There’s an old joke about Brazil that suggests that it’s the country of the future – and it always will be. For a while this looked to be an anachronistic, possibly racist stereotype that had been decisively…
Former Brazilian president Lula da Silva’s development aid programme has fizzled out.
Reuters/Ueslei Marcelino
Lula led an unprecedented shift in the country’s foreign policy towards the global South. He also helped elevate Brazil to the status of a global player. But, six years on, disillusionment reigns.
Cracks are showing up in the growth success stories of emerging markets like Brazil.
AK Rockefeller/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.
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
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