Early in the morning of March 3, Berta Cáceres was assassinated as she slept. Berta is not alone, nor is her story unique to Honduras. Across the Global South, mega hydroelectric projects are expanding — driven by governments and multinationals as a source of cheap energy, they also displace communities, destroy the local social fabric and spiritual ties to land, lead to privatization of land and water, and generate food insecurity.

More or Less Dead, author Alice Driver’s first book, is a critical and timely look at the ethics of portraying violence against women in the media. The book’s title refers to the ways that disappearances leave families in limbo, robbing the victim of even having the right to death. Although Driver focuses on the issue in the context of Mexico, the ideas and conclusions she comes to are equally applicable to other cultures and geographies.

The sole eyewitness to Honduran social movement leader Berta Cáceres’ assassination on March 3, 2016 has gone from being wounded victim to, effectively, political prisoner. Now Gustavo Castro Soto may also be framed as the murderer of his long-time friend, Berta Cáceres. Both the Mexican Ambassador, Dolores Jiménez, and Castro himself are worried that he will be charged by the government for the killing, they told the National Commission of Human Rights of Honduras on March 16.

I began writing a eulogy for Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores years ago, though she died only last week. Berta was assassinated by Honduran government-backed death squads on March 3. Like many who knew and worked with her, I was aware that this fighter for indigenous peoples’ power; for control over their own territories; for women’s and LGBTQ rights; for authentic democracy; for the well-being of Pachamama; for an end to tyranny by transnational capital; and for an end to US empire was not destined to die of old age. She spoke too much truth to too much power.

In recent years, the popular tourist attraction of Semuc Champey in the Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz has become a point of social conflict for the indigenous Q’eqchi’ Mayan communities surrounding the site. On February 8, tensions erupted and led to the occupation of the municipality building of Lanquín by over 200 members of the communities near the tourist attraction. Community members demanded the recuperation of the site. Since that day, residents have maintained management of the park. As the indigenous-led recuperation of this park continues, the conflict has shed light on a longstanding dilemma in Guatemala around indigenous communities’ access to sacred sites.

Bolivian President Evo Morales lost the referendum last Sunday that could have given him the ability to run for re-election in 2019. The margin was small, but the implications are huge: Bolivia’s longest standing and most popular president finally has an end date for his time in power, on January 22, 2020. The Bolivian left and its vibrant social and indigenous movements were always bigger than Morales, and Sunday’s referendum results underline this.

In 2013, Francisco Javier Cisneros Torres was forcibly taken from his home in Tala, Jalisco. Since then, his sister Nansi Cisneros of Los Angeles, California, has built new initiatives to bring together other families who are also searching for loved ones. For her, this is an important step to building cross-border momentum to demand an end to human rights abuses in Mexico.

The election results in Venezuela and Argentina, the Brazilian crisis, and the erosion of the “citizens’ revolution” in Ecuador are part of a change in political climate that puts the transformative processes underway on the defensive.