Region

President of Paraguay Fernando Lugo regretted on Tuesday that the ability to recover ill-gotten lands is not only in the hands of the executive, and urged the judiciary and the Legislature to intervene to find a solution. Land reform is one of the country’s historic debts and it requires the involvement of all social sectors, Lugo said at the ceremony for Children’s Day.

Plans for a law condoning same-sex marriage are being considered by the ruling left wing coalition party, Frente Amplio, in Uruguay. A project created by Uruguay’s first transsexual lawyer, Michelle Suárez, will be unveiled shortly to the Constitution Commission and the Chamber of Deputies.

“A new Chile is born,” said President Sebastián Piñera as he personally welcomed 33 miners at the surface after their spectacular rescue from a collapsed mine in the Atacama desert 10 months ago. The country has indeed changed since then but not as La Moneda palace’s current occupant expected.

Three Chilean students on hunger strike were admitted today in a delicate state after 31 days of fasting which, from this week included the rejection of liquids, as a deepening of the protest demanding free and better quality education. They were admitted with heart and kidney problems.

Police detained veteran anti-corruption campaigner Anna Hazare as he prepared to start a banned hunger strike against the government, provoking widespread outrage. Hazare, 74, was taken into custody by plain-clothes officers at an apartment in New Delhi early Tuesday morning, an hour before he was due to lead a parade to a public park where he was to begin a “fast unto death”.

Five Filipinos, two of them domestic helpers and two former helpers, are fighting in Hong Kong’s High Court for right of abode, which other immigrants can get after seven years in Hong Kong. The plaintiffs in three judicial reviews want the court to declare that the rule denying helpers residency contravenes the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution.

On Sunday the ‘Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity’ carried out ​​a silent march against Mexico’s militarization movement to fight organized crime. The demonstration was led by poet Javier Sicilia. Around 3000 people joined the demonstration. The protest took place in downtown Mexico City and ended in the federal district in front of the Mexican Senate.

In moments when public opinion is turning against nuclear energy due its inherent dangers to the environment and nuclear proliferation, Algeria takes a different path

Tunisian police fired teargas on Monday at a rally by hundreds of people protesting at the lack of political reforms since the overthrow of President Ben Ali in January. Columns of smoke could be seen rising above an area in front of Tunis cathedral where protesters gathered for a demonstration at the same time as an authorised one called by the General Workers’ Union.

Families in Nisisioken Ogale, near a Nigerian National Petroleum Company pipeline, are drinking water from wells contaminated with benzene, a known carcinogen, at levels over 900 times above UN World Health Organization guidelines.