Mike Gatehouse

LAB's Voices of Latin America featured in a session at the 2019 Crickhowell Literary Festival. Editor Tom Gatehouse, who grew up and went to school in the area, introduced the book, with Brecon-based Claudia Orellana (from Chile) and Cardiff-based actor Kristoffer Huball reading the voices of four of the social activists who are interviewed in...

LAB was present at Wales’ own Latin America Festival, called El Sueño Existe, held in Machynlleth every other year since 2001. We had a lively session on our latest books, Amazon Besieged and Voices of Latin America; LAB author Louise Morris took part in the discussion workshop on Reproductive Rights in Latin...

A synod is a meeting of representatives of Church communities to discuss issues of doctrine or Church governance.  So far, for most people, so boring.  But when, in February 2019, General Augusto Heleno, President Jair Bolsonaro’s senior security adviser, described October’s Catholic Church synod on the Amazon as ‘relevant to Brazil’s national security’ and having a ‘left-wing agenda’, he was...

A lone man in the garb of a nineteenth century mambi Cuban freedom fighter sits high on a lamp post above a sea of people in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución. Alberto Korda, Cuba (b.1928): El Quijote de la Farola (The Don Quijote of the lamppost), Plaza de la Revolucion, Cuba 26...

The recent announcement by Iván Márquez – the second highest commander of the original Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) – that sections of South America’s largest demobilised guerrilla movement are returning to war, should come as little surprise to some observers of Latin America. In a recent video, Márquez, whose real name is Luciano Marín, said...

The 2018 Caravana de las Danzas 2018, dancing in La Plaza de Talca and taking a walk around the Barrio en Colores, an open air museum in the población Brilla el Sol, with murals evoking the customs of the region such as rodeo, the Cueca, etc. Wendy Tyndale, with her book...

Amazon fires show Bolivia needs a new economic model Global coverage of the recent Amazon fires has focused on Brazil, but Bolivia has suffered a similar catastrophe. Over the last two months, some 2.4 million hectares of the country have burned, almost half of which is forest. At least six people have died and around 2,000 families have...

This interview, by special correspondent Bruno Meyerfeld, appeared in Le Monde on 12 September 2019. The original, in French, can be read here. It was translated for LAB by Francis McDonagh. With a firm stride Lula comes into an anonymous room at the headquarters of the Brazilian Federal Police...

Dear LAB Supporter and Friend, 11 September 2019 Amazon fires caused by land-grabbing on an industrial scale Amazon burned -- at Terra Nossa, near Altamira, Pará. Neighbouring land occupied illegally by grilheros, was untouched. Photo: José Cícero da Silva/Agência Pûblica. In addition to our...

This open letter, from a distinguished group of Brazilian mental health academics and professionals, was first published in El Pais Brazil on 2 September 2019. You can read the original here. It was translated for LAB from the Portuguese by Diane Grosklaus Whitty. Greta Thunberg gives life to the climate cause, just as the climate cause gives her...