This Week’s Under-reported News Summary – May 28, 2025

Compiled by Bob Nixon

  • Salvadoran dictator arrests human rights lawyer Ruth Lopez
  • Peru courts grant "personhood" status to Marañon River in Amazon basin
  • Trump emergency logging directive supercharges wildfire risk

Prominent human rights lawyer Ruth Lopez, a fierce critic of El Salvador’s rightwing president Nayib Bukele, was arrested by Salvadoran police on May 18th.  Lopez had represented families of Venezuelan immigrants imprisoned in El Salvador after being deported from the U.S. by the Trump regime.

(“Lawyer for Venezuelans Deported to El Salvador Arrested,” Guardian, May 19, 2025; “Prominent Anti-Corruption Lawyer is Arrested in El Salvador,” New York Times, May 19, 2025)

Peruvian courts issued a historic ruling in March 2024, granting legal personhood to the Marañon River in the Amazon basin. It was a major win for indigenous groups who rely on the river for food and drinking water, but endured 40 years of toxic oil spills from the state oil company, Petroperú. Courts ordered the oil company to take action to prevent future oil spills into the river basin.

(“Indigenous River Campaigner Win Prestigious Goldman Prize,” Guardian, April 21, 2025; Goldman Prize Profile, March 2024)

In early April, an emergency directive filed by Trump Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced her plan to expand logging on federal lands by 25 percent. The directive would eliminate the review process ratified in the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA overseeing federal logging contracts.

(“Logging Doesn’t Prevent Wildfires, but Trump is Trying it Anyway,” Grist, April 10, 2025)

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