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Laura Valentina Cortés Sierra

See more by Laura Valentina Cortés Sierra

Image of a man in a suit, Esteban Acosta, a self-proclaimed apostle, giving a speech at ​La Unción Christian Community Church, a big screen behind him projecting his speech.
Society

How Colombia's "Prosperity Preachers" Squeeze The Masses, With The State's Blessing

In traditionally Catholic Colombia, Protestant preachers have learned to effectively combine marketing and religion to make themselves enormously wealthy. And thanks to political lobbying and religious freedom, they are exempt from the law and taxes.

CARTAGENA — Outside the La Unción Christian Community Church, in this coastal city in Colombia, hundreds of believers gather to tour the city and bring their “message of salvation” to others. On a white crane, there are six speakers, microphones, recording equipment and about ten people identified as "STAFF".

A drone flies over and records the scene. When everything is ready, Pastor Esteban Acosta goes up to the platform and leads the chants.

The followers, of different ages and economic backgrounds, look animated, holding posters and colored balloons. They are spread out between the current location of the church and its new location, being built across the street. In the old structure, the prized Cartagena land, which cost "a million dollars in credit" according to the pastor, there is room for 2,000 people.

In the new temple, with tinted windows and a marble floor, another 2,000 people will fit. Everything is financed by the "generous contributions" of the parishioners.

Esteban Acosta, a self-proclaimed apostle, and his wife, pastor Lisbeth Bello, convince their followers to make donations in exchange for religious favors, while they amass fortunes to afford a life of luxury. They use marketing strategies and a repetitive message with a simple promise: the more money they give to God through them, the more progress they will have on earth as a reward. They call it the "prosperity gospel."

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Image of a hand holding a coca leaf.
Green

Chewing Coca Leaves: From Sacred Ritual To 'Cocaine-Light'

In Bolivia, the coca leaf was once reserved for ancestry rituals and practices. Now it is being combined with other substances, especially amongst the very young, to create a toxic experience and dangerous concoction.

LA PAZ — There was a time when the coca leaf was considered sacred. Its use was restricted to Inca priests, the Inca, absolute kings on Earth, and the doctors of the Inca court. It was a gift from Inti, the Sun King. A divine leaf.

With the invasion of the Spaniards and the destruction of the Inca empire, commoners were able to access the leaf, which most Spaniards initially despised because they contemptuously considered it "something for Indians." But for the Mitayos, enslaved in the mines, and for the pongos (servants), coca consumption was a matter of survival. They used it to kill hunger and exhaustion from strenuous work.

The coca leaf is a plant native to South America and plays an important role in Andean societies. In addition to its medicinal virtues (stimulant, anesthetic and hunger suppressor), it has a leading role in social exchange and religious ceremonies. It is believed that its use spread to the entire Andean territory, with the Tiwanaku empire and later with the Inca empire.

The oldest coca leaf was found on the north coast of Peru and dates back to 2,500 BC. There is evidence that coca is the most widely used domestic plant from Andean prehistoric times to date, in the current territories of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru , Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil.

As the years passed, the Acullico, a social, ritual and medicinal practice in which a small bolus of coca is placed in the mouth between the cheek and jaw, became increasingly popular.

Those who chewed the plant used to be miners and transporters, workers with a physically demanding job, or peasants and farmers. But this has all changed.

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Iconic Mariupol Maternity Photograph Wins World Press Photo Award
This Happened

Iconic Mariupol Maternity Photograph Wins World Press Photo Award

It was one of the most striking photographs since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with a tragic postscript. A year later, it has been chosen as World Press Photo of the Year award.

This article was updated at 12:15 p.m. local time on April 21, 2023

It was 16 days after the start of the invasion of Ukraine, when a Russian air raid struck a maternity hospital in the southern city of Mariupol, a shocking attack that international organizations would later determine was a war crime.

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Associated Press photographer Evgeniy Maloletka was on the scene, capturing a powerful image of one of the wounded pregnant mothers-to-be. On Thursday, the image was awarded the World Press Photo of the Year prize.

In March 2022, the killing of civilians was multiplying across the country, notably in the besieged port city of Mariupol. Maloletka, a veteran Ukrainian photographer, was one of the very few documenting events in the city at that time.

On March 9, after the Russian air raid struck the Mariupol maternity hospital ward, the AP photographer was on the scene, capturing a series of horrific images, including one showing a wounded pregnant woman being carried by emergency workers through the shattered grounds of the hospital.

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A black and white image of Dante Ureta kneeling on a plaza, shirtless, in Tlatelolco, Mexico City
Society

Spy In The Patriarchy, Diary Of A Transgender Man

The author describes his experience as a transgender man: How his physical transition has given him access to new spaces and conversations that were previously inaccessible to him as a woman, and how it's made him feel like a spy within the patriarchy.

MEXICO CITY — At the beginning of my social transition, I felt like a spy. The 250 milligrams of testosterone that entered my body every twenty-something days brought physical changes that gave me access to spaces, conversations, and situations that were previously foreign to someone perceived as a woman.

When I found myself in those situations, I laughed, imagining I'm a spy, embedded deep inside the patriarchy.

If you met me for the first time, you wouldn't know that I spent 20 years of my life being perceived as a woman. As the Spanish writer Paul Preciado says, the strangest thing about becoming a man is keeping intact the memory of the oppression.

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The sudden changes in my body became clear when, on a lonely street at night, a woman changed sidewalks when she saw me walking towards her. I felt strange; I felt the need to run after her and explain that I wasn't one of “them," that I'm trans, and that she didn't have to worry about me. But imagining the scene made me laugh at how ridiculous it would be to run after a total stranger, and just scare her more.

I noticed this too when I went to clubs and partied during my first few months on testosterone. I felt my space invaded as strangers touched me in places where before they weren't even allowed to touch by mistake.

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Photo of surrogate mothers and newborns BioTexCom facilities
Society

Surrogacy In Ukraine: Demand Is Booming, But Birth Mothers Have Fled

After more than a year of war, a journalist from Spanish publication La Marea returns to one of the capital's top clinics for foreign couples looking for children. Business is better than ever, though the clinic is looking for women from other former Soviet republics to become surrogate mothers.

KYIV — "Now, our big problem is that we lack women..."

With so many Ukrainian women having gone abroad since the Russian invasion, surrogacy company BioTexCom's Ihor Pechenoha says there are not enough surrogate mothers to meet what has turned out to be growing demand for babies from abroad.

A year ago, Pechenoha, the company's medical director, was armed and in military uniform when he received La Marea in a basement converted into a shelter for about 30 babies. BioTexCom had transferred to the location from a Kyiv hospital after it was bombed by Russian forces.

At the time, it had been just two weeks since the beginning of the invasion, and it looked like Russian troops might take the Ukrainian capital at any moment. Since then, some things have changed, though others haven't.

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Foreign couples who had contracted to acquire the newborns didn't dare to enter a country at war to collect them. Nurses cared for the pregnant women day and night, while at the same time worrying about what would happen to their own families. There, they could earn three times as much as in a public hospital. Surrounded by diapers, cribs and tins of powdered milk, a soldier armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle kept watch.

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How A "Climatic Memory" Gene Helps Trees Face Environmental Threat
Green

How A "Climatic Memory" Gene Helps Trees Face Environmental Threat

Humans and animals have strategies to deal with their surroundings, including the impacts of climate change. But what about trees? Researchers in Spain have identified mechanisms in plant life to learn over time from unfavorable environmental situations.

OVIEDO — When it doesn't rain, humans look for water under rocks. Throughout history, we have developed more or less effective techniques (and more or less respectful of the environment) to always have something to drink. Reservoirs, wells or desalination plants help us, when available, to cope with periods of drought.

Animals also have strategies to deal with lack of water, such as moving (sometimes long distances) in search of new reserves or reducing hydration needs by lowering physical activity.

But how does a tree survive?

These living beings are anchored to the same place, where they spend tens, hundreds and even thousands of years. For this reason, their strategies to deal with stressful situations, such as a drought, a heat wave or a plague, are very different from those of animals.

New research has discovered something incredible: trees have a kind of climatic memory in their genes.

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Photo of posters, flowers and candles in tribute to Leila and Iván in Barcelona
LGBTQ Plus

What A Barcelona Suicide Tells Us About Trans Bullying And Media Blind Spots

The case of 12-year-old twins, one of whom was transgender, who jumped off a balcony after being bullied, led experts in trans childhoods to reflect on how to better protect children. And how to talk about it.

TW: This content may address topics and include references to violence that some may find distressing.

In Barcelona, two 12-year-old Argentine twins, Leila and Iván, climbed on two chairs on a balcony and jumped into the void from a third floor window. They left letters by way of farewell, where they wrote that they suffered bullying for their Argentine accent. They had been living there for two years — and Iván was teased at school for his transgender identity.

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Leila, who survived and is in very serious condition, wrote on that piece of paper that she was jumping in solidarity with her brother. Although the school has denied that they suffered bullying, peers and acquaintances, as well as their Argentine grandfather, made statements that support this scenario.

While the facts and circumstances are being investigated, many media outlets have reported the news without respecting Iván's gender identity, treating him as a female and mentioning his former name. Some, appealing to supposed journalistic accuracy, have inserted a disclaimer among their notes that states: “There is only evidence of the desire of the minor, aged 12, to be treated as a man through indirect sources. Neither his family nor his closest environment have spoken yet."

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Photo of a shopping cart abandoned in the woods
Green

"Slow-Burn Consumption," A Feminist Model To Reconcile Economy And Ecology

Mass consumption is encouraged in the West, but people, particularly women, and the planet pay the price for exploitative capitalism. So, we need to be clear that taking care of each other and tackling the climate crisis are inextricably linked.

Discussing consumption is never easy. The conversation gets even more complex when you consider the political action (or lack thereof) of the person who is consuming. How do we manage the instinct of somehow holding the individual solely responsible for the climate crisis.

There is a capitalist system that drags us towards mass consumption, but when more than one person rethinks the consumption model, we sow a seed that will bear fruit if we all water it.

Leticia Toledo and Maria Victoria Coronado drew attention to this in their article 'Slow-burn Consumption': “We live in a capitalist and patriarchal economic system, the existence of which is based on unlimited growth, which consumes raw materials and human energy to generate money," they write. "In this context, the only jobs that are considered to exist are those that produce goods and services that can be monetized."

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Photo of the installation by Sebastián Picker on the "disappeared" in Chile during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
Society

50 Years After Pinochet's Coup, Chile Is Ready To Recover The Disappeared

The government of Chile's young new president, Gabriel Boric, has begun to develop the National Plan for the Search for Victims of the Dictatorship, half a century after the coup.

SANTIAGO — In what resembles an endless human chain, hundreds of people hold signs displaying black and white portraits with one question: where are they? Every September 11, the day of Chile's 1973 coup d'état, they follow the same route through streets that for one day become the setting of a pilgrimage to the General Cemetery of Santiago. They cry out for justice and demand answers.

They are, for the most part, women who know what it means to care for someone, even when the person they loved — they love — is no longer there. Wives, mothers, daughters, and granddaughters of the disappeared or other victims of the dictatorship who have not given in to oblivion.

This coming September 11, it will be 50 years since a group led by Augusto Pinochet shattered democracy and forever changed the history of a country whose wounds are still exposed : 17 years of a dictatorship would follow, in which thousands of people were sent to prison, tortured, murdered, or forcibly disappeared.

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Photo of the March of Dignity in Guatemala
LGBTQ Plus

Mayan And Out! Living Proudly As An Indigenous Gay Man

Being gay and indigenous can mean facing double discrimination, including from within the communities they belong to. But LGBTQ+ indigenous people in Guatemala are liberating their sexuality and reclaiming their cultural heritage.

CANTEL — Enrique Salanic and Arcadio Salanic are two K'iché Mayan gay men from this western Guatemalan city

Fire is a powerful symbol for them. Associated with the sons and daughters of Tohil, the god who bestows fire in Mayan culture, it becomes the mirror and the passage that allows them to see and express their sexuality. It is a portal that connects people with their grandmothers and grandfathers, the cosmos and the energies that the earth transmits.

Enrique and Arcadio say that they see in the flame of fire the light that illuminates their way to liberating their sexual orientation.

In the case of Enrique, from the age of 23, he decided to live his human experience from the perspective of Mayan spirituality: "I discovered an important difference. In religion, it is either white or black, but in Mayan spirituality, you live from what your heart and the fire tell you and you make that decision.”

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Photo of a hand in a pocket
Society

Kleptomania, How A "Women's Pathology" Was Built On Gender And Class Bias

Between 1880 and 1930, there was a significant rise in thefts in department stores, mostly committed by women from the middle and upper classes. This situation brought with it the establishment of a new pathology: kleptomania. A century later, feminist historians have given new meaning to the practice as a protest against the social structures and oppressions of capitalism and patriarchy.

Kleptomania is defined as the malicious and curious propensity for theft. The legal language tends to specify that the stolen objects are not items of necessity; medically, it is explained as an uncontrollable impulse.

What seems clear is that kleptomania is a highly enigmatic condition and one of the few mental disorders that comes from the pathologization of a crime, which makes it possible to use it as a legal defense. It differs from the sporadic theft of clothing, accessories, or makeup (shoplifting) as the kleptomaniac's impulse is irresistible.

Studies have shown that less than one percent of the population suffers from kleptomania, being much more common among women (although determining exact numbers is very difficult).

The psychiatric disorders manual, DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) has included kleptomania since 1962. Previously, it had already received attention from, among others, Sigmund Freud. Like nymphomania or hysteria, kleptomania became an almost exclusively female diagnosis linked to the biology of women's bodies and an “inability” to resist uncontrollable desire.

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Photo of women walking in Ecuador
Green

Indigenous Women Of Ecuador Set Example For Sustainable Agriculture

In southern Ecuador, a women-led agricultural program offers valuable lessons on sustainable farming methods, but also how to end violence.

SARAGURO — Here in this corner of southern Ecuador, life seems to be like a mandala — everything is cleverly used in this ancestral system of circular production. But the women of Saraguro had to fight and resist to make their way of life, protecting the local water and the seeds. When weaving, the women share and take care of each other, also weaving a sense of community.

With the wrinkled tips of her fingers, Mercedes Quizhpe, an indigenous woman from the Kichwa Saraguro people, washes one by one the freshly harvested vegetables from her garden. Standing on a small bench, with her hands plunged into the strong torrent of icy water and the bone-chilling early morning breeze, she checks that each one of her vegetables is ready for fair day. Her actions hold a life of historical resistance, one that prioritizes the care of life through the defense of territory and food sovereignty.

Mercedes' way of life is also one that holds many potential lessons for how to do agriculture and tourism better.

In the province of Loja, work begins before sunrise. At 5:00 a.m., the barking of dogs, the guardians of each house, starts. There is that characteristic smell of damp earth from the morning dew. Sheep bah uninterruptedly through the day. With all this life around, the crowing of early-rising roosters doesn't sound so lonely.

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