Mass protests were held across Colombia on Wednesday after a night of unrest in the capital city, as street violence continued after more than a week of angry anti-government demonstrations. Twenty-three protesters and one police officer have been killed in the unrest that began with with a general strike over an unpopular tax reform but has grown...
Brazil’s congress has launched a parliamentary inquiry into what critics call Jair Bolsonaro’s disastrous and potentially criminal response to a Covid pandemic that has killed nearly 400,000 Brazilians. The politically charged investigation, which rivals of Brazil’s far-right president hope will torpedo his chances of re-election, will be conducted by 11 of the country’s 81 senators,...
Each morning, the residents of small communities living around Guatemala’s Pacaya volcano wake wondering if the lava will reach their homes. One slow-moving flow descending the volcano has advanced between El Patrocinio and San José el Rodeo. In the case of the latter, the lava has advanced to within two and a half blocks of...
One month after Michel Castro’s premature brush with death, the coronavirus infection has receded but the nightmares persist. In them the 31-year-old father relives the spine-chilling scenes he witnessed as his Covid-hit body battled for survival in a Rio ICU. The six-month-old baby who appeared to be suffocating right next to him. The man urinating...
An ultra-conservative millionaire who admits to scourging himself daily to repress sexual desire is just one of an assortment of low-polling candidates who all have a shot at becoming Peru’s next president. Rafael López Aliaga is technically tied with five other contenders in an unpredictable contest to make a runoff vote in June, including a former goalkeeper,...
It took just 83 days for Adriana Mejía to lose half her family, as Covid unleashed a Mexican tragedy whose full impact is only now becoming clear. First to depart was her father, Juan, a 90-year-old carpenter who died at the family home in Mexico City last July after summoning his eight children to say goodbye. Two...
Mexico’s government has acknowledged that the country’s true death toll from the coronavirus pandemic now stands above 321,000, almost 60% more than the official test-confirmed number of 201,429. Mexico does little testing, and, because hospitals were overwhelmed, many Mexicans died at home without getting a test. The only way to get a clear picture is...
The Biden administration announced on Monday that two senior officials will travel to Mexico and Guatemala to discuss the increase in migrants attempting to enter the US. Emily Horne, a spokesperson for the national security council, said Roberta Jacobson, special assistant to the president and coordinator for the south-west border, “will travel to Mexico to engage with Mexican government...
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights will hear testimony on Monday from a Colombian journalist who was kidnapped, tortured and raped while reporting on her country’s civil war, in a case which could set a precedent for thousands of survivors of sexual violence in the Andean nation. Jineth Bedoya, who has been pursuing justice for...
Nicaragua has created a new National Ministry for Extraterrestrial Space Affairs, The Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, prompting scorn from critics in a nation experiencing a steady erosion of human rights since a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests three years ago. The new space agency was approved by 76 legislators Wednesday in the country’s congress,...