A wave of illegal loggers, settlers and ranchers have invaded their lands, and time is running out.

Today Colin Firth helps us to launch a major new campaign to save the Awá, and we need your help.

'One man has the power to stop the loggers: Brazil's Minister of Justice. But it's just not his priority. Let's push it up his list.' Colin Firth

The colonized are now the colonizers - Irish companies involved in large scale land acquisitions overseas

***Groups across Ireland organize activities to mark 17^th April, International Day of Peasant Struggle of Via Campesina

***Irish company involved in landgrabbing

***30,000 hectares of publicly owned land now privatized in Serbia by Irish investors

Over the last ten years foreign governments and private firms have been increas­ingly investing and acquiring large surfaces of fertile land in other countries - especially in Africa and Asia - but also in Latin America and in Eastern Europe, for the purpose of agricultural production and export.

Complete report in Spanish attached

Santiago de Chile, April 2^nd, 2012. AMARC Chile realized an observer mission on Mapuche community media and radios' freedom of expression, realized in Araucania and Los Rios regions, Chile, from January 25 to 27 2012.

As a result of this mission, the network published a report asking for an urgent intervention of the Freedom of expression and Indigenous peoples rapporteurs in defense of those radios. The request is included in the results report.

Among the requests done to the UN Rapporteurs for the freedom of expression and opinion and for Indigenous peoples' rights, as well as to the Rapporteur of the Organization of American States (OAS), there is to take care of the situation in which are living the Mapuche women communicators as a result of the exercise of the right to communicate.

by Gustavo Torres

Traditional food systems are disappearing as large-scale farming expands.

Farming, as a campesino or indigenous family practice that for centuries ensured natural food on Paraguayan land, is threatened by a small number of producers that are developing a farming model based on large-scale modern agricultural technology, which continually decreases the need for manual labor and in which multinational corporations take control of much of Paraguay's natural resources like land, water, and biodiversity.

by MARK SCHULLER

A United Nations (U.N.) Security Council delegation is planning to visit Haiti from February 13-16, 2012, which provides an opportunity to learn about Haitian people's perceptions. An August 2011 survey of 800 Haitians living in Port-au-Prince shows that the presence of U.N. troops in Haiti is widely seen as problematic by residents of the country's capital. Survey results show that only a relatively small minority of respondents are supportive of the U.N. mission, called United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (or MINUSTAH). Meanwhile, a majority considers that MINUSTAH is doing an inadequate job responding to violence, and a significant number of those surveyed believe that MINUSTAH has been involved in committing illegal acts.

On Saturday 22nd October we are holding an open day and a mini fair for in LASC from 12pm-5pm, for members, volunteers and friends. This will be an opportunity for you to meet like minded people in our (your) own office. The staff will update you on their role in LASC and you will have the chance to find out what LASC is currently doing, ask questions and give suggestions.