An inquiry by a team of international experts concluded yesterday that the former Chilean President, Salvador Allende, committed suicide during the 1973 military coup. The official report stated that the body of Allende, exhumed in May, had two bullet holes in the skull. David Pryor, a British ballistics expert who took part in the investigation, [...]

A protest by workers in the petroleum company Cepcolsa Petróleo was violently repressed yesterday. The protest occurred in Campo Rubiales, in the department of Meta, Colombia. It is an important area of petroleum production. The workers were demanding better working conditions and salaries. More than a thousand workers started to demand these changes 29 days [...]

Joaquín Lavín was replaced this morning by Justice Secretary Felipe Bulnes, in the midst of student strikes that demand an end to the profit-making education system. It is understood that he has been moved to the Planning Department. Laura Ortiz, President of the Assembly of Secondary School Students (ACES) stated that the minister had left [...]

Leaders of indigenous organisations in Peru have accused oil company Maple Energy Plc of causing another oil spill. The spill took place in the Quebrada Mashiria stream in territory belonging to the native Shipibo community of Nuevo Sucre, in the Loreto region of Peru. As well as calling for the company to respect environmental laws [...]

Vice President of AMARC Latin America and the Caribbean, Carlos Aparicio, said there had been reports that warned about the vulnerable status of communitarian communicators in Honduras. Nery Orellana is the third journalist murdered in Honduras 2011. Aparicio said the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) has repeatedly denounced “the conditions of community aggression against [...]

The US has extradited a Peruvian ex-army officer, Telmo Hurtado, over the killing of 69 people during the war against Maoist guerrillas in the 1980s. Known as the “butcher of the Andes”, Hurtado was benefiting an amnesty for officers from the 1990s, but after losing it when Peru’s Supreme Court nullified the law in 2002, [...]

The Mexican army says it has discovered a huge field with mature marijuana in the northern state of Baja California. The Mexican authorities said the marijuana would have reached a street value of $160million US dollars. Soldiers were patrolling the 300km area south of the US border, when they a marijuana field near the town [...]

International organizations that make up the Mission of International Verification presented a preliminary report on the human rights violations in Bajo Aguán, in the north of Honduras.  The investigation took place over three months. The organizations presented the report, called “Honduras: Human Rights Violations in Bajo Aguán,” before the European Parliament. The text speaks to [...]

The Supreme Court in Mexico determined that the soldiers involved in human rights violations will be tried in civil courts. A majority vote repealed the judicial mandate that had maintained the military charter. This dictum fulfills the sentence issued by the Inter-American Human Rights Court (CoIDH) against the Mexican state. The ruling addressed the forced disappearance of [...]

Mexico’s Association of Radio and Television (CIRT) today lodged an appeal to stop community radios being recognised under ruling from the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), accusing them of so-called “illegal activity”. This information was revealed earlier in a message sent from the Free Speech and Legal Wing of the World Association of Community Radio (AMARC). [...]