Full Coverage: South America

22.12.2006 Hugo Chávez's resounding victory in well-monitored elections shows that the self-styled socialist has won over Venezuela's poor majority. But has he put the country on the slow road to autocracy? A pair of Latin America-based journalists get beyond the rhetoric to really examine Venezuela's politics and policies.

22.12.2006 The world's new economic powerhouses, including India, Brazil, South Africa and China, are largely responsible for a dramatic surge in trade and investments among the 132 developing nations in the global South.

19.12.2006 GUALEGUAYCHU, Argentina, Dec 18 (IPS) - With a nativity scene and a big Christmas tree set up on the highway to the nearby bridge leading to Uruguay, residents of the Argentine town of Gualeguaychu plan to continue blocking traffic between the two countries until a pulp plant being built on the other side of the river moves elsewhere.

18.12.2006 A mídia hegemônica não se conforma com a surra levada na eleição presidencial e procura, a todo custo, impor o seu programa rejeitado nas urnas ao novo governo do presidente Lula. No que se refere à política externa, essa manobra é descarada.

15.12.2006 Leaders of Andean governments who thought that the Free Trade Agreement with the United States would deepen the process of Andean integration turned out to be dead wrong.

15.12.2006 Militias formed by police, ex-police officers, firemen, prison workers, and military personnel have expelled drug traffickers from the west and northern areas of the city of Rio de Janeiro.

13.12.2006 SANTIAGO, Dec 12 (IPS) - In Chile, transgenic seeds may only be planted to produce crops for export. However, imported transgenic foods can be eaten here.

12.12.2006 One of the 20th century's most brutal dictators died on Human Rights Day Sunday. Roger Burbach, an American who fled Chile after the 1973 coup, recounts the United States' involvement in Pinochet's ascendance.

11.12.2006 In Santiago on September 11, 1973 I watched as Chilean air force jets flew overhead. Moments later I heard explosions and saw fireballs of smoke fill the sky as the presidential palace went up in flames. Salvador Allende, the elected Socialist president of Chile died in the palace.

08.12.2006 On November 9th Roberto Requião, Governor of the state of Paraná, dealt a blow to agribusiness when he signed a decree to expropriate the experimental test site owned by the Swiss multinational corporation Syngenta, located in Santa Tereza do Oeste.

08.12.2006 Despite strong opposition from right-wing politicians and the Catholic Church, Argentines now have access to free surgical contraception.

05.12.2006 O presidente bolivariano da Venezuela, Hugo Rafael Chávez Frias, está reeleito para um novo mandato de seis anos, com mais de 60% dos votos dos eleitores de seu país. Chávez derrotou o candidato norte-americano Manoel Rosales e em sua primeira declaração afirmou que “o diabo que pretende dominar o mundo foi derrotado”.

05.12.2006 Inaugurated in July, Peru’s president Alan García Perez inherited a country torn on socio-economic and political issues. In his first three months in office, García has combined policy innovation and continuity to address the country’s challenges.

01.12.2006 The government of Evo Morales and the indigenous social movements of Bolivia have won an historic victory with the passage of an agrarian reform law that calls for the “expropriation of lands” that “do not serve a just social-economic function.”

01.12.2006 Congress should focus on extending current trade preferences with Colombia and not sign off on the detrimental free trade deal signed US. negotiators signed with the country last week, says Oxfam America.

01.12.2006 In this young democracy, only 27 years old, the presidency has had a tumultuous history. In the last 15 years, only one elected president has finished out his term. In the last ten years, Ecuador has had eight presidents.