Until Bolsonaro’s election win, sex workers had been gaining rights. His ultra-far-right, homophobic, racist and mysoginistic views have made the reality much worse.
A 1904 revolt against mandatory smallpox inoculation taught Brazilian health officials a deadly lesson on how to vaccinate a skeptical public. Today President Bolsonaro seems to ignore that history.
Robert Muggah, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) and Richard Florida, University of Toronto
COVID-19 is spreading fast through not only the world’s richest cities but also its poorest, ravaging slum areas where risk factors like overcrowding and poverty accelerate disease transmission.
Robert Muggah, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio)
As evangelicalism spreads across Brazil, some of Rio de Janeiro’s most notorious gangs see minority religions as an affront to God. And they’re using guns to spread their gospel.
Jair Bolsonaro has very rightwing views likely to put a final nail in the coffin off Brazil’s Africa moment spearheaded by former president Lula da Silva.
At many popular destinations, residents are protesting against crowding, rowdy visitors and low wages. With some research, travelers can use their visits to enrich host areas instead of harming them.
Robert Muggah, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio)
As hard-line Pentecostalism spreads across Brazil, some drug traffickers in gang-controlled areas of Rio de Janeiro are using religion as an excuse to attack nonbelievers.
In one bloody week in June, 181 Rio residents were shot, including a baby in utero. It’s now impossible not to notice that city’s once-lauded favela “pacification” strategy has all but collapsed.
Residents of the Maré neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro are eight times more likely to be killed by police than other Brazilians. Most victims are young and black.
Famously freewheeling – but also violent and unequal – Rio de Janeiro has elected a right-wing former pentecostal bishop as mayor. What’s at stake for this ‘gay, black and tolerant’ Brazilian city?
Instead of showcasing a rising global power with a booming economy, the 2014 Games put a spotlight on Brazil’s most serious economic recession since the 1930s, along with a host of social problems.
It’s time to finally put art on the Olympic map, prove the sceptics wrong, and renew and advance some of the more tired aspects of the Games staging process.
An architect rides through the streets of Rio amidst a cacophony of drills and jackhammers. He wonders: Is it worth it? What will the legacy of all this construction be?