News stories by Fabiana Frayssinet, page 9

BUENOS AIRES, Jan 08 (IPS) - The ratification as Argentina’s army chief of an officer accused of involvement in crimes against humanity during the 1976-1983 dictatorship has revived the debate about the thin line between the moral and judicial responsibility of those let off the hook by an amnesty law for merely “following orders”.

MALVINAS ARGENTINAS, Córdoba, Argentina, Jan 03 (IPS) - The people of this working-class suburb of Córdoba in Argentina's central farming belt stoically put up with the spraying of the week-killer glyphosate on the fields surrounding their neighbourhood. But the last straw was when U.S. biotech giant Monsanto showed up to build a seed plant.

GUANACO SOMBRIANA, Argentina, Jan 02 (IPS) - Tired of the drought driving away their men and killing their livestock, the women of Guanaco Sombriana, a town in northern Argentina, have found a new source of income by using the seedpods of native trees that up to now merely provided shade in this arid landscape.

BOUWER, Argentina, Dic 16 (IPS) - Towns traditionally celebrate their most characteristic aspect. So the town of Bouwer in central Argentina decided to "celebrate" garbage.

RÍO CEBALLOS, Argentina, Dic 06 (IPS) - This small town in the semi-arid central Argentine province of Córdoba now has a 24-hour hotline for people to report their neighbours for sprinkling their lawns or using water to clean off the sidewalks.

MALVINAS ARGENTINAS, Córdoba, Argentina, Dic 02 (IPS) - The people of this working-class suburb of Córdoba in Argentina's central farming belt stoically put up with the spraying of the week-killer glyphosate on the fields surrounding their neighbourhood. But the last straw was when U.S. biotech giant Monsanto showed up to build a seed plant.

MOJÚ/TOMÉ-AÇU, Pará, Brazil, Nov 13 (IPS) - The green of the oil palm plantations is unbroken along kilometre after kilometre of red soil, devastated in the past by loggers and ranchers. The oil palm, a sign of alarm for some and of hope for others, is here to stay in the Amazon rainforest state of Pará in the extreme north of this country.

BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 05 (IPS) - South America has gone from the world's granary to the site of innumerable international infrastructure, energy and mining megaprojects. It is now facing a new dilemma: bolstering the economy with the promise of reducing inequality, in exchange for social and environmental costs that are taking their toll.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 21 (IPS) - Carla Vilas Boas is of mixed-race descent – African, European and indigenous - like a majority of the population of Brazil. But she spends hours straightening her hair, trying to look more like the blond, blue-eyed women she sees in the mirror of television.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 30 (IPS) - The citizen journalists of Midia Ninja, who have covered the protests that broke out across Brazil in June right in the thick of things, are part of a new kind of reporting: one that is proud to be biased.