South America

The UN Conference on Sustainable Development, known as Rio+20 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 1992 Earth Summit with expressions of deep disappointment from broad sections of members of the media and the environmental NGOs, who saw little new commitments to action in the final text that was adopted by the heads of states and governments and their senior officials.

3 top figures from Argentina’s former ruling junta have been sentenced to additional time behind bars for the deliberate theft of babies from political prisoners. Former dictators Jorge Rafael Videla and Reynaldo Bignone, as well as former navy officer Jorge Acosta, were found guilty of a systematic plan to take the babies of dissidents and adopt them into military families.

During the handover of the first identity cards under the provisions of the new Gender Identity Law, President Cristina Kirchner said that, “although we still lack a lot of social equality, today is a day of immense reparation for those who, like some of you here today, have waited for your rights to feel like free men or women to be recognised for 42 years.”

Friends of the Humanist Movement and Silo’s message took a bus from Argentina’s Buenos Aires to Jujuy to accompany the Tupac Amaru in their celebrations of Inti Raymi. They joined together to absorb the force and energy of the winter solstice solar rays, of Tata Inti – Father Sun, while giving thanks for all the good that had happened while discarding all the bad.

The President of the Republic of Argentina, the President of the Federal Republic of Brazil and the President of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, in consideration of and in accordance with what is set out in the Ushuaia Protocol on Democratic Commitment, have decided to suspend the Republic of Paraguay from the right to participate in the organs of MERCOSUR.

Fernando Lugo, the deposed Paraguayan president, says he is aiming to return to power and is rallying allies at home and abroad to push congress to reverse a vote removing him from office that he and many others are calling a break with democracy and proper legal procedures. Lugo. 61, has created a parallel cabinet, attacking the legitimacy of the government that replaced him.

We publish here the official document, in its final version that was worked and agreed by the delegations present at the Rio+20 Summit and that only the Heads of State could modify directly. As our correspondents in Brazil reported, it only remains the act of formalization of its approval during the official summit meeting.

Violent clash between peasants and police in Paraguay left 15 to 17 dead and 80 wounded and could have taken place in any Latin American country, except Cuba, Uruguay and Venezuela. In other regions there is a repeat of a pattern of rural entrepreneurship and investment of funds that attempt to appropriate public lands belonging to indigenous communities or occupy them.

In run-up to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, the Government of Brazil is organizing, with support of the UN, Sustainable Development Dialogues – a forum for civil society – in Riocentro from June 16 to 19.
In the 4 days top representatives from civil society, private sector, NGOs, scientific community, etc.. will convene at the venue of the Rio+20 Conference

A large-scale march was staged by inhabitants of the northern city of Calama, mining capital of Chile, who demand the allocation of more resources to copper mining cities.
The “March for Dignity” went toward the city hall, there they presented a setter addressed to regional and national authorities, rejecting a funding project announced by authorities for mining municipalities