Full Coverage: South America

26.06.2006 BOGOTA, Jun 26 (IPS) - Legend has it that Ciudad Bolivar, a poor neighbourhood strung along the hills on the south side of the Colombian capital, is so called because independence hero Simon Bolivar briefly took refuge in the area after narrowly escaping an assassination attempt in 1828. Today, it is riddled with the concrete failure of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's push for paramilitary demobilisation.

22.06.2006 Journalists, media entrepreneurs, government and civil society representatives, academics, and students met last week in UNESCO’s Montevideo Office to analyze and evaluate the situation of media, development and poverty reduction in Uruguay and the region, and to make recommendations for UNESCO’s action in this context.

22.06.2006 The Brazilian authorities have every reason to be grateful that the soccer world cup in Germany arrived just in time to divert people's attention from the crisis of violence and confrontation in the country's largest city, says Sue Branford.

20.06.2006 As four Mapuche activists imprisoned under draconian anti-terrorist laws spend over two months on hunger-strike, journalist Justin Vogler looks at the troubled relationship between the Chilean state and "the oldest of Chileans".

19.06.2006 Journal writers are masters of half-truths and distortion that goes along the the paper's policy of being hostile to any government not in line with the neoliberal Washington Consensus (wreaking havoc wherever it spreads) and not fully subservient to US wishes.

19.06.2006 The passionate loyalty of "Portenos" for their city's soccer clubs is more than a matter of familial and local tradition, says Carlos Forment: amid social and economic crisis it becomes a source of the remaking of civic identity.

19.06.2006 About 30 per cent of people surveyed in Brazil, Britain, Canada, Guatemala, India and South Africa have been the victim of gun crime or know someone who has been a victim in the last five years.

15.06.2006 Brazil's Indians are suffering high levels of violence linked to the loss of their land, says a new report.

15.06.2006 The US is pushing free trade agreements with Peru, Colombia and Ecuador that will harm small farmers, block access to affordable medicines and favor foreign investors, says a new report released by the international agency Oxfam.

14.06.2006 The US is pushing “free trade agreements” with Peru, Colombia and Ecuador that will harm thousands of vulnerable small farmers, block access to affordable medicines and favour foreign investors, according to a new report released today.

13.06.2006 Much attention has focused lately on the Bolivian government's nationalization of the country's hydrocarbon resources. Bolivia's policy change follows up the Venezuelan government's systematic renegotiation of contracts with foreign petroleum companies which dramatically increased revenue available to benefit Venezuela's people.

12.06.2006 Acre, Brazil’s westernmost state, is preparing for yet another onslaught of out-of-control forest fires following one of its driest rainy seasons in years.
*E2 - Eye on Earth

07.06.2006 The second Peruvian presidency of Alan García will test his claim to have learned from the mistakes of the first, reports John Crabtree.

06.06.2006 Des organisations de droits humains, des collectifs qui appuient la cause mapuche, et des personnes dans le monde, sont en train d’entreprendre des actions pour dénoncer le traitement inhumain et répressif de la part du gouvernement chilien envers une dizaine de prisonnier-e-s politiques Mapuche dans ce pays.

06.06.2006 In a single sweep of the pen, Bolivian President Evo Morales has rearranged the continent's entire geopolitical map. The May 1st decision to nationalize hydrocarbons placed South America's second largest gas reserves under state control.

06.06.2006 While Peru's pro-Western candidate Alan Garcia has prevailed on the solid support of the country's leading cities, his leftist challenger won 60 percent of the country's regions--including the impoverished Andean regions. But both candidates' tones remained conciliatory.