News


CELEBRATING THE LIFE OF NALU FARIA: PRESENT, TODAY AND ALWAYS!

These lines are destined to fail. They pursue an unachievable goal. How can we honour the life, ideas, thought and action of someone who gave her life to the people’s needs without hesitation, and who formed, and will continue to form, generations of women fighters? Nalu Faria was, and will continue to be, an essential reference figure for understanding grassroots,…

URUGUAY: MORE THAN 1.5 MILLION PEOPLE WITHOUT ACCESS TO DRINKING WATER

Almost 100 days ago, residents of Uruguay’s capital city, Montevideo, were informed that sodium and chloride levels in their drinking would go up. This news came from the public company in charge of the national drinking water supply, OSE. The freshwater reserves of Paso Severino dam on the Santa Lucía river, which supplies water to this region, were running low…

Kelvin Helen Haboski / Shutterstock. Soy harvest in Mato Grosso State, Brazil. Image used in report "Replanting Agricultural Biodiversity in the CBD" by FoEI.

Stopping biodiversity loss is only possible through system change

The United Nations 2022 conference on biodiversity, widely known as the COP15, has adopted the new Global Biodiversity Framework, which will be in force until 2030. In the early hours of 19 December, the Chinese representative acting as President of the talks brought down the gavel to approve the new framework, ignoring opposition from the Democratic Republic of Congo and…

UN Negotiations for a Binding Treaty on transnational corporations and human rights end with a protest

The eighth round of UN negotiations for a Binding Treaty on transnational corporations and human rights came to an end on Friday with an action held by social movements and organizations which demanded “Rights for Peoples, Rules for TNCs.” The negotiations closed with the presentation of a report and recommendations by the Chair, which included an informal document prepared by…

Corporations cannot define human rights

Moisés Borges, leader of the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB) stated that the Ecuadorian Chair of the Working Group that is negotiating at the United Nations a legally binding tool on transnational corporations and human rights is promoting a text that legitimises violations. Borges, who is part of the national coordination of the MAB and is the coordinator…

How many more socio-environmental and human rights crimes until we say enough?

On 23 August, Friends of the Earth Latin America and the Caribbean (ATALC) together with social movements and organisations from the region held a public event in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, to discuss the urgent need to agree an international legally binding instrument on transnational corporations and human rights. The goal is to gain the support of democratic governments…

Transnationals in Mexico: depeasantization and Walmartization*

The Mexican diagnosis of government policies that have allowed and promoted the advance of transnational corporations, produced by Otros Mundos Chiapas - Friends of the Earth Mexico, is centered on the agri-food sector and is in line with the rest of the countries of the region at a pivotal moment: the 1990s, neoliberal policies and Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). In…

Mass March in Uruguay demands response on crimes against humanity

On May 20, 1976, the State terrorism established by the last civic-military dictatorship in Uruguay (1973-1985), murdered four Uruguayan exiles in Buenos Aires, capital of Argentina. Two legislators: Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz and Zelmar Michelini, and two militants of the National Liberation Movement – Tupamaros (MLN-T): Rosario Barredo and William Whitelaw. These murders were part of what would later be known…

Killing for land, struggling for life

The Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) has launched their new annual report, entitled 'Conflicts in the Countryside - Brazil 2021'. Since 1985, the CPT has been recording the violence inflicted on peoples and communities in the Brazilian countryside, by landowners, mining and forestry companies, land speculators and businessmen. It also shows the negligence and complicity of the State. From 1985 to 2020,…

Politics shall be Indigenous

On 4 April 2022, thousands of Indigenous People from various communities across the current Brazilian territory came to the federal capital, Brasilia, to set up the 18th Free Land Camp (Terra Livre) by the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB). This mobilisation is still based on the original struggles as when it started in 2004: the right to land,…