URUGUAY | Cannabis production & sale to be legalised. On 20 June at a press conference attended by the ministers of interior and social development, and the presidential chief of staff, defence minister Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro announced that the government will be introducing legislation providing for the ‘regulated and controlled legalisation’ of cannabis. He said that the prohibition of ‘certain drugs’ was causing Uruguay ‘more problems than the drugs themselves’. Fernández Huidobro said that President José Mujica (away at the time attending the Rio+20 meeting) would lobby for the legalisation of cannabis in all international forums. He said it would…

The most violent yet eviction of land invaders triggered a highly irregular impeachment and removal from office of President Fernando Lugo, only nine months before presidential elections scheduled for 23 April 2013. This in turn led to the suspension of Paraguay from the South American blocs to which it belonged. Nothing in this sequence of events was straightforward: questions remain unanswered regarding what actually happened, who was responsible and what was being sought in the three areas affected: security, internal politics and regional diplomacy. The catalyst was the 15 June eviction of a large number of families (some say 100)…

The relatively good news is that in 2011 fewer members of indigenous communities were murdered in Brazil than in 2010: 51 to 60. This was the lowest figure since records began in 2003. The bad news is that there were also 12 cases of culpable homicide and 19 of intentional injury, all linked to various forms of encroachment or damage to indigenous territories spread out across 14 states. In 2011 there were 50 major cases of encroachment, a category that includes land invasions, illegal exploitation of natural resources, damage to patrimony and territorial disputes involving violence. Indeed, the number of…