The Virgin Mary may not be able to pull Brazil out of a deep recession, but her church-sponsored house calls do wonders to ease economic malaise among participating Catholic families.
Pilar Olivares/Reuters
For a century, Brazil’s Catholic Church has sent holy statues out to parishioners’ homes. A new study finds that these visits create a local subeconomy, benefitting families and the church.
Supporters listen as Colombia’s disarmed Marxist insurgency, the FARC, publicly launches its new political party, also called the FARC.
Jaime Saldarriaga/Reuters
Meet the Commoners’ Alternative Revolutionary Force, Colombia’s newest political party. To move beyond its violent past, the new FARC will need a charismatic leader who can win over voters.
Can Brazil’s judges really hold powerful feet to the fire?
Ricαrdo from Fortaleza/CE, Brasil, via Wikimedia Commons
From south of the border, Trump seems to be using DACA as a diplomatic weapon in his ongoing power struggle with the Mexican government. That just hurts 800,000 people and helps President Peña Nieto.
Ecuador’s school snack programme focuses on pre-packaged, individual-sized items like juice boxes.
Bernardo Cañizares Esguerra
Up to 25% of Ecuadorian children suffer from malnutrition, and the country’s sugary school snacks aren’t helping. Kids need healthful, fresh food — not high-calorie humanitarian aid.
Aggressive police patrolling of Rio’s poor favela neighbourhoods has turned streets into battlegrounds, with innocent bystanders in the middle.
Reuters/Bruno Domingos
Robert Muggah, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio)
In Rio de Janeiro, a stray bullet kills or injures one person every seven hours.
Cutting off the Maduro regime’s cash flow won’t help the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, where hunger, poverty and sickness are deepening the nation’s plunge into chaos.
AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos
New US sanctions against Venezuela deliver a clear condemnation of the Maduro regime’s authoritarian maneuvering but overlook two key problems: Russian meddling and the humanitarian crisis.
The central square of Real del Monte, Mexico.
Diego Delso/Wikimedia
The loyalty of Venezuela’s soldiers is getting shaky. History shows from the Arab Spring to Latin American coups, when the military withdraws support for a leader, a fall from power is imminent.
Three Mexican governors have been arrested in 2017 abroad after fleeing justice, and nearly 90% of the country’s citizens see the government as deeply corrupt.
‘Our writers are resistance’ say Editorial Lector Cómplice.
editorialectorcomplice/instagram
This is not the first time Mexico’s government has been accused of spying on and harassing citizens whose activities it finds inconvenient.
In Cuba, unlike in many Latin American countries, when you see children on the street, they’re not begging; they’re playing. And therein lies Castro’s dilemma: how to reform Cuba’s stagnant economy without losing what’s working?
Dan Lundberg/flickr
Venezuela’s opposition has called a 48-hour strike to stop the Maduro government from rewriting the nation’s constitution. But grassroots democracy may not be able to save the Bolivarian Republic.
Visiting Scholar, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University; Director of Studies at the Changing Character of War Centre, and Senior Research Fellow, Dept. of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford