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This article discusses the recent homicide of french filmmaker, Christian Poveda, who was killed by a gang/mara in El Salvador. Gang violence in El Salvador commits one of the highest homicide rates in Latin America. This article draws attention to the reasons why boys join gangs; which we can discuss in relation to men and violence in Latin America and the growing violence in El Salvador after its civil war.

Magnum photographer, Christopher Anderson's new book Capitolio explores a poignant visual insight into the degeneration of Caracas, which was once Latin America's most economically advanced cities and is now plagued with chaos and despair. Murders in Caracas have grown so dramatically that they have become accepted as ordinary, and thus looking at the homicide statistics has become mundane. His images of blood and trash serve to highlight their omnipresence in the daily lives of Venezuelans. He opens with action scenes, and then moves to rural areas where the seeds of the infrastructure where set, before submerging into the hysteria of President Chavez. The book's name derives from a metaphor of an old city-center government building that exports revolution while the city itself like the building deteriorates. Anderson traveled into the countries interior to depict the polluted Lake Maracaibo in order to exemplify the interdependence between the United States, the main consumer of Venezuela's oil, and President Chavez. Anderson photographs a sugar harvester in Barinas, the town where Chavez was born into poverty and now transformed into a laboratory for revolutionary projects. When asked about the future of Venezuela, Mr. Anderson said his book is not a source for answers, but an insight for strangers.