EL DIAMANTE, COLOMBIA - On 2 October, Colombia has a chance to put an end to a 52-year conflict, as it will hold a referendum on its historic agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). FARC are the largest guerrilla movement involved in the Colombian conflict, having started as a Marxist-Leninist peasant force in …
Is Brazil’s Government Rolling Back Women’s Rights? (Al Jazeera)
SAO PAULO, BRAZIL - In an abandoned building in the centre of Brazil's financial centre of Sao Paulo, Marli Aguiar and a group of black women have come together to talk about one thing: what to do about Brazil's new interim government. After only weeks in power, it has become clear that this new administration …
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Why Brazil’s Art Scene is Fighting the Impeachment (The New Internationalist)
SAO PAULO, BRAZIL - ‘Temer Out!’ ‘Against the Coup!’ and ‘Culture and Work!’ These are some of the signs plastered all over the walls of the Ministry of Culture building in San Paulo. Visual artists, filmmakers, designers, dancers, actors and many others have been occupying the building for more than a month, protesting the current impeachment …
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What is Digital Humanitarianism and What Did it do For Ecuador’s Earthquake Victims? (The New Internationalist)
QUITO, ECUADOR - After a massive earthquake hit Ecuador’s coast in April, the country was devastated. Entire towns were destroyed, hundreds were killed and thousands more left homeless. The scene was chaotic, and aid efforts immediately sprung up across the country. But this included more than donation points and people rushing to the coast to try …
Inside Colombia’s “Guantanamo Bay”: A Human Rights Nightmare (teleSUR English & Truthout)
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA - Ariz Carrillo spent two years and five months locked behind bars at one of Colombia's maximum security prisons, La Tramacua -- a place so renown for its human rights abuses that it has been dubbed "the Guantanamo of Colombia". "For no reason, only because I was a political prisoner. They tortured me …
‘Plan Colombia’ Has Been a Nightmare for Women (teleSUR English & Truthout)
QUITO, ECUADOR - Six women were raped every hour in Colombia during the first nine years of Plan Colombia. That figure was taken from a joint survey done by women's rights organizations, which include Oxfam and other Colombian based groups. The study also revealed that some 489,678 women were victims of some type of sexual …
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‘You Can’t be Scared of Death There’ Life as a Colombian Refugee (teleSUR English & Truthout)
QUITO, ECUADOR - Keli did not leave Colombia voluntarily. Neither did Luis. And neither one of them grew up thinking they would one day be labelled a refugee. The two of them fled very different situations of violence in Colombia, what together epitomize the complexities of the ongoing war in the country. Keli – which …
A Life Behind Bars (teleSUR English & TruthOut)
"An inmate at the Michigan department of corrections, Muskegon correctional facility. If you feel you're being victimized or exploited by this prisoner, please contact GTL customer service at 855 466 2832. To accept this call press 0. This call is from a corrections facility and is subject to monitoring and recording. Thank you for using …
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Zapatista Schools Open Doors in Chiapas (The Media Co-Op)
International solidarity in the classroom SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS, MEXICO—Over the last few years, the Zapatistas in Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas have garnered very little media attention and been infamously secretive. But although they’ve shifted away from their militant stance of the 1990s and their national political campaigning of the early 2000s, the movement …
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Los Vigilantes de Tepito / Vigilantes in Mexico’s Capital (El Dominical)
(English Version to follow) CIUDAD DE MEXICO - Armados con walkie-talkie y placa de identificación, ellos patrullan uno de los barrios más peligrosos de la ciudad de México. Es un grupo, integrado principalmente por ciudadanos, el que brinda seguridad en un área que la policía no puede o no quiere proteger. Se autodenominan “policía comunitaria”, …
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