By Anna-Claire Bevan LatinaLista GUATEMALA — Juan Jose Ortiz may not look like a drummer, but for the past year the young Guatemalan has played the tortoise shells in a Mayan cultural group in the small indigenous municipality of…
By Nelza Oliveira Infosurhoy.com OLINDA, Brazil – Joyfulness and tradition join hands at Carnival street parties in two cities in the Brazilian Northeast: Maragogipe and Olinda. The masks and costumes used in the 19th century highlight the Carnival celebrations…
By Rachel Chase Peru This Week Many young women are hooked by traffickers with false promises of legitimate work. Human traffickers are increasingly turning to social media in order to find new victims. According to Peru’s Public Ministry, reports…
By Larry Birns and Lauren Foiles Council on Hemispheric Affairs The general position of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) on the ongoing developments in Venezuela is that Washington has a misguided policy toward the South American country. Moreover,…
By Nelza Oliveira Infosurhoy.com With a US$60 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the government of the state of Rio de Janeiro is promoting social integration for 40,000 young people from pacified favelas. RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil…
By Rachel Chase Peru This Week The strange 3,000-year-old elongated skulls from Paracas have been submitted to genetic analysis— and the results are rather puzzling. The strangely-shaped Paracas skulls, first discovered in 1924 by Peruvian archaeologist Julio C. Tello,…
LatinaLista — For portions of the United States, there is now a greater appreciation for clean, drinkable water. From Virginia to California, the value of water has taken on more importance with ever more sources under threat. For the…
By Ryan Mallett-Outtrim VenezuelaAnalysis.com MERIDA – Venezuelan researchers are studying ways to use bamboo to provide cheap, environmentally friendly housing. With funding from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, students and educators at Venezuela’s Simon Bolivar University (USB)…
LatinaLista — In the ultimate example of real estate flipping, where investors buy neglected property to ‘flip’ — remodel and resell at a higher price — two Southern California entrepreneurs working in Panama decided to buy perhaps what is…
By Deborah Charnes LatinaLista Jennifer Rice was living in Connecticut with her three-year-old daughter, when her husband passed away after a heart attack. Feeling lost and alone, she ended up traveling around the world with her toddler. After visiting…
LatinaLista — There are a lot of things Guatemala can boast of having that most other countries can’t: a rich Mayan heritage, ancient pyramids, lush rainforests and landscapes and distinctive traditional dress and foods. Yet, there was still something…
By M. Isabel Guerra LatinaLista In addition to its indigenous nations and its Spanish colonization, Peru has been the final destination of many migratory movements; thus, nowadays we can find significant percentages of Peruvians from European, Japanese, Chinese and…
By Michael Lohmuller InSight Crime The children of a drug cartel leader in Mexico have reportedly become pop singers, and are openly sharing their extravagant lifestyle glamorizing drug trafficking culture on social media. Self-defense groups in Michoacan, Mexico have…
By Lucy Adler Argentina Independent Partido de la Red (PdlR) is unlike any political party you have come across before. They are a party of the present, looking to the future, who believe in using the tools of today…
By Kay Valle Infosurhoy.com TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Art is their weapon and the walls of Tegucigalpa are their canvas in the fight against violence. In one of the most violent cities in the world – with 1,035 murders in…
By W. Alejandro Sanchez Council on Hemispheric Affairs The events of this upcoming January 27, 2014 are likely to determine the short and long-term future regarding the relations between Peru and Chile. On that date, the International Court of…
LatinaLista — There’s more to a democracy than a nation holding elections. One of the key elements of a democratic nation is political tolerance. No matter the protests, fistfights, shouts, insulting rally signs, name-calling or public slander, as long…
By Rachel Chase Peru This Week Some of Peru’s ancient peoples were skilled surgeons who used trepanation to cure a host of illnesses. Do you have a head injury? Was your heart recently broken? Are you suffering from a…
LatinaLista — The story of the African slave trade in the early Americas has been well memorialized in countless books, stage plays and films. Yet, there is one incident of this dehumanizing chapter in global history that isn’t as…
By Taran Volckhausen Colombia Reports The Bogota-based Lemur Studio has released a product design for a wearable detector aimed at helping Colombia’s rural populations avoid landmines left hidden from over a half-century of armed conflict, Project Director Lorena Cardenas…
By Anna-Claire Bevan LatinaLista Maria Rodriguez is passionate about worms, so much so that she has a collection of 90 million of them. It was during a university lecture when she first heard about their potential to reduce poverty….
By Sergio Ramos Infosurhoy MEXICO CITY – A conversation between Diego Ballesteros and his friend, Evaristo Babé, about the lack of restaurants with an online delivery service led to the creation of one of the most popular startups in…
By Wendy Griffin LatinaLista People who are thinking of coming to Honduras to help or travel are getting very mixed messages on the Internet. For example, I was looking up the Episcopal Church of Honduras on Google, because there…
By Charles Parkinson InSight Crime: Organized Crime in the Americas While Chicago battles a heroin epidemic, US law enforcement has focused its efforts on attacking the link between the street gangs running sales and their Mexican suppliers in the…
Peru This Week Munch’s famous painting was based on a Chachapoyas mummy discovered 130 years ago in Amazonas. We’ve all seen Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream.’ The famous painting by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch is one of those pieces that,…
