(public domain picture of Alfred Nobel) María Corina Machado is celebrated as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and symbol of resistance to Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian rule. Yet her closest international alliances lie not with centrist democrats, but with a hard transnational right stretching from Washington to Madrid, Rome and Jerusalem. Mimeta examines how this shapes the meaning of “freedom” in and beyond Venezuela.
As President Daniel Noboa attends the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, Ecuador’s cultural sector faces mounting pressure at home. From the cancellation of a political caricature exhibition in Quito to direct threats against an installation at the Bienal de Cuenca, artists are confronting censorship, intimidation and growing self-censorship. These cases unfold amid protest repression, media shutdowns and shrinking civic space.
