Special Forces soldiers in action: Ecuador is hostage to organised crime, amid a culture of violence rooted in the foundations of a society with a fragile economy and political and legal systems compromised by corruption.
AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa
Just five years ago, Ecuador was still considered one of the safest countries in Latin America. Now, there is a brutal war playing out between criminal gangs and the state.
Dan Andrews, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University and Elyse Dwyer, Macquarie University
New research finds Australian industries are becoming concentrated with greater power to charge high prices. Unlike US firms, Australian firms are not required to report merger plans to authorities.
Canadians first learned about a price-fixing scandal that raised the wholesale price of bread in 2017, when Loblaw and George Weston revealed their part in it. A worker restocks shelves at an Atlantic Superstore grocery in Halifax in January 2022.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Kelly Clark
Put bluntly, Australian businesses as a whole appear to have become slow to adopt world best practice. But if we want to lift productivity, we need to act on a wider suite of solutions.
Shared ownership means Australian industries are far more concentrated than traditional metrics suggest.
A demonstration for peace in Buenaventura, Colombia, where a cartel turf war has left at least 30 people dead since the beginning of this year.
Luis Robayo/AFP via Getty Images
A lethal turf war between drug traffickers has terrorized Buenaventura, Colombia for months. Now protesters are demanding the government’s help to protect people in this mostly Black city.
The political border cuts in two a region rich in biological and cultural diversity.
John Moore/Getty Images News via Getty Images
Government policies and dangerous conditions affect the ability of researchers working on both sides of the US-Mexico border to conduct scientific fieldwork.
More than 35,000 people were killed in Mexico in 2019, the deadliest year on record. Violence has spiked as a result of the government’s ongoing assault on drug cartels.
Leonardo Emiliozzi Ph / Shutterstock
A researcher who fled crime-beset Mexico returns to interview the drug cartels behind so much of the violence, asking 33 ‘narcos’ everything about their lives, from birth to their latest murder.
The conviction of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín Guzmán Loera, who evaded justice in Mexico, is a win for US officials. But it’s a pyrrhic victory in the war on drugs.
The successful prosecution of the first criminal cartel case may be seen as a vindication of the decision to criminalise cartel conduct.
Japanese car part manufacturing company Yazaki was fined A$9.5 million for cartel conduct. But now the ACCC wants to increase this.
Yuriko Nakao/Reuters
OPEC’s recent decision to cut supply is a classic move from the oil cartel playbook. But in today’s era, there are many more players and game-changing technologies on the field.
Flotsam mixes with the marginal São José community, overlooked by new-build apartment blocks in Brazil.
Fernando da Veiga Pessoa Flickr
With anti-corruption feeling at an all-time high, a populist comedian has swept to power in Guatemala, while Brazil’s president is facing furious calls for impeachment.