News feeds

LA PAZ, Jun 12 (IPS) - Domestic workers in Bolivia, most of whom are young indigenous women from the highlands region, are about to gain access to healthcare coverage.

SAN DIEGO, California, Jun 12 (IPS) - A sinuous coil of murky water winds through the Tijuana River Valley. On each side of the U.S.-Mexican border, residents eye each other warily, caught in the cross-currents of political intrigue and economic polices that make the floodplain seem almost orderly by comparison.

LA PLATA, Argentina, Jun 12 (IPS) - Soledad Acevedo was an 18-year-old mother of two eking out a living by means of menial casual work in 2002 when she was sent to prison in the Argentina province of Buenos Aires, accused of armed robbery and attempted homicide. Now she is 24, and is excited as she meets with IPS in her cell.

MEXICO CITY, Jun 11 (IPS) - No one has been brought to justice for the murders of two young indigenous reporters in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca in April, a case that has mobilised social activists and drawn condemnation from UNESCO.

OSLO, Jun 11 (IPS) - A new microfinance initiative has been launched in Norway.

SANTIAGO, Jun 11 (IPS) - There is growing international alarm over the arrest of Chilean filmmaker Elena Varela, who was taken into custody by police a month ago while working on an investigative documentary on the conflicts between lumber companies and the Mapuche indigenous people in southern Chile.

BUENOS AIRES, Jun 11 (IPS) - Heavily invested in the oil and cement industries, as well as mining and steel, textiles, cosmetics, banks, food and beverages, Brazilian capital is edging Europe out of pole position in foreign direct investment (FDI) within Argentina.

CARACAS, Jun 10 (IPS) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez repealed on Tuesday a controversial decree-law on intelligence and counterintelligence that he issued a few days ago, which ordered citizens to collaborate with military and police intelligence agencies.

SAN SALVADOR, Jun 10 (IPS) - The decision by a Catholic foundation with links to the Vatican to award its highest distinction to Salvadoran President Antonio Saca drew a wave of protests from local analysts and representatives of civil society in this Central American country.

HOLGUÍN, Cuba, Jun 10 (IPS) - Afflicted for far too long by severe drought, which concentrated all minds on how to get water to entire communities of people, this eastern Cuban city seems at long last to be drinking its fill, and its appearance is completely different from what it looked like two or three years ago.

LIMA, Jun 9 (IPS) - A court in Peru acquitted nine former lawmakers accused of taking bribes to switch party allegiance and vote with the government of former President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), so as to assure him majority support for his initiatives.

BOGOTA, Jun 9 (IPS) - After nearly six years of the "democratic security" policy of the government of rightwing President Álvaro Uribe, women activists in Colombia are as vulnerable to human rights abuses as ever, said female rights defenders who met recently in the Colombian capital.

SAN SALVADOR, Jun 9 (IPS) - The strategies followed by the Salvadoran government to prevent violence and crime have serious shortcomings, say experts and youngsters considered "high risk," who are the main beneficiaries of these initiatives.

BAHÍA DE COHANA, Bolivia, Jun 7 (Tierramérica) - Nobody doubts that Lake Titicaca, a watershed and resource shared by Bolivia and Peru, is polluted. But a half-century after the two governments realised there was a problem there are still no detailed studies of the state of its waters.

ATLANTA, Georgia, Jun 6 (IPS) - Activists plan to protest a federal appeals court ruling Wednesday to uphold the convictions of five Cuban intelligence agents accused of spying in the United States.

HAVANA, Jun 6 (IPS) - New horizons opened up for transsexuals in Cuba with the approval of a Public Health Ministry resolution that establishes guidelines for their health care, including free gender reassignment operations.

LIMA, Jun 5 (IPS) - The business community in Peru is pressuring the government not to sign into law new legislation that would establish full labour rights for some 400,000 subcontracted workers.

SAN JOSÉ DE LAS LAJAS, Cuba, Jun 5 (IPS) - Cuba’s food production is insufficient to meet the country’s needs, but the solution may lie in successful local experiences that show that farming is possible without the costly inputs used by the agriculture industry up to the late 1980s.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 4 (IPS) - The results of the October municipal elections "will not be legitimate" in this Brazilian city, because 1.7 million local residents live in communities where the conditions are not in place for them to vote freely, city councillor Andrea Gouvea Vieira told IPS.

MEXICO CITY, Jun 4 (IPS) - The Merida Initiative, a U.S. anti-drug aid plan for Mexico and, to a lesser extent, Central America, is floundering. Originally trumpeted as an unprecedented instrument for cooperation, it is now the object of accusations that it would undermine national sovereignty.