On April 20 Uruguayan criminal judge Juan Carlos Fernández Lecchini handed down a 20-year prison sentence to Juan Carlos Blanco--foreign relations minister from 1973 to 1976, at the beginning of a 1973-1985 military dictatorship—for "especially aggravated homicide" in the case of the schoolteacher Elena Quinteros. With the judge's decision, all the principal figures accused of human rights violations during the dictatorship have received prison sentences, although some face additional charges. Former dictator Juan Bordaberry (1973-1976) has been sentenced to 30 years in prison, former dictator Gregorio ("Goyo") Alvarez (1981-1985) to 25 years, and eight other former officials to 20-25 years for homicides, kidnappings and forced disappearances.

The Haitian government decided on April 22 to declare a three-week moratorium on forced evictions of homeless Port-au-Prince residents from improvised encampments at schools and other private property where they have been living since a Jan. 12 earthquake devastated much of southern Haiti. The government made the decision because "there are a lot of tensions," Edmond Mulet, a Guatemalan diplomat and the acting head of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), said at a press conference later on April 22. "There are pupils who want to return to their schools to continue their studies; there are displaced people who are installed in the schools," Mulet explained. "Well, instead of having confrontations, a moratorium has been established." (Radio Métropole, Haiti, April 23 from AFP)

On April 22 the French nongovernmental organization Doctors of the World (MdM) released a report on the condition of women in Guatemalan maquiladoras in the apparel and food processing industries. "The job is unstable and badly paid, the work is dangerous for health, there is psychological and sexual harassment, insults, physical abuse, unjustified firings and interminable workdays," according to the report, based on interviews in 2006-2009 with 530 women working in 16 factories in Chimaltenango and Sacatepéquez departments in western Guatemala.

On April 9 Biddy Martin, the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin (UW) in Madison, announced that the institution was cancelling its sports apparel contract with Oregon-based Nike, Inc because of the company's failure to provide legally mandated back pay and severance packages worth some $2.1 million to more than 1,600 workers for two Nike contractors in Honduras. This was the first victory in a campaign started by students at various North American campuses last fall around the closing of two plants, Vision Tex and Hugger de Honduras, in January 2009. UW made some $49,000 in 2008 and 2009 for allowing Nike to use the university logo on its clothing and products.

As of April 25 students were continuing an occupation of the Río Piedras campus of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) in San Juan to protest plans to cut next year's budget by $100 million. The cutbacks might mean an end to exemptions for students with less resources at the public university. About 65,000 students are enrolled in the UPR's 11 campuses, of which Río Piedras is the largest.

Two Latino advocacy groups say they will challenge the constitutionality of Arizona's new immigration law, asserting it permits racial profiling. SB 1070 signed into law April 23 by Gov. Jan Brewer, permits police to question the immigration status of suspected illegal immigrants. Officials from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) and the National Coalition of Latino Christian Clergy (CONLAMIC) contend the law will let police single out minorities for immigration inspections. Under the law, it is designated a crime to be in the country illegally and immigrants unable to verify their legal status can be arrested and jailed for six months and fined $2,500.

After scoring points with global environmentalists with his World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth (CMPCC) in Cochabamba this week, Bolivian President Evo Morales has got himself in hot water with gay activists across the planet. On April 21, he commented to reporters at the CMPCC on the dangers of factory-farm chicken—but in half-baked (pardon the pun) and homophobic terms. "The chicken we eat is full of feminine hormones," the populist president said. "And therefore when men eat these chickens, they experience deviances in being men."

The World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth (CMPCC) at the central Bolivian city of Cochabamba closed on Earth Day, April 22, issuing several resolutions, including: that the UN adopt a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth; that an International Committee be organized to hold a global referendum on climate change on Earth Day 2011; that the industrialized nations provide annual financing equivalent to 6% of their GDP to confront climate change in the developing world; and that an International Tribunal on Environmental and Climate Justice be created, with its seat in Bolivia. The conference called for a new global organization to press for these demands, tentatively dubbed the World Movement for Mother Earth—or, by its Spanish acronym, MAMA-Tierra.