On June 28, the US and Panamanian governments signed a free trade treaty (TLC) at the headquarters of the Organization of American States in Washington. The treaty must still be ratified by the legislatures of the two countries. Panamanian grassroots organizations staged protests around the country on June 28 to protest the signing of the trade pact. The demonstrators are demanding that the complete text of the treaty be published, broadly debated and subjected to a popular referendum where the people can decide on it.

On the evening of June 26, hundreds of people vigiled in Lima, Peru, to protest the efforts of the ruling Aprista party majority in Congress to push through the "addenda" of a free trade treaty between the US and Peruvian governments. Last year on June 27, Peru's outgoing Congress approved the original version of the TLC. The addenda were recently negotiated in secret between US authorities and Peru's foreign trade minister, Mercedes Araoz, and were given fast-track treatment by the Peruvian Congress, bypassing the usual committee process to go straight to the plenary for approval. The revised text is designed to appease concerns of Democratic lawmakers in the US Congress, which has yet to approve the pact.

On June 27, hundreds of police agents used tear gas in an effort to break up a blockade of Peru's central highway by miners carrying out a regional strike. The miners struck back with rocks, and one police agent was killed when he was hit in the head with a rock. Following the agent's death, the miners lifted the blockade.

On June 26, nearly 1,200 people camped out on the BR 428 highway between Cabrobo and Oroco municipalities in Brazil's Pernambuco state to block national army engineering battalions from proceeding with the construction of a canal project on the Sao Francisco river. The protesters plan to remain at the site indefinitely; they are also demanding return of the Mae Rosa estate to its rightful inhabitants, the indigenous Truka people.

The Agrarian and Popular Movement (MAP) of Paraguay reported in a June 26 statement that base-level MAP leader Perfecto Irala was abducted and disappeared by police on June 25 from Pariri, in Vaqueria district, Caaguazu department. Since last Feb. 26, Irala and other MAP members had been occupying lands in Pariri designated for agrarian reform which were sold by the National Institute of Rural Development and Land (INDERT) to foreign companies for the production of transgenic soy. "According to the information of several witnesses, Perfecto Irala was kidnapped by an officer of the National Police with the last name Vazquez, of the deputy police station of the Colonia Santa Clara in the Vaqueria district. Several fellow leaders have gone to the police stations of Santa Clara and Vaqueria in search of information, but they have not received any response concerning the whereabouts of the companero Perfecto Irala," said the MAP statement.

On June 25, some 5,000 campesinos set out from 11 different areas of Argentina on a "national march for rural development." The mobilization culminated with a rally in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires on June 28, where the campesinos demanded that the government of Nestor Kirchner support their struggle against what Argentine Agrarian Federation (FAA) leader Eduardo Buzzi called "faceless agriculture"—the control of vast farming and ranching resources by a few wealthy companies and individuals. Police said fewer than 2,000 people participated in the closing rally. (Adital, June 26; Prensa Latina, June 28; Clarin, June 29)

On June 24, several thousand demonstrators, many carrying US flags, marched through Hollywood, California, to demand full rights for immigrants. Police estimated the crowd at 1,100. Organizer Raul Murillo said the marchers want lawmakers in Washington to know immigration reform is essential. (Los Angeles Times, June 25; Los Angeles Daily News, June 25) The Coalition in Defense of Immigrant Rights (CDIR), which organized the march, said more than 15,000 people took part. (CDIR Update No. 15, June 24, via Los Angeles Indymedia)

On June 28, the US Senate defeated a measure that would have limited debate on immigration reform and cleared the way for final passage of a proposed "compromise" bill. The measure to end debate and move forward with the bill got 46 votes, 14 short of what it needed to pass. The measure was backed by 33 Democrats, 12 Republicans and one independent; opposing it were 37 Republicans, 15 Democrats and one independent. One senator was absent. The measure's failure means that immigration reform is likely dead until after the 2008 elections, according to the New York Times.