News stories by Milagros Salazar, page 9

There are conflicting reports on a violent incident in Peru’s Amazon jungle region in which both police officers and indigenous protesters were killed.

South America is the only region that has not submitted a report of its actions in the last year to implement the Convention on Biological Diversity, although it accounts for 40 percent of the world’s plant and animal species and the deadline was Mar. 30.

The Peruvian government resumed talks with indigenous groups after a violent crackdown on protests left 10 injured and around 20 under arrest. But the dialogue has not yet brought results, and the demonstrations against decrees that affect indigenous lands and the rainforest continue, while a state of emergency remains in place in several Amazon regions.

The film La Teta Asustada/The Milk of Sorrow, the big winner at the Berlin Film Festival, drives home the brutal effects of Peru’s armed conflict on thousands of women who were raped and have lived with the pain and a lingering sense of shame and fear ever since.