In Brazil’s Yanomami Indigenous Territory and across other parts of the Amazon Basin, illegal gold mining has metastasized into a transnational criminal enterprise. What starts with illegal deforestation and mercury poisoning ends with laundered gold flowing into global supply chains. The trade finances organized crime, corrupt officials,…

Haiti is sliding into the abyss. Violence has intensified since the beginning of the year as gangs continued to overrun communities and paralyze basic services. The capital, Port-au-Prince, and several other cities are now largely controlled by powerful gang coalitions, most notably Viv Amsanm and Gran Grif. The country’s Transitional Presidential Council (TPC), formed with CARICOM over a year…

Brazil’s federal police recently pulled back the curtain on a criminal web that had infiltrated the country’s fuel distribution chains. What looked like ordinary gas stations were, in fact, outposts of a vast laundering machine, washing dirty money with diesel and ethanol. According to Justice Minister Ricardo…

Earlier this month, Juliette Dorson, a 50-year-old Haitian caterer, was shot while working an event in Port-au-Prince. Her business partner, Luc, died in the attack. She survived, but barely. For residents of Haiti’s capital, such horrors are tragically routine. Gangs now control four-fifths of the city, wielding not…

The global development industry is facing a reckoning. Long reliant on Western donors, the sector is grappling with deep and sudden cuts to official development assistance. The crisis in aid affects tens of thousands of workers and service users with cascading effects on food security, poverty reduction, health and education provision,…

Brazil’s stewardship of the world’s largest tropical forest has long ignited acrimony

The artificial intelligence race is gathering pace, and the stakes could not be higher.

Whether it was gold, diamonds, or iron, the history of Brazil has been shaped for centuries by the hunt for minerals.

If Chinese lending declines, sub-Saharan Africa’s ability to raise financing will be deeply affected.

Even before taking office in January 2023, Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva promised to end illegal deforestation in the Amazon.

Illegal deforestation, wildcat mining, drug trafficking, and lethal violence: Name your scourge and the Amazon Basin seldom disappoints.

Nicaragua’s crackdown on the political opposition, free press, and civil society is intensifying.

Recent months may well be remembered as the moment when predictive artificial intelligence went mainstream.

In late January, harrowing pictures from the Yanomami Indigenous reserve began popping up on Brazilian social media

Even as the armed forces and police broke up the 8 January insurrection in Brasilia, carting more than 1,000 rioters off to prison, the Brazilian rumour mills spun into high gear.