We bring you this translation of a Mexican journalist's take on Cherán, Michoacan, to bring more light to a community that has been building autonomous resistance to organized crime and corrupt officials since last year.

Singer Vicente Feliú discusses the origin of the Nueva Trova, the influence of the Cuban revolution and responsibility towards Cuban society and other countries facing repression, as well as the aesthetics of Cuban revolutionary song.

The FMLN took a hit in Sunday's election, which has raised many questions throughout the country. Jorge Schafik, the FMLN candidate for mayor in San Slavador, called for the “need to do a very thorough self-critical analysis, not go around looking for people to blame, but really to do a deep analysis of what needs to change.”  

The reality for women, transgender and transsexual persons on the migrant trails of Mexico is, horrifically, that many have learned to expect rape and sexual abuse as part of the journey. Óscar Martinez’ book, Migrants Don’t Matter, brings to light both the fortitude and resilience of some of these victimized persons as well as the systemic impunity of their offenders. Warning: this article contains graphic descriptions of assault and the scene of a rape.

Amid the current wave of emblematic cases for past state abuses in Guatemala is a lesser-known first: the first accusation against guerrilla leaders to be brought before the Guatemalan justice system, this one for the massacre of 22 people in the mountainside hamlet of El Aguacate by members of the Revolutionary Organization of Armed Peoples (ORPA) in November 1988. The question is, who is this campaign for justice supposed to be serving?

According to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, Mexico’s considerable income gap is widening while the National Council of the Evaluation of Social Development Policy reports that 3.2 million more Mexicans have been plunged into poverty in the last three years; a striking commentary on the economic policies of right-wing, pro-US President Felipe Calderón.

The pressure is very great, the press is on the side of the soy farmers, and there is real risk that they will act with violence against the landless campesinos. The landlords have already organized armed groups and have threatened to act on their own. Meanwhile, a political problem is emerging because the soy farmers have threatened to influence the 2013 elections.

Over the new year, Chilean students; migrants from the Movement for Justice in El Barrio (New York); representatives of the Mexican National Indigenous Congress; and members of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) met at the CIDECI Unitierra in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, to recount their experiences of struggle and to analyze current economic systems and social movements.

Jeffrey Sachs has nominated himself as the ‘progressive’ candidate in a non-election to head the World Bank, and judging from his campaign materials it’s a good thing they’re looking for an economist and not a historian.

The media tells us that 8 million people die every year from illnesses related to water; that more than a billion people lack access to potable water; and that more than 2.4 billion do not have access to sanitation.

This past November Bolivia and the United States brought to an end a three-year dispute set in motion when President Evo Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador on charges of conspiracy against his government.

The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) officially announced a march that will begin during the celebration of International Women's Day on March 8, in the province of Zamora in the canton of Pangui, and will advance towards the city of Quito, arriving on March 22, World Water Day. The march is designated "National March for the Life and Dignity of the People."

Nearly 300 hundred campesinos, indigenous, students and youth faced off with riot police at the construction sites entrance near the damaged Paso del Colegio Bridge closing off traffic to the entrance of the site, eventually marching to the national highway. At the same time around 90 fisher-people up river of the dam site occupied the tunnel and surrounding beaches until they were apprehended and detained for some time before being released.

With two years to go before the World Cup in Brazil, already people are questioning the massive evictions caused by the Cup’s enormous infrastructure projects and the legal privileges that must be conceded to the all-powerful FIFA, which has set itself up as a kind of super-state capable of imposing its own laws and special tribunals.

The U.S. is about to get a whole lot more involved in extracting Mexican oil, according to an agreement which promises to open up offshore oil and gas drilling in the Gulf Coast, signed Monday by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Mexican counterpart Patricia Espinosa. 

The decision to remove the term ‘military dictatorship’ from Chilean primary school textbooks has been revoked. However, this remains a superficial change. Historian Alberto Harambour from Diego Portales University explains the dynamics of Chilean politics and relics of Pinochet’s dictatorship which threaten to separate a new generation of Chileans from historical memory.