The townspeople and 2,400 smelter workers fear a collective lay-off and an impending liquidation of Doe Run’s assets in Peru, which include the Metallurgical Complex of La Oroya and the Cobriza mine. Protesters are demanding that the regional government of Junin act as an intermediary.

July 26 marked 10 months after the disappearance of 43 students of the Normal School of Ayotzinapa and the murder of three students and three civilians in the city of Iguala in northern Guerrero, while the offspring of drug lords live a very different reality.

Chilean state company Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, said its small site, Salvador, was taken by contract workers demanding legal improvements in at least a six-day protest which has already killed one operator.

Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru have indigenous communities in voluntary isolation who are most at risk of disappearing or losing that status in the Americas, said one of the organizers of an international forum held in Asuncion.

The Chavista website Aporrea published a devastating testimony about the Cuban health system. The Venezuelan Jesús Lanz Nelson Fuentes, a great admirer of Hugo Chávez, tells of the ordeal he has lived in his country, and then in Havana, where he accompanied his son with the hope that Cuban doctors could save his leg.

According to an analysis by environmentalists and Ibon International, there are three effects of climate change in Bolivia: social conflicts due to water shortages, population migration due to unproductive land, and food security risks.

María Angelina Quixtan, mother of two, has declared a fight against violence, to which she fell victim. For that reason, she has decided to send the message to women to overcome abuse.

According to a report released by the Pew Research Center, Argentina’s middle class doubled in size in the last ten years, putting it among the three leading “middle class” countries. Argentina’s middle class went from 15% of the total population in 2001 to 32.5% in 2011, following closely behind Uruguay (32.8%) and Chile (33.8%).

In El Salvador, indigenous leader Jesús Amadeo Martínez asserted that indigenous communities are not on the agendas of Central American governments, while in Guatemala the government found itself in violation of the indigenous right to self-identification when forcing some to comply with the norms of the National Registry. 

Next October 22nd Law No. 20,830 will take effect, thus recognizing the legal coexistence between people of the same sex in Chile.