News stories by Fabiola Ortiz, page 7

ELDORADO DOS CARAJÁS, Brazil, Apr 16 (IPS) - The order came from the office of the governor of the northern Brazilian state of Pará, Almir Gabriel, at 5:00 PM on Apr. 17, 1996: clear route PA-150, the epicentre of social protests for land reform, at any cost.

MARABÁ, Brazil, Apr 16 (IPS) - Toiling beneath a blazing sun in the humid heat of the Amazon, Waldemar dos Santos, 60, tends the community garden he shares with other landless peasant farmers in the Brazilian state of Pará, as they wait for agrarian reform to provide them with the opportunity for a better life.

MARABÁ, Brazil, Apr 05 (IPS) - Peasants and human rights defenders in Brazil are indignant over the acquittal of the man accused of ordering the May 2011 murders of two prominent Amazon activists, José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife Maria do Espírito Santo.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 04 (IPS) - Brazil has taken another step to combat the harmful habit of smoking with the creation of the Centre for Studies on Tobacco and Health (CETAB).

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 20 (IPS) - Providing school meals for 45 million children is a remarkable achievement for Brazil. But the programme faces specific difficulties, as well as the generic problems plaguing any national plan in this vast country of more than 192 million people.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 05 (IPS) - An indigenous community in Brazil has decided to single-handedly take action against illegal loggers who are moving into their territory in search of highly valued timber.

SANTIAGO, Dic 06 (IPS) - The legacy of Chile's 1973-1990 dictatorship, which left some 3,000 people dead and "disappeared", remains alive in the country's society and political system, says journalist and writer Mauricio Weibel.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dic 05 (IPS) - Human rights activists in Brazil mobilised Wednesday to draw attention to the fact that half a million people have been murdered in this South American country in the past 10 years.

VALPARAÍSO, Chile, Nov 26 (IPS) - The hunger suffered by 49 million people in Latin America could be eradicated by 2025, according to Spanish agricultural engineer Ricardo Rapallo.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 29 (IPS) - The development of agriculture through the adoption of technological innovations will help Latin America leave behind its status as the most unequal region in the world, and will especially benefit the Southern Cone, one of the planet’s largest food reserves.