Argentina Becomes Third South American Country to Legalise Abortion
This week, the South American country became the largest nation in Latin America to legalise abortion, a landmark victory for women across the region. It comes after years of mobilisation by the grass-roots movements in response…
Loathe the Word Latino? Blame it on the French!
The word ‘Latino’ may conjure up style and swagger (LatinoLife, of course, equalling all things cool). But having been created as a tool in Europe’s colonial tussle for territory, is the word really cool or has Latin America come…
COVID STORIES: Learning to Exhale
Priscilla Ferreira set up Circular Maternar UK, a group to support Brazilian women in the UK overcome their fears of natural (vaginal) birth. Brazil has the highest rate of caesarean births in the world - 85 percent in private…
COVID Stories: Growing Together
Latin Americans Women’s Aid (LAWA) has been supporting Latin American women for 35 years with emergency refuge homes for victims of domestic violence, advice, support, English classes, counselling, empowerment programs and much…
COVID Stories: Falling Between the Cracks
It’s the young who are suffering the most from the pandemic, not from illness but from its fall out, facing soaring unemployment and an uncertain future. And what about if you are alone, with no family, unable to speak the…
COVID STORIES: On the Frontline
As part of our documentary series for Fuerza London - a film commemorating Latin London's experience of COVID, we interviewed Latinos all over the city. This is the story of Yoshi Bunce a nurse at Kingston Hospital for 30…
Quino, creator of "Mafalda" (1932 - 2020)
This week Argentina mourns a great loss. At the age of 88, Argentine cartoonist, Joaquín Salvador Lavado Tejón (more commonly known as ‘Quino’) passed away on the 30th September in Mendoza, Argentina. Creator and father of…
Uruguay’s paradox: will the pandemic accelerate neo-liberal policies?
As the new government basks in public approval, ollas populares are back to feed the many. To many citizens’ dismay, Uruguay’s exemplary handling of the pandemic could help pave the way for the Lacalle Pou administration to pass…
Chile: The Right, Victor Jara and a Crucial Plebiscite
According to polls, the majority of the Chilean public favours changing the Pinochet constitution, yet as the Piñera government attempts to repair the economy by rapidly moving the country out of lock-down, the campaign to oppose…
Brazil: September 7 — A Day of Death
Distinguished Brazilian journalist Eliane Brum writes regularly for the Spanish newspaper El Pais. Her latest article is a cry of grief and rage at what President Bolsonaro and his followers have done to their country. She agues…
Covid-19 in Latin America – Update 13, 25 August
The incidence of coronavirus and the responses of governments and local communities. Update No.13.
'Britain and the Dictatorships of Argentina and Chile' by Grace Livingstone
Ask anyone active in the British left during the 1970s and 1980s and they are likely to remember stories about Chile: Hawker Hunter jets bombing the presidential palace, the murderous Pinochet regime (1973-1990), Chilean refugees…
Buenos Aires: the virus reaches the ‘villas miseria’
Ramona Medina, one of the community leaders of Villa 31, a Buenos Aires villa miseria, died from coronavirus after publically denouncing the lack of water and the conditions for maintaining social distancing measures in her…
Covid-19 in Latin America – Update
Latin America passed the dire milestone of a million cases of coronavirus at the beginning of June. Since then, Peru has surpassed Italy in its number of confirmed cases and infection and death rates continue to rise. Nonetheless…
The FBI, the Fusion Center, and the Far Right in Brazil
In an important new investigation, journalist Natalia Viana reveals how, during Sergio Moro’s 15 month tenure as Justice and Security Minister, the government of Jair Bolsonaro is rapidly enabling the US Federal Bureau of…
COVID Toll on Indigenous Elders is Destroying History
"Every time an elder dies, a library is burnt"
Joe Biden: Something Different for Latin America?
US Democratic Presidential candidate promises more of the same for Latin America, argues John Washington.
Mexico: Populism and the Pandemic
As with many other countries led by populist leaders, in Mexico populism and the pandemic have proved to be a dangerous mix where AMLO was slow to take the virus or the medical advice seriously, and the most vulnerable are now…
Brazil: the parallel universe of Messias Bolsonaro
The implosion of a government as the pandemic rages
COVID-19 in Latin America
As Latin America enters its fourth week of tackling Covid-19, where most countries have long implemented total lock down, people have begun to settle into the new normal of quarantines and isolation. However, the impact of the…
Indigenous Peoples: Why it Matters if they Catch Coronavirus
500 years after Europeans decimated the American indigenous populations with the common flu, indigenous communities again face imminent catastrophe. As the defenders of nature, land and biodiversity, it is essential we don't…
Chronicle of a Repression Foretold
In 1975, one-year-old Carole Concha Bell and her family journeyed into exile. They fled Chile as refugees during the Pinochet dictatorship, after her grandfather, a government official for the democratically elected Socialist…
Brumadinho – One Year On
With the company stalling and no lessons learned, the risk of another tailings dam collapse are high. Tom Gatehouse talks to those affected by recent tailings dams disasters in Brazil
Argentina: Why is Peronism back in the Casa Rosada?
Economics, doctrine & Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
Bolsonaro’s Brazil 2020: the march of the miners
Mining companies await new laws to unlock protected lands and indigenous reserves
Bolivia: will new elections heal the rift?
With Morales moving to Argentina and still no date for new elections, the outlook remains obscure.
Colombia: The Peace Agreement Three Years On
Christian Aid's 'Ten Years' study documents the lives of marginalized people
An Amazon view of Brussels
Elisa Dias, 22, a drummer from the AfroRaiz Collective, Marabá, coordinator of the Salus project for Rios de Encontro. made trip to Europe as a trainee international project coordinator, accompanying Dan Baron Cohen, to plan the…
Colombia’s struggle for sustainable development
The relationship between the natural environment and the armed conflict in Colombia is deeply interwoven and complex. Even following the Peace Accords, the issue of governance is at the root of the environmental challenges…
Latin American Activists: More in Danger than Ever
While Venezuela dominates the headlines in terms of Latin America's human rights news, Tom Gatehouse reminds us of the grave situation of many activists all over Latin America, including in Colombia, Brazil, Argentina and…
Mexico’s ‘Tren Maya’ railway: fat jaguars vs starving babies?
The AMLO government falls for the mega-development temptation
Colombia – Two Sisters, the FARC and the Peace Process
A tale of two sisters who grew up apart, their past shaped by the FARC, their future hopes for peace and social justice
Messenger on a White horse (2019) El Mensajero
‘Messenger on a White Horse’ is a moving documentary that portrays the courage of Robert (Bob) Cox, Editor in Chief of THE BUENOS AIRES HERALD who dared to publish information exposing the human rights abuses carried out by the…
Colombia: Stairway Storytellers in Medellín
In Medellin, Billie Melluish-Turner finds a project to replace ghoulish and superficial tourism with something real and sustainable
Argentina: Toxic Waste from Fracking in Patagonia
A BP subsidiary is being sued by indigenous groups for criminal dumping of toxic waste