Brazil
Marielle Franco Assassination
On March 14th, 2018, one of Brazil’s strongest voices in the fight for equal rights was assassinated in her car along with her driver on the way home from an event to empower young black women in Rio de Janeiro. Marielle Franco had just been elected the city councilor of Rio de Janeiro 18 months prior to her death. At 38 years old, Franco was the only black female representative on the 51-member council, and one of seven women (The New York Times, 2018).
Brazilian troops storm favelas of Rio de Janeiro to combat rising drug violence
Just last week, Brazilian President Michel Temer signed a decree to allow the military to take over as the primary security force in the state of Rio de Janeiro as an extreme attempt to crackdown on rising gang violence in the region’s poor shantytowns, or favelas. The upper and lower houses of Brazil’s Congress both voted overwhelmingly in favor of this decision, in spite of rising public criticism and concern over the protection of human rights under the military’s control.
US Arms in Brazil
What can we learn from Lula’s trial in Brazil
Despite the prospects of former Brazil’s president Lula da Silva re-election this year, the result of his trial shows a worrying trend towards politicisation of the judiciary power. Their actions plays a vital role in shaping democratic politics in the country. On January 24th, an appeals court in Brazil upheld Lula’s the conviction on charges of corruption. The most controversial point of the prosecutors’ case is that accused Lula of having accepted a bribe from a construction company named “OAS”, which is currently under prosecution in Brazil’s “Carwash” corruption scheme.
Liberalism and Its Contradictions: Democracy and Hierarchy in Mestizaje and Genomics in Latin America
Cover Image: Creative Commons Pena et al. 2011: This diagram illustrates the genetic ancestral composition
of self-identified white, brown and black people in four regional populations in Brazil
Government Buildings Set Ablaze by ‘Garimpeiros’: The Latest Onslaught on the Environment and Indigenous People of Brazil
On Friday, October 2017, troops and federal police were deployed after several government and environmental agency buildings were set on fire by hundreds of armed men in the town of Humaíta in the Brazilian Amazon.
Favelas or War Zones?
In September 2017, Brazil’s military was deployed to manage the chaos between rival drug gangs in the Rocinha favela in Rio de Janeiro. The violence escalated to the point where the airspace over the favela was shut down. Schools, businesses, and streets were on lockdown with residents hiding in their homes using social media to communicate the events outside. The 950 soldiers deployed to the community suspect the infamous ruling drug lord Antonio Bonfim Lopes aka Nem to be behind the violence from inside prison.
A novela culture
Brazil is the largest country in South America, and as such it is home to as many walks of life as it is terrains. When it comes to lifestyles, income, and education levels, there is no one Brazil. You can see this just by looking at the nation’s literacy rates; despite the growth in recent years which led many economists to regard Brazil as the future of the market, as of 2015, 7.4 percent of the population was still illiterate (Central Intelligence Agency 2017).
Chinese FDI in Latin America
China’s involvement in Latin America has been rapidly increasing in the past two decades with Chinese companies investing over $110 billion since 2003, but primarily in the last five years. The nature of these investments has been changing as well.