Special Reports


“They have turned our community into a cemetery”

At 12:28 on 25 January, 2019, Dam 1 of the Córrego do Feijão mine, containing 12,000,000 cubic meters of toxic mud, collapsed and spilled the mud over 9 kilometers to the city of Brumadinho (Minas Gerais) and then along the path of the Paraopeba River. The Brazilian Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB) arrived to Brumadinho a few hours…

Healing through the struggle for Human Rights

Lead, mercury, cadmium and zinc are just some of the heavy metals found in the toxic mud left over from mining activities. Government officials in Minas Gerais, Brazil, identified levels of these metals up to 21 times above the acceptable metal in the mud that spread through Brumadinho and the Paraopeba River on 25 January, 2019. Geraldo Martins, a healthcare…

Australia: this is climate change

"Australia is experiencing an unprecedented fire crisis. 10 million hectares have been burned already. Nearly 2000 homes have been destroyed and many lives lost. The fires are so immense they have created their own weather systems, sparking more fires by generating their own dry electrical storms. Firefighters have never seen anything like it. Scientists are now saying many billions of…

Carbon Markets: a new form of climate colonialism

On December 5, international social movements and organizations fighting for climate justice demanded the elimination of carbon markets from the Paris Agreement, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 25) in Madrid. Friends of the Earth International, La Vía Campesina, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, the Indigenous Environmental Network, and the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development launched a…

Historic national strike in Colombia: millions of people take to the streets

Thursday´s national strike in Colombia was one of the largest in the recent history of the country. Protests continued on Friday, in a spontaneous way. Millions of people took to the streets on Thursday in Colombia against the package of measures implemented by President Iván Duque. While demonstrations in Bogota, the capital city of the country, were massive, social organizations…

Healthy food for a healthy life

They met as part of a Women´s Meeting organized by the groups member of the Uruguayan Network of Native Seeds on November 9 in Rivera department, near the border with Brazil. Rural women from Rivera, Salto, Paysandú, Tacuarembó, Cerro Largo departments and even some from Canelones and Maldonado departments met to follow up on the issues discussed at the previous…

Latin-American social movements unite in Cuba: solidarity, organized resistance and strategies for peoples’ progress

“There is no one way of thinking, no one recipe for organizing, there are many ways, and this resistance built from the grassroots is a reflection of the moment we are experiencing”, said Martha Flores, Coordinator of Jubilee South Americas, in Havana, Cuba, on Saturday. She was interviewed by Real World Radio on the second day of the Anti-Imperialist Meeting…

Anti-Imperialist Meeting in Havana: Inside the venue and outside on the streets

The community of Babosa neighborhood, in Havana, Cuba, welcomed on Friday night participants from the Anti-imperialist Meeting taking place in their city. Over 1500 delegates were welcomed by thousands of local people, organized in Revolution Defense Committees, for food, exchanges on different issues, and even a party. The Anti-Imperialist Meeting of Solidarity for Democracy and Against Neoliberalism began on Friday…

5th Session of UN negotiations on Binding Treaty and Human Rights came to an end

The negotiations of the UN Human Rights Council Working Group towards a legally Binding Treaty on transnational corporations and human rights abuses perpetrated by them drew to a close Friday in Geneva, Switzerland. Several social movements and organizations, gathered in the Global Campaign to Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity, welcomed the advance of the process. Nevertheless, they expressed concern…

Agroecology as the answer

The 46th session of the UN Committee on World Food Security  began this Monday in Rome, Italy. There, several national governments and different stakeholders will analyze policy recommendations for food security and nutrition, ending on Friday. Many side events were held in parallel to the official sessions, with civil society being represented by the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism (CSM) for…