Rebel Currents

Last week Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff launched an ambitious program to eradicate extreme poverty by 2014. Under the "Brazil Without Poverty" initiative, the government will spend $12.5 billion a year to expand cash transfers and health, education, and job training services for some 16 million people (8.5% of Brazil's population) with incomes of up to $44 per month, who have failed to benefit from Brazil's rapidly expanding economy. The announcement comes as Rousseff continues to be challenged, in the international spotlight, by conflicts that expose the high cost of economic progress borne by Brazil's most impoverished and indigenous communities.

Indigenous anti-mining protesters in southeastern Perú have agreed to temporarily suspend their mobilizations until after the run-off presidential vote scheduled

In remote corners of Bolivia, local communities are pioneering sustainable mining and forestry strategies that could provide useful models in the global struggle against climate change. Cotapata Mining Cooperative

The conspicuous absence of the COB, Bolivia's national trade union federation, from the government's official International Workers' Day celebration on

The feature film "También La Lluvia" ("Even the Rain") has been giving U.S. movie audiences a taste of the popular struggle against water privatization that took place in Cochabamba, Bolivia in April 2000. Drawing parallels between the exploitation of indigenous people—and their organized resistance—in colonial, neoliberal, and contemporary times, the film was shot on location in Cochabamba and features 3,000 extras drawn from the city's poor southern hillside neighborhoods who were actual protagonists in the Water War. The main indigenous character (played by an actor/ filmmaker from El Alto) is partially modeled on Oscar Olivera, a leader of the water revolt.