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Buenos Aires has just elected a mustachioed, millionaire mayor who owns Argentina's most popular soccer team. Mauricio Macri is Argentina's answer to Italy's Silvio Berlusconi or New York's Michael Bloomberg. The only difference being shades of ideology, gradations of fabulous wealth and the fact that Macri's high-profile business is not media, but sport. In the fractured Argentine capital where the sentimiento for soccer is virtually the only language that cuts across class and ideological differences, that counts for a lot.

The Madeira River in western Brazil is the Amazon's longest tributary and one of the best-preserved tropical waterways and jungle corridors in the world. A project for two massive dams on its remote upper reaches has long been a matter of controversy, not only among environmentalists, but also among Brazilian technocrats unsure of the risks.

Last year, when residents in Santa Eduviges entered their second month without running water, everyone knew something had to be done. A town assembly was called. Community members expressed outrage that the water company’s $7 per month bill always arrived on time, but taps barely flowed. When they did, the liquid that came out was an ugly brown.

Thanks to over a decade of international campaigns, many U.S. consumers know most of their clothes are made in developing world assembly plants known as “maquilas” that routinely violate workers’ rights. Pointing out the abusive and illegal conditions at these factories is often met with the following matter-of-fact rebuttal: “These are poor countries. For them, a bad job is better than no job at all.” In the case of Nicaragua, this statement generally rings all too true.