Rio de Janeiro’s hospitals are running out of syringes and basic medications, and their staffs are running on little to no pay, with one month to go before the city hosts the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Ousted Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff revealed that her predecessor, Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, plans to run for president again in 2018, despite being the subject of an extensive corruption probe that strengthened calls for Rousseff’s impeachment.
Just weeks before the start of the Summer Olympics, tourists at Rio de Janeiro’s iconic Copacabana Beach discovered mutilated body parts washing ashore, a reminder that many of the seaside venues reserved for athletes suffer from extraordinary pollution that could endanger the health of those in contact with the water.
Police in Rio de Janeiro, many who have not received salaries in months, staged multiple protests throughout the city, demanding the government pay them and warning off Summer Olympics tourists with signs reading, “Welcome to Hell.”
The bodies of Ericka Ares Luik and her partner Kumar Prasad Bhat were found buried under tons of construction debris with bags on their heads this week. Luik, friends say, was hoping to flee Venezuela, home to the most violent city in the world, for Estonia.
The governor of Rio de Janeiro state, Francisco Dornelles, told the Brazilian newspaper O Globo on Monday that the Summer Olympics hosted in the state’s capital city may be a “big failure” due to the pervasive lack of funding for health and security infrastructure, leaving tourists and athletes exposed to crime and disease.
A Jamaican Olympic gold medalist has announced that he is carrying the Zika virus, but will continue to train and hopes to compete in the 2016 Summer Olympics this August in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.
Colombia has agreed on a deal to reintegrate the guerrilla population of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the world’s wealthiest non-jihadist terrorist group, into Colombia’s civilian communities, a move President Juan Manuel Santos claims marks a definitive end to the half-century-long war between the government and the FARC.
A study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that a website offering clandestine abortion pills and help finding illegal abortion sources in Latin America has seen a surge in demand for their services as the Zika virus outbreak spreads through the region.
In an in-depth look at the lavish lifestyles of Caracas’ socialism-friendly diplomats and government-sanctioned businessmen, the Daily Mail exposes Venezuela’s exclusive country clubs, located mere miles from the lines of starved civilians awaiting their food rations that have come to define the nation.
The government of Brazil has assured the world it will put on a spectacular show during August’s Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro despite the many problems casting a shadow over preparations: a Zika epidemic, rampant political corruption, an economic collapse, and now a new crime wave threatening tourists and athletes alike.
After months of increasingly alarming reports out of Venezuela, where the legislature declared a “food emergency” in February, The New York Times has finally shed some light on what appears to be the beginnings of a famine in the oil-rich country, where nearly 90 percent of civilians do not have access to food.
Acting governor of Rio de Janeiro Francisco Dornelles has issued a decree proclaiming that his state is facing a “public calamity,” as there is not enough money to both fully fund the Summer Olympics scheduled for August and keep necessary public
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have confirmed that six infants have been born in U.S. states with birth defects following their mother’s infection with the Zika virus. 234 women in the continental United States have tested positive for Zika.
At least 400 were arrested on Tuesday in eastern Sucre state, Venezuela, with police arguing that the starved people, many chanting “we want food,” were attempting to loot trucks carrying food meant to be distributed later through the socialist government’s ration system.
(Reuters) Brazil’s congressional ethics committee voted to strip suspended Speaker Eduardo Cunha of his seat on Tuesday for allegedly lying about undeclared Swiss bank accounts, the latest in a series of political earthquakes to rock Latin America’s largest country.
Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah is generating hundreds of millions from a “cocaine money laundering scheme” in Latin America that “provides a never-ending source of funding” for its terrorist operations, a former DEA operations chief recently told U.S. lawmakers.
Supporters of socialist president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, beat opposition legislator Julio Borges with metal sticks in broad daylight Thursday, causing multiple nose fractures. They also injured several others before the nation’s National Electoral Council, where opposition leaders had convened urging the council to speed up the verification process for a recall on their president.
A group of masked radical leftists broke into the Church of National Gratitude in Santiago, Chile, Thursday, dragging the church’s oversized crucifix into the street and breaking it into pieces during a student protest.
Venezuela is imposing a new government food redistribution system in its capital, Caracas, that requires locals to acquire food from Socialist Party members, a move triggering national outrage as anti-socialist activists say the Party will use food to coerce citizens into supporting it.
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has determined that Venezuela, which has refused to cooperate with the United States’ antiterrorism efforts in the region for nearly a decade, remains a “permissive environment” that promotes ideological and financial support for terrorist organizations, namely Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah.
Rio de Janeiro (AFP) – He surfs, dances in carnivals and can sound more revolutionary than royal, but Prince Dom Joao de Orleans e Braganca is serious about restoring the monarchy to save Brazil.
Poor Venezuelans in the center of the nation’s capital, Caracas, attempted to storm the nation’s presidential palace Thursday, chanting, “We want food” after Bolivarian National Guard soldiers appeared to steal the contents of a shipment of rice and sugar to a market where civilians had been waiting in line for hours.
Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro formally endorsed “revolutionary friend” Bernie Sanders for president during a broadcast Tuesday night, suggesting that Sanders would win in a landslide “if the election were free.”
A Brazilian 16-year-old girl whose rape at the hands of 33 men surfaced in a Facebook video last week says she is receiving death threats for seeking police help, even as the Rio de Janeiro police chief himself refused to believe her story.
An armed gang stormed the homes of eleven men and boys in northwest Venezuela on Saturday, shooting them dead in their yards. The massacre, involving three minors and a Colombian national, has brought to light once again the Venezuelan government’s seeming inability to deter the violent crime that has made it the world’s most violent country not currently at war.
150 public health experts are calling on the World Health Organization (WHO) and International Olympic Commission (IOC) to postpone or relocate the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in response to the outbreak of Zika virus in that city that has infected thousands and caused thousands of cases of birth defects in infants.
Iran’s Lebanese terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, finds itself in dire financial straits after years of sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies, a top U.S. Department of Treasury official told lawmakers this week.
Brazil’s interim President Michel Temer has called an emergency cabinet meeting to address what many are calling an out-of-control nationwide rape epidemic, made especially acute by video and photos surfacing on social media of 33 men gang-raping a 16-year-old girl in Rio de Janeiro.
A mob of starved Venezuelan residents in central Carabobo state stopped a truck full of powdered milk Monday night, looting its contents and setting parts of the truck on fire. Incidents like this, many caught on video, are occurring on a daily basis in the socialist nation as the government struggles to subdue protesters.
A spokesperson for Coca-Cola confirmed Monday that the corporate giant would stop making its signature beverage in Venezuela, as the nation’s sugar shortage makes it impossible to continue production.
Fernando Collor de Mello knows the Brazilian impeachment process well. In 1992, as president, he faced impeachment proceedings against him for alleged corrupt activity. He stepped down before the Senate could vote him out, has returned as a senator, and voted “yes” to impeach now ex-president Dilma Rousseff on Wednesday.
Brazil’s new president Michel Temer promised to return trust and “confidence” in the executive government to the Brazilian people in his first speech as president, shortly after Dilma Rousseff was informed that her impeachment was official and she would be forced to step down.
The “Bolivarian Revolution” is facing the biggest challenge in its history, as Latin America’s impoverished people turn on their socialist leaders. With Dilma Rousseff out as Brazil’s president and a recall effort started on Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, Cuba stands to lose friendships it has taken decades to cultivate in the region.
The Venezuelan opposition has begun a process to recall socialist President Nicolás Maduro, one that has outraged Venezuelans as the government stalls verifying the signatures to allow the process to go on. Thousands took to the streets Wednesday to demand Maduro address the recall effort properly, triggering widespread police violence.
The Senate of Brazil has temporarily deposed President Dilma Rousseff, replacing her for 180 days with her vice president until her impeachment trial concludes.
Blasting the World Health Organization’s (WHO) silence on the Zika virus in Latin America as “deplorable, incompetent and dangerous,” professor Amir Attaran writes in the Harvard Public Health Review that there is no way to continue with the Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on schedule without exposing millions to the threat of contracting Zika virus.
After a tumultuous 24 hours and a failed attempted at halting the process, Brazil’s Senate will vote Wednesday on whether to impeach socialist President Dilma Rousseff.
From the reports coming out of the country, it can be easy to dismiss the Brazilian people as having reached a point of such disappointment with their government that no politician will be able to win them over for a generation.
Brazil’s Supreme Court has suspended the mandate of Eduardo Cunha, the president of the lower chamber of Congress, indefinitely. Cunha was the force behind organizing a push in the House of Representatives to impeach President Dilma Rousseff.