Week # Air Date

Our first report today comes from Brazil where violent crimes and homicide are at an all time high. This is especially true in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo and other large cities where so called easy money, or drug money, has led to a turf war between police and traffickers who battle for control over entire communities. And it's the youth, mostly young men and boys, who are getting caught in the crossfire. In response many Brazilian cultural groups are now teaching young people how to use music and creativity to keep them save from the violence. Sandina Robbins has this report from Rio de Janeiro.

Stop in at any Starbucks location across the country and your probably going to pay roughly $2 to $5 for steaming cup of coffee. In many of Latin Americas coffee producing regions those same $2 or $5 equals two or three days' pay for a typical plantation worker, and that's when times are good. But with the collapse of the international coffee market there is now hunger among the campesinos. Among the most dramatic cases is in Nicaragua. This Central American nation's economy is almost completely dependent on coffee and they are suffering. Latino USA's franc Contreras has our story from Matagalpa, Nicaragua.

A new film from Mexico, 'El crimen del padre Amaro' (The Crime of Father Amaro) recently opened in theaters in the United States. It's Mexico's official entry into the Oscars. And its subject, priests who engage in sex, abortion, and church corruption is making plenty of waves in the heavily Catholic country where it was made. Shortly after the film opened in Mexico church officials there called it blasphemous and threatened to boycott. But as Latino USA's Mandalit del Barco reports the controversy helped make 'El crimen del padre Amaro' Mexico's highest crossing film ever.