On March 14, 2018, Marielle Franco, Rio city council member, human rights activist, and critic of the military, was gunned down in an execution-style shooting that also killed her driver and injured her assistant. Franco was returning from an event in the Maré Favela zone organized to promote the empowerment of black women. The councilwoman,

On Sunday, March 11, 2018, Colombians went to the polls for their nation’s first legislative elections since the 2016 peace agreement with the FARC guerrillas turned political party. Cámara and Senado contests were widely seen as the first test of the agreement’s popularity, and of Colombians’ willingness to accept it. Many observers pointed to the

Observers across the region noted with satisfaction how the 2018 Oscars had “a lot of Latin flavor.” Mexican director Guillermo del Toro won Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture for his film The Shape of Water. The Pixar and Disney film Coco, inspired by Mexico’s Day of the Dead holiday, won Oscars for Best Animated Feature

At the end of February 2018, the Venezuelan democratic opposition, loosely grouped in the Mesa de Unidad Democrática or MUD, announced that it will not be represented in the elections convened by the government of Nicolás Maduro for April 22, 2018, and called for a national boycott of what it defined as a fraudulent process.

In a surprise anti-corruption crackdown, former Guatemalan President Álvaro Colom Caballeros and eight of his former ministers and two deputy ministers were arrested in Guatemala for embezzlement and fraud. They allegedly stole $35 million dollars from a system of prepaid subsidies to buses in the capital, Guatemala City. The arrests came after a joint investigation

In mid-February 2018, Colombia and Brazil tightened their borders with Venezuela as both countries struggled to cope with a rising tide of thousands of desperate migrants attempting to flee their nation’s deteriorating economic and political situation. The massive exodus offers an immediate challenge to the countries of Latin America, most urgently on view in the

On February 4, 2018, Ecuadorians voted to prevent presidents from holding more than two terms of office, giving President Lenín Moreno a political victory over his mentor-turned-enemy, former President Rafael Correa, who is now blocked from returning to power. The referendum, called by Moreno, rolls back a measure Correa pushed through Congress in 2015, allowing

On January 24, 2018, an appeals court upheld former president of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s July 2017 conviction for taking bribes and money laundering, while increasing his prison sentence from nine and a half years to twelve years and one month. The three-judge panel unanimously found there was sufficient evidence that Lula accepted

The Pontiff traveled to the two South American neighbors from January 15-21, 2018, and did not shy away from contentious subjects in his homilies. His visit, however, especially in Chile, was overshadowed by his support for Bishop Juan Barros, who many Chileans say covered up sexual abuse by an influential priest, Fernando Karadima. Consequently, Chileans

In the first twelve days of 2018, people in need of basic foodstuffs fully or partially looted over one hundred grocery stores and supermarkets in Venezuela. The events, triggered by a government order to shops mandating that they slash prices back to December 2017 levels, created chaos. Frantic Venezuelans swarmed stores at the prospect of