Full Coverage: South America

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.

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

17.07.2007 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.

11.07.2007 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.

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.

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