Communities resist mining - LAB Newsletter 1 December 2020One of the leading causes of conflict in Latin America is mining. LAB has covered the subject extensively with over 100 articles in the last ten years, the latest just a few days ago. Governments of all political complexions have at various times promoted mining as a source of revenue and...
This is a bumper newsletter, covering the period since 19 July. From now on, we’ll try to send shorter, monthly newsletters.
LAB’s latest book, The Past is an Imperfect Tense, by Bernardo Kucinski (author of K), translated by Tom Gatehouse, is launched via Zoom on 29 October 2020. You can purchase the book here. For a combination ticket to the online...
Coronavirus prefers ‘the poor crooked scythe and spade’
LAB Newsletter: 19 July 2020
Covid-19 targets the poor
Infections in the US today reached 3.7 million, with over 140,000 deaths. Second in this terrible league table stands Brazil, with at least 2.07 million infections and 77,772 deaths. Mexico and Peru are not far behind. The figures are from the Johns Hopkins university...
Dear LAB Supporter and Friend,
Admin and Editorial Assistant post
LAB is hiring: for the first time for more than 10 years it has been possible for LAB to employ a part-time Admin & Editorial Assistant to take some of the pressure off our volunteer editors and enable us to better co-ordinate and expand our work. We hope that we will...
Publications
LAB’s newest publication is The Past is an Imperfect Tense, a novel by Bernardo Kucinski, author of K. It tells the story of a well-to-do white couple living in São Paulo who adopt a black baby. The father’s relationship with his son begins with great love and affection, but ends in ruin and rejection as the boy turns to...
21 April 2020
LAB has just published our first true photo-story: São Paulo – the streets under social isolation a collaboration between sociologist Fraya Frehse and photojournalist Tiago Queiroz, and with the help of our web-designer Wes Boden. Do take a look and let us know if you think it conveys the story effectively.
Collated by Emily Gregg, LAB is...
3 April 2020
Dear LAB Supporter and Friend,
In the past fortnight, as the Covid-19 virus took hold in Europe
and began to make major inroads into the populations of the Americas, LAB has attempted
to keep up with the extraordinary transformations being wreaked in all our
societies. We lack the resources of the major news organisations, but we have a
strong and growing team...
17 March 2020 Dear LAB Supporter and Friend,COVID-19 in Latin America. A LAB Special Newsletter We thought that LAB should research and publish an article, collating, as far as possible, the situation across the region as the Covid-19 begins to make inroads and theatens the lives and welfare of individuals, families and communities.To read...
Dear LAB Supporter and Friend,
International Women’s Day
March 8, International Women’s Day, saw huge, unprecedented demonstrations across Latin America. In Guatemala, the date is a painful anniversary of the death in 2017 of 41 girls and young women in a state-run children’s home in Guatemala City, the Hogar Seguro Virgen de la Asunción. Christian Aid’s Nathalie Mercier describes the scant...
Attention to the Amazon and climate change has tended to focus on the deforestation – logging – cattle ranching – soya nexus. But of equal, perhaps greater importance is the drive by the large mining and oil companies to open up vast territories to mineral extraction. The eye-watering sums of money involved and the capital wealth of the major...