Brazil: the ‘neoliberalisation’ of Embrapa
Horacio Martins de Carvalho, a leading rural analyst, laments the way Embrapa, the country's main agricultural research institute, has been turned into a tool of neoliberalism, even signing technical agreements with Monsanto. In Portuguese.
PEASANT AGRICULTURE IS THE ANSWER
Vía Campesina, the world-wide peasant organisation, argues that the 'green economy' is interested in profit, not people.
Brazil: tension in Sister Dorothy’s settlement
Six years after Sister Dorothy Stang was murdered, settlers are once more being threatened by loggers near where she lived in the state of Pará.
New role for banana skins
A Brazilian scientist has discovered that the much derided banana skin can play an important role in cleaning rivers polluted with heavy metals.
Honduras: Campesinos Expelled Like ‘Vermin’
More human rights abuses as campesinos are evicted in the Bajo Aguan with nowhere to go.
Venezuela: protest letter in the Guardian
Leading activists and thinkers criticise the Guardian newspaper for failing to report on a 10,000-person march in Caracas to demand justice for the hundreds of peasant activists assassinated by wealthy landowners.
Brazil: energy policies under the spotlight
As the government continues to push ahead with its highly controversial Belo Monte hydroelectric power station, despite legal obstacles, Francis McDonagh has been following the debate over Brazil's energy policies.
PERU: Indigenous protests lead to talks
Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon force oil companies to talk
Brazil: Campaign of terror against Amazon community
Loggers, keen to expel rubber-tappers from timber-rich land in the state of Amazonas in the Brazilian Amazon, are terrorising families, with the cumplicity of the local police force. A report from Pública, one of LAB's partners in Brazil.
Colombia: human rights organisation wins award
Human rights activist wins award for her organisation's struggle to regain land violently seized by paramilitary groups. Article, in Spanish, from La Semana.