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The Caribbean does not have the luxury of time for decisive action on climate change and global warming. In fact, it is on the brink of calamity, according to a prominent scientist. Conrad Douglas, a Jamaican scientist who has published over 350 reports on environmental management and related matters, has warned that “urgent action at [...]

Whether by accident or coincidence, recent days have seen a variety of Caribbean leaders and journalists question whether the region is failing to pursue leadership roles within international organisations – and thus losing its voice in global issues like trade, climate change, and peace and security. “These days, it is difficult to find CARICOM…

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Thirty-seven years after leading the coup d’etat that ushered in the most brutal dictatorship in the history of Argentina, former army commander Jorge Rafael Videla died in a common prison Friday. Convicted in several cases for crimes against humanity, the former dictator was found in his cell without a pulse, according to the medical report [...]

A Venezuelan movie about a young deaf woman who is sexually abused by her stepfather, “Brecha en el silencio” (Breach in the Silence), took top prize at the second Colombia-Venezuela film festival. Twelve feature-length and 10 short films were screened at the May 13-16 festival, held in the border cities of Cúcuta in northeastern Colombia [...]

As Brazil prepares to host several sporting mega-events, human rights abuses and authoritarian interventions by the authorities are going on behind the scenes, favouring major urbanisation projects and stadium remodelling, a study says. The state has forced almost 30,000 families across the country to leave their homes, according to the Comité…

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In this column, Mandeep Tiwana, policy and advocacy manager of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, writes that civil society organisations around the globe face grave threats to their efficacy and existence. In violation of international commitments to foster increased participation of the NGO sector, governments everywhere continue…

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Fed up with oil spills from facilities belonging to Mexico’s state oil company Pemex, residents of two communities in the southeastern state of Tabasco are taking the country’s largest company to court in a bid for compensation for damage to the environment and agriculture. The people of Cunduacán and Huimanguillo, which have a combined population [...]

Brazilian diplomat Roberto Carvalho de Azevêdo was named the new director general of the WTO with broad support from the developing world, beating out his Mexican rival Herminio Blanco, who was backed by the industrialised nations. “The results of the selection process reveal that most members of the WTO (World Trade Organisation), the majority of [...]

Indigenous communities in northern Nicaragua are demanding that the authorities take urgent action to halt the attacks on their lives and territory by illegal invaders.

When people are forcibly disappeared in Mexico, it does not necessarily mean that the victims are immediately killed. In this country of entrenched violence, forced disappearance is also a method used to feed the markets for sexual exploitation and slave labour. Mexico has regressed “to the barbarism of Roman gladiators,” lawyer Juan López, a…

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At the age of 20, Damián Valencia speaks knowledgeably about every aspect of gender equality. He is a member of Cascos Rosa, a young people’s initiative working for cultural change against machismo and violence against women in Ecuador. “We seek and promote gender equality and equal rights and opportunities for men and women,” said Valencia,…

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A group of Mexican citizens are preparing the first civil lawsuit in the Mexican courts against British oil company BP for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The plaintiffs are bringing the class action lawsuit under a 2011 reform of the Mexican constitution that allows a large number of people with a common interest [...]

Argentina is one of the countries in Latin America with the highest levels of vaccination coverage. But experts are concerned about the growing campaign by vaccine critics against immunisation. “Vaccines have saved as many lives as clean water. Risking not giving shots is like playing Russian roulette,” Dr. Carlota Russ, secretary of the Argentine…

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Officially, the Caribbean’s rainy season begins in June, coinciding with the start of the hurricane season. But recently, heavy rains have signalled an early start to the rainy season, flooding streets, swelling rivers and causing widespread damage to crops. “With global warming, you have to expect anything these days,” Shiraz Khan, president of…

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Latin American states are still failing to provide guarantees for women’s educational, sexual and reproductive rights, according to activists from different regions of the world meeting in the Mexican capital. “Pending issues include economics, education, violence and sexual and reproductive health,” María Oviedo, the Argentine training manager…

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Tuchinha was once a drug lord in Rio de Janeiro’s Mangueira favela. But today he is helping youngsters in this Brazilian city turn their lives around and leave behind crime, prison and the likelihood of an early death. Franciso Paulo Testas Monteiro, better known as Tuchinha, climbed to the heights of the criminal world. Because [...]

“But I always used a condom!” was the sentence that played over and over in Jaime Roche’s mind when the young Cuban man tested positive for HIV in October. “I couldn’t believe it. I’m an advocate of using condoms, even for oral sex,” the health worker, who preferred not to give his real name, told [...]

“I was displaced here by mining a month ago. Illegal miners forced me out of my municipality. No, don’t write down where I’m from, let alone my name,” said a 40-year-old black man frightened for his safety. IPS agreed to say only that he is from Colombia’s southern Pacific coast region. Two leftwing guerrilla movements [...]

In the 2011 action-thriller “Unknown”, scientists are persecuted by the biotech industry because they plan the open release of a drought- and pest-resistant strain of maize that could help eradicate world hunger. There are certain parallels with the situation today in Mexico, the birthplace of maize, which is at the centre of the global fight…

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Chile is home to 20 percent of the world’s active volcanoes, according to the Andean Geothermal Centre of Excellence.