Cracks are showing up in the growth success stories of emerging markets like Brazil.
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Debt is the reason jitters for emerging markets are now worse than during the Asian financial crisis.
Big trouble: Dilma Rousseff and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
EPA/Sebastiao Moreira
A massive corruption scandal is engulfing Brazil’s political establishment – but reports of the country’s imminent collapse are greatly exaggerated.
Worrying time.
Check up by Shutterstock
Do the countries affected by Zika have the capacity to deal with a baby boom if pregnancies are delayed?
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There are benefits to hosting the Olympics - but when it comes to culture, there’s no mega-event like Carnival.
Should there be an outbreak of the Zika virus in Africa, the continent will not be able to cope.
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With limited laboratory capacity and a lack of experts and funding, an outbreak of the Zika virus in Africa could be problematic.
The link between Zika and microcephaly is not proven, but the incidence of both have greatly increased in the same areas.
Percio Campos/Flickr
Despite high rates of infection, the Zika outbreak would not have been particularly alarming had it not been for the sudden and – apparently associated – increase in the numbers of infants born with microcephaly.
Baby with microcephaly.
Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters
Brazil faces an uphill struggle with Zika – here’s what’s happening on the ground already.
Illustration of the zika virus.
Zika by Shutterstock
Zika is quite different to Ebola – and experts would do well to wait before making recommendations this time.
A growing problem.
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Some have criticised the idea of birth control to counter small heads in babies thought to be linked to Zika virus but it’s an opportunity.
Municipal workers wait before spraying insecticide to prevent the spread of Aedes aegypti mosquito at Sambodrome in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, January 26, 2016.
Pilar Olivares/Reuters
Zika was discovered almost 70 years ago, but wasn’t associated with outbreaks until 2007. So how did this formerly obscure virus wind up causing so much trouble in Brazil?
An industrial pulp-wood plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia.
William Laurance
From drought to economic slowdown, 2016 promises a mixed bag for the world’s forests.
Ricardo Moraes/Reuters
Residents of Rio’s favelas are facing forced evictions – but they’re not moving out without a fight.
Spread by mosquitoes.
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Could this relatively unknown virus become a household name in the Americas in the year to come?
The way we were.
Reuters/Enrique Marcarian
Latin America suddenly seems to be lurching to the right – but was it ever that far left in the first place?
Given Brazil’s chaotic sociopolitical situation, the legacy the 2016 Olympic Games will leave remains unclear.
Reuters/Sergio Moraes
Mega sports event promoters use the term ‘legacy’ extensively to justify the amount of – mostly public – money involved in the bid and execution of such events.
Melbourne woman Lynette Rowe is one of around 10,000 people born with thalidomide-related disabilities.
Julian Smith/AAP
Thalidomide is notorious for causing death and disability but it – and its derivatives – are proving useful for conditions such as leprosy.
Indigenous children depict fish in the sea at a pre-Paris rally in Sao Paulo.
Nacho Doce / Reuters
The country must protect its huge forests from fires and logging.
On the march.
Reuters/Ueslei Marcelino
Latin America’s most important state could never succumb to another military coup. Could it?
Nacho Doce / Reuters
Indonesia’s haze made global headlines but an intense dry season has also sparked major fires in Brazil.
Presidents Hollande and Obama. Is it still possible for nation states to build a global alliance against organisations such as Daesh?
Reuters/Jonathan Ernst
To save mankind from the scourge of war… These eight words drawn from the preamble to the Charter of the United Nations have been ringing in my head for the past week. Most believe that they were penned…