Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, is making good on a campaign promise to loosen the country’s gun laws.

Fearing for his safety amid rising crime in Latin America’s largest nation, Paulo Alberto joined a gun club three years ago and learned to shoot.

Jair Bolsonaro delivers campaign pledge for looser regulation, despite murder rate

CALI, Colombia (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – As a boy growing up in a slum in Cali, one of the most world’s most violent cities, Andres Felipe Gonzalez knew his chances of a life without crime or becoming a victim of crime were slim.

A caravan of about 1,600 hungry and tired Honduran immigrants crossed into Guatemala on Monday with the hopes of making it to the United States.

Francine Farias had just completed a census of her tumbledown favela on the outskirts of one of the world’s most violent citieswhen she heard a volley of gunfire and her count was rendered suddenly out of date.

“IT’S going to be crazy tonight,” sighs Craven Engel, a pastor in Hanover Park, a township on the fringes of Cape Town.

In less than a week, Brazil will vote in the most uncertain presidential elections since its return to democracy in 1985.

Cristian Sabino was sitting on a plastic chair by this beach resort’s central market when a gunman walked up and shot him five times. As the 22-year-old dropped to the ground, the assailant fired a final bullet to the head and walked away.

On this edition of “Deep South” Ilona Szabo de Carvalho, Executive Director of Instituto Igarapé, discusses security concerns and upcoming elections in Brazil.