.2005 Developing nations are the fastest growing destinations for international VoIP traffic, according to the latest data released by TeleGeography. Brazil and Nigeria led the world in growth last year, with 112 percent and 103 percent, respectively. Banglagesh was a close third with 97 percent growth, followed by the Dominican Republic at 81 percent. Globally, VoIP traffic grew by 35 percent in 2004.

15.12.2005 A former state governor and a former top policeman are among the accused in Brazil's first ever investigation into the genocide of an uncontacted Indian tribe.

14.12.2005 NEW YORK, Dec 14 (OneWorld) - Coca-Cola, the multinational soft drink giant, is facing the wrath of rights advocacy groups here in the United States and abroad for refusing to take responsibility for abusive practices at its bottling plants.

12.12.2005 Michelle Bachelet, who has vowed to appoint women to half the seats in her cabinet, failed to get the requisite 50% of votes to avoid a run-off in Sunday's presidential elections. The third-place candidate, who was eliminated, has thrown his support behind Bachelet's male opponent, tightening the race before January's final round of voting.

09.12.2005 Michelle Bachelet, a medical doctor and divorced mother who was imprisioned and tortured after the 1973 Pinochet military coup, is leading the polls ahead of Sunday's presidental election. She--and other Latin American female politicans--are challenging male-dominance in the political arena, explains openDemocracy.

09.12.2005 New York University will begin removing all Coca-Cola products from its campus on 9 December in protest against the company’s failure to submit to an independent investigation of its bottling plants in Colombia, where workers have accused Coke of human rights abuses.

08.12.2005 Brazil's economy is stagnant and corruption scandals have rocked Lula's Workers' Party, but the president has followed through on his promise to focus on social development. Effective policies have cut extreme poverty by half since 1990, making Brazil one of the few countries to have already achieved Millennium Development Goal #1.

07.12.2005 Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is claiming Sunday's elections, where pro-government parties won every seat in the country's national assembly, proves his people's confidence in his rule. But opposition parties say the low turnout caused by their boycott de-legitimizes his rule and, perhaps most importantly, his foreign detractors will likely say the same.

06.12.2005 RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 5 (IPS) - The farm subsidies that underwrite the "dumping" of products on a market at below cost and that distort international trade should be abolished, but not the support for family farming that forms part of rural development and food security policies.

06.12.2005

03.12.2005 BUENOS AIRES, Dec 1 (IPS) - "They exploit us and threaten to hand us over to the police. When I was single I could claim my rights, but now with three children I have to accept the humiliation and submit to slavery," said Jose Orellana, a Bolivian immigrant who was able to escape with his family from a clandestine textile factory in Buenos Aires.

01.12.2005 Brazilian descendents of runaway slaves, known as quilombos, are hoping a new law will finally give them the right over their own land.