Last month, Brazil elected its first right-wing president since the end of the military regime in 1985. Jair Bolsonaro was elected despite a history of controversial statements against minorities that gave him the name of “Trump of the Tropics”. His history of threats and discriminatory statements...
Brazil is experiencing an increase of homicides. Parallel to this there is an increase in lynching. Facebook and the web are at the forefront of these tragedies. Behind each case is a cause in common: impunity. Yet, is the practice of mob violence succeeding to bring...
Just as today in Russia, in 2014 Brazil hosted an edition of International Federation of Football Association (FIFA) World Cup. Since that time, the country has been immersed in a debate about rights and social policies with important economic and political implications. Contradictorily, as some of...
In February 2018, the government of the northern Brazilian state of Roraima required the country’s supreme court to close the border with Venezuela to prevent more immigrants from entering into Roraima. According to the municipal authorities of Boa Vista, Roraima’s capital, there were already approximately 40,000...
Brazil’s states of Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, three of the most developed, have recently gone through an outbreak of yellow fever, a disease transmitted by mosquitoes, which can have deadly consequences. More than a health issue inherent to any tropical place like...
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Brazil consumes 18% of the world’s cocaine, in spite of accounting for less than 2% of the world’s population. This puts Brazil in the 2nd position in the world ranking of cocaine consumption, just behind...
Brazil proudly declares itself the “country of football”, where this sport represents a national passion which moves both minds and hearts. However, this passion is not completely felt by Brazilian women yet. In the country with the highest number of men’s world championships (1958, 1962, 1970,...
October 2017 marks the 25th anniversary of the Carandiru massacre in Brazil. On 2 October 1992, to control a prisoner riot, military police invaded São Paulo’s House of Detention, known as Carandiru, officially killing 111 prisoners. Twenty-five years on, the consequences of the Carandiru massacre continue...
The crescent inflow of immigrants into the UK was one of the main points of debate, even before the Brexit discussion started. Eventually disguising to contain economic and political reasons, the immigration issue certainly played a key role on the referendum which decided for UK’s exit...
Universal basic income (UBI) has increasingly and excitedly being advocated by both academics and activists in the fight against unemployment, poverty and income inequality. More than by academics and activists, it has been advocated also by some of the world’s biggest tech companies. This apparent odd...
A World Bank recent study pointing to the costs of child marriage has brought again to the media the enormous costs this social phenomenon has for the welfare system worldwide. Despite being part of the Sustainable Development Goals, ending child marriage is still a far target...
The world is living one of the worst migration crisis in history. This topic is constantly on the political agenda, with national governments and international organizations addressing it in their speeches and policies. While prejudice against immigrants was somewhat hidden in the arguments for the exit...
Brazil is well known for its mix of cultures, religions, colors and races. According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), there are 305 officially recognized indigenous ethnicities, in addition to those brought in by historical, regular migratory waves from Europe, Asia, Africa and,...
Anyone who flies over Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul in the south of Brazil, cannot overlook what seems to be a “green river” across one of the most traditional districts of the city below. That “green river” is in fact a short,...
The importance of basic education, both primary and secondary, has increasingly occupied the academic literature, highlighting its relevance for economic development. Higher educational levels result in higher levels of labor productivity, which in turn, relate to higher levels of income. The universalization of basic education is...
