Protesters cross the Brooklyn Bridge on June 19, 2020 – Juneteenth – in the United States’ third straight week of protest.
Pablo Monsalve / VIEWpress via Getty Images
Unrest in the US looks familiar to Latin Americans, who are accustomed to resisting undemocratic governments – and to their protest movements being met with violent suppression.
Germany led the way with its early response to the coronavirus crisis.
Getty Images / Sean Gallup
US denies backing failed raid to remove Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro – but it has a long history of sponsoring private armies elsewhere.
Many of Latin America’s leftist ‘revolutions’ are now in crisis. But the left is resurging in some countries.
The Conversation / Photo Claudia Daut/Reuters
Progressives are leading in the presidential elections of Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia, bucking the region's recent rightward trend. But there are lessons in the failures of leftists past.
A farmer carries firewood during the dry season in Nicaragua, one of the Central American countries affected by a recent drought.
Neil Palmer for CIAT/flickr
Poverty and violence are often cited as the reasons people emigrate from Central America, but factors such as drought, exacerbated by climate change, are driving people to leave too.
Between 1990 to 2015, nearly half of all migrants worldwide went back to their country of birth, whether by choice or by force.
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Deportees and other migrants return home wealthier, more educated and with more work experience than people who never left. This 'brain gain' benefits the whole community, financially and politically.
The tortilla business can become an unexpected way out for former gang members.
Cibelle Estrelinha/Flickr
Dennis Rodgers, Graduate Institute – Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (IHEID)
Being part of a gang may increase the chance of dying young, but when gang members leave their old lives behind, they can find that their street smarts come in handy.
Riot police at an anti-government march in Managua, Nicaragua, Oct. 14, 2018.
Reuters/Oswaldo Rivas
A massive protest movement exploded across Nicaragua in April 2018, threatening to topple the country's authoritarian regime. What happened to Central America's 'tropical spring?'
Inmates, members of MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs, wait upon arrival at the maximum security prison in Zacatecoluca, 65 kilometres east of San Salvador, on August 9, 2017.
Marvin RECINOS / AFP
Dennis Rodgers, Graduate Institute – Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (IHEID)
Imaginaries of gangs as inherent forms of brutal anarchy promote particular political agendas and obscure the ways gangs can reveal the underlying dynamics of the contexts within which they emerge.
Protesters face off with riot police during a march against president Daniel Ortega in Managua, Nicaragua, on September 16, 2018.
EPA Images
Hundreds have died in a government crackdown in the Central American country, and Labour's reaction is worrying.
Costa Ricans held a march in solidarity with Nicaraguan refugees on Aug. 25, 2018. An estimated 500,000 Nicaraguans live in Costa Rica, with more arriving daily as crisis in the country deepens.
Reuters/Juan Carlos Ulate
Nicaraguan migrants send over US$1 billion home each year. This money has played a changing role in domestic politics – first boosting the Ortega regime and, now, sustaining the uprising against him.
Access to water – not electricity – can have larger gains for health and well-being.
(Shutterstock)
When different sides in a violent political crisis become ever more entrenched, democracy quickly starts to wither.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez was a major financier of Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, seen here at a 2016 commemoration on the third anniversary of the socialist leader’s death.
Reuters/Marco Bello
Cheap Venezuelan oil boosted Nicaragua's economy and funded President Daniel Ortega's many anti-poverty programs. With Venezuela in crisis, the oil has dried up – as has support for Ortega's regime.
Militias guard a barricade after police and pro-government militias stormed a rebel-held neighborhood in Masaya, Nicaragua, on July 17, 2018.
AP Photo/Cristibal Venegas
Nicaragua has exploded in violence since mass protests began against President Daniel Ortega in April, with hundreds dead and thousands wounded. Amid such chaos, criminal violence is likely to follow.
Nicaragua, which overthrew its last violent dictator in 1979, is the only Latin American country since Cuba to stage a successful revolution.
AP Photo/Alfredo Zuniga
History shows that Latin American presidents usually don't last long after they use violence to repress mass protests. Is Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega the next to fall?
Protests against social security reforms in Nicaragua quickly gained traction. Now, even the Catholic Church is suggesting ‘democratization’ may be on the horizon.
Reuters/Oswaldo Rivas
For 11 years, Daniel Ortega's regime has been unshakable. But Nicaragua's autocratic leader is vulnerable after weeks of deadly protest. Now, some citizens are calling for him to resign.
While Costa Ricans pride their country for being an oasis of stability in Latin America, the nation has struggled with restrictive laws and social attitudes toward immigrants from Nicaragua.
Deputy Director, Pandemic & Biosecurity Policy Program, Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs, Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University