"In both Ecuador and Bolivia, the rhetoric of political inclusion is crashing into the politics of identity and collective rights," writes AS/COA's Christopher Sabatini for The Huffington Post.
Bolivia
Indigenous Bolivians from the country's Amazonian lowlands are fighting a presidential plan for a transoceanic highway.
An April 2009 raid by Bolivian counterterrorist forces is again being called into question.
Protests in southern Chile over proposed fuel increases cast a spotlight on rising energy costs and echoed recent Bolivian demonstrations.
As natural disasters impact crop yields and global food prices continue to rise, experts worry that food scarcity will continue to haunt Latin America’s poor and vulnerable in 2011.
The Cancun climate talks that closed December 10 achieved near unanimity compared to the discord at last year's Copenhagen conference. But many observers call the COP16 agreement "modest" and debate its long-term viability.