All Content: Brazil

As the year winds to a close, we hope you will enjoy this video about how WOLA works with partners in the region to advance human rights in Latin America. If you have not done so, we hope you will consider making a donation to WOLA to support our continued efforts. Your support makes a difference.

South America's military budgets rose 5.8% in 2010, faster than any other region, says the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's latest yearbook. Adam and WOLA Fellow Lucila Santos talk with Carina Solmirano of SIPRI about her findings.

Today, as the Organization of American States (OAS) 41st General Assembly focuses on “Citizen Security in the Americas,” WOLA released a new report on innovative approaches to reduce urban violence.

Adam talks with Pedro Abramovay of the Rio de Janeiro-based Fundaçao Getúlio Vargas about the Rio goverment's ongoing effort to "pacify," or provide community police and social services to, the city's historically neglected and violent favelas.

When President Obama embarks on his trip to Latin America this week, he will encounter a very different political environment than he found at the Summit of the Americas held in Trinidad and Tobago, where Latin American leaders practically tripped over each other to shake his hand and pose for the proverbial photo op.

We will hear words like “partnership” and “engagement” used frequently during the visit. While positive, these words have little meaning if they don’t come with a commitment to expend resources to help our “partners” address their main concerns.

As the Obama administration seeks to close the huge U.S. deficit without raising taxes, cutting defense or reducing entitlements, programs like foreign assistance are likely to suffer.

In Brazil, possession of drugs for personal consumption is punished with educational measures and community service, not prison. In this video, a young man tells of the disparity in sentencing between the wealthy and the poor.

A comparative study on the impact of drug policies on the prison systems of eight Latin American countries - Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay - reveals that drug laws have contributed to the prison crises these countries are experiencing.