South America

Reporters Without Borders welcomes the withdrawal of charges against photographer Marcela Rodríguez, a contributor to the Mapuexpress website (http://www.mapuexpress.net/), when she appeared before a court in the southern city of Temuco on 22 June. The public prosecutor decided it was not in the public interest to prosecute her.

Ednaldo Figueira, a blogger, politician and owner of the local newspaper O Serrano, was gunned down on 15 June in Serra do Mel, a town in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte. He headed the Serra do Mel branch of the Workers Party (PT), the party of President Dilma Rousseff and her predecessor, Lula da Silva, and posted regularly on the Serra do Mel blog.

On Monday night Ireland suffered the most violent incidents in a decade between Protestants and Catholics, who clashed in the city of Belfast some even firing guns, according to Irish police. In the images broadcast by television there were hundreds of youths throwing stones and Molotov cocktails in the Short Strand area.

The elected President of Peru, Ollanta Humala, arrived Sunday in Uruguay as part of his tour to strengthen the economic and political ties with South American countries.

The official agenda will begin on Monday when the president, José Mujica, receives Humala at the seat of government, confirmed the presidential website.

Costa Rican production: The documentary URANIUM 238 – The Pentagon´s Dirty Pool, produced by Pablo Ortega, wins the prize for best short film category of the First International Uranium Film Festival which ended last Saturday night (28th of May 2011) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
URANIO 238 had also won an award as best documentary in Costa Rican Movie and Video Festival in 2009.

The privatisation of Chilean seed has become a scandal and paves the way for the arrival of genetically modified products. After the realisation that, as well as the North American company Monsanto, the patents for Chilean crops are in the hands of people linked to the government who will now benefit from the privatisation of seed, as in the case of Ena Von Baer’s father.

It was presented yesterday (on May 12th), at USP (University of São Paulo) at room 08 of the building of the Faculty of Philosophy, the field research “La conciencia inspirada en el chamanismo siberiano-mongol y el budismo tibetano en Buryatia y Mongolia”, by Hugo Novotny, independent researcher of Park of Studies and Reflection Carcana (Argentina).

Dear Barack Obama,
I am writing to you fraternally, and to express concern and indignation at witnessing the destruction and death spread across various countries in the name of “freedom and democracy”, two bastardised and meaningless words that are used to justify the killing which is today celebrated like a sports event.

Quickly and unexpectedly, Marta Lucas, humanist sculptor and ceramicist has gone into the Light. A victim of meningitis, “the sculptor of fire” as she was known in the artistic circles of the city of Mendoza where she lived, died last night. A wake took place in the Small Hall of Silo’s Message located in Don Bosco and Primitivo de la Reta.

A document published in March by UNESCO reports that more than twenty-eight million children in those countries affected by conflicts do not receive education. If rich countries transferred monies from their military spending for just six days over to education, in 2015, the objective of Education for Everyone could be achieved.