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Viral photo changes Brazil trash-pickers’ lives
AFP
A holiday story that emerged from an unlikely place took a heartwarming turn when Gabriel Silva, a Brazilian boy photographed pulling a Christmas tree from a garbage dump, managed to help buy his family a house.
The story began in the weeks before Christmas last year, when AFP photojournalist Joao Paulo Guimaraes captured a picture of Silva, then 12, pulling a small plastic Christmas tree from a fetid mountain of trash swarmed by vultures and impoverished trash-pickers in the town of Pinheiro, in northeastern Brazil.
The photograph went viral, and Silva and his family soon started receiving a flood of donations from people moved by their struggle to survive at the illegal garbage dump, a symbol of the poverty in which millions of Brazilians live.
First came a real Christmas tree, then a bicycle, then money — eventually enough for Silva, his mother and three siblings to leave their dirt-floor hut and buy a brick house.
“I’m so happy to have this house. We didn’t used to have one, we lived in a little mud hut with nothing. Now I have a good house,” said Silva, now 13, who helps his mother collect recyclable materials at the dump most days after school.
“I never imagined all this would happen because of that picture.”
The house, which the family purchased several weeks ago and is still completing, has three bedrooms, a kitchen and a garage.
“It has electricity, running water and a bathroom with a shower,” said Silva’s mother, Maria Francisca Silva, 45.
“We used to have to walk a long way to get water.”
More than 2,000 people contributed to an online collection to help the Silvas, raising around 80,000 reais ($16,000) as of January.
The house cost 49,000 reais, she said.
“All that’s left to do is tile the floors and buy some furniture,” she said.
More than 24 percent of Brazil’s 213 million people live in poverty, according to the national statistics institute.
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Eight Killed in Series of Armed Attacks in Ecuador’s Manabí Province
At least eight people were killed in four separate armed attacks reported Sunday night in the cities of Manta and Montecristi, in Ecuador’s coastal province of Manabí, one of the areas hardest hit by the country’s escalating wave of criminal violence, local media reported on Monday.
The shootings occurred between 7:50 p.m. and 10:50 p.m. local time and affected several neighborhoods, as well as a family gathering, according to press reports. Police are investigating the incidents.
The first attack took place in the Los Artesanos sector of Montecristi, where a couple was shot dead in a public street.
Minutes later, in Manta’s 12 de Octubre neighborhood, a man was killed while sitting down. Police arrested a suspect at the scene and seized a 9mm magazine, authorities said.
A third incident occurred in the Bellavista area of Manta, when an armed assailant entered a home and shot a man during a family celebration. The attacker was captured by neighbors and sustained injuries.
The deadliest attack was reported at 10:50 p.m. in the Leonidas Proaño parish of Montecristi, where gunmen opened fire from two vehicles on a group of people, leaving four dead and five wounded.
According to Jaime Salgado, acting chief of the Manta Police District, officers recovered seven 7.62mm shell casings, consistent with rifle ammunition, and 14 .40-caliber casings at the scene.
With these killings, the Manta police district, a port and tourist area on Ecuador’s Pacific coast, has recorded 51 violent deaths so far in January 2026, according to official figures.
The attacks occurred amid a state of emergency declared by the government in December due to serious internal unrest in Manabí, where military operations have been intensified this month, particularly in high-conflict zones.
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El Salvador Launches Fourth Year of Ocean Mission to Protect Marine Ecosystems
El Salvador’s Ministry of Environment has launched the fourth consecutive year of “Ocean Mission,” a permanent strategy focused on the protection, restoration, and responsible management of marine ecosystems, linking conservation efforts from inland mountain ranges to the coastline.
During an event held at the Los Cóbanos Protected Natural Area, Environment Minister Fernando López highlighted the ecological, social, and economic value of the site, which is recognized as the country’s eighth wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention.
“We are in one of the most valuable natural treasures of our country, not only because of its beauty, but also due to the enormous ecological, social, and economic importance that Los Cóbanos holds for El Salvador,” López said.
The minister emphasized that this volcanic-origin ecosystem is home to coral reefs and key coastal-marine systems that serve as refuge, breeding, and feeding grounds for emblematic species such as sea turtles, cetaceans, and a wide diversity of fish.
“Protecting Los Cóbanos means protecting biodiversity, community livelihoods, the local economy, and our natural heritage,” López stated.
He also stressed that Ocean Mission goes beyond rhetoric, focusing instead on direct action framed within the National Environmental Education Policy. “We are not here to talk about environmental education; we are here to practice it,” he said, underscoring the guiding principle of moving from paper to action.
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Convicted gang member challenges Guatemala’s anti-gang law, citing Human Rights Violations
A member of a criminal gang currently facing sentencing for the crime of extortion has filed a constitutional appeal before Guatemala’s Constitutional Court against the recently approved and enacted Anti-Gang Law.
The appeal, submitted by Dylan Smaily Archila García, argues that the new legislation violates his fundamental human rights and claims there were procedural irregularities during its approval process, according to local Guatemalan media.
Archila García filed the motion just hours after the law took effect. The new legislation, passed by Guatemala’s Congress, increases penalties for crimes linked to gang activity and authorizes the construction of a mega-prison, modeled after El Salvador’s Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT).
Local outlets reported that in his petition, Archila García contends that the approval of the law did not comply with constitutional requirements and requests that the Court issue a ruling to annul the legislation, effectively halting its enforcement.
The appeal further claims that the Anti-Gang Law infringes on due process rights, as it allegedly fails to guarantee a fair criminal trial in which defendants can prove their innocence, undermining legal certainty and judicial security.
Through this legal action, the petitioner seeks to have the law suspended and ultimately struck down by the Constitutional Court, preventing it from being debated again in Congress.
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