The Associated Press
Photo coverage by The Associated Press in Latin America last week ranged from Brazil’s unsettled final days ahead of the World Cup to a bitter presidential fight in Colombia to Mexico City’s new aquarium.
Although expectations are high for Brazil’s soccer team at the World Cup, it’s already clear the country hasn’t done well in getting stadiums, airports and other infrastructure ready. Organizers will also have to worry about widespread street protests that are expected during the tournament, with demonstrators unhappy about corruption, poor public services and the billions of dollars being spent to host the World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.
AP photographer Dario Lopez-Mills provided a moving look at Maynor, an 11-year-old Honduran who from the dusty soccer pitch in his Progreso neighborhood can see only two ways out of the gang-controlled slums: on a professional soccer team, or in a cheap coffin. Statistics show that children his age are shot to death every four days in Honduras, and the odds only get worse as they get older.
Colombians voted in a presidential election characterized by a clash of personalities and relentless mudslinging that have overshadowed differences on how to put an end to a half-century of guerrilla violence. Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, the Democratic Center Party presidential candidate and former finance minister, won the most votes in the first round, delivering a blow to President Juan Manuel Santos’ re-election bid. But Zuluaga failed to secure enough votes to avoid a runoff against the incumbent.
Adding to his cultural ventures, Mexican magnate Carlos Slim inaugurated a four-level, underground aquarium that is one of the biggest in Latin America, housing 3,000 creatures belonging to 230 species. The aquarium was built in an upscale Mexico City neighborhood that is home to gleaming office towers largely built by Slim and across the street from the Soumaya Museum that he constructed to house six floors of works by Impressionists, Old Masters, Mexican muralists, anonymous Mesoamerican craftsmen and others.
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This gallery was curated by photo editor Anita Baca in Mexico City.
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