Colombia, a place perceived by some as a once-violent country that’s moving past decades of armed conflict with a fresh peace accord, is seeing other barbaric forms of human rights violations emerge. Multiple victims of these acid attacks see them as a show of power that men in hypermacho societies feel they possess over women. There are approximately 100 attacks each year in Colombia, according to U.K.-based Acid Survivors Trust International, putting the country second behind Pakistan, with at least 160 attacks. But considering that the South American country has only 48 million residents compared with Pakistan’s 199 million, Colombia’s per capita rate of attack is twice that of Pakistan’s.
Mendez is one of a growing number of women who are diving into wine schools and going on to run the wine programs at top restaurants around Argentina. Women and wine no longer mean sex and glamour in Argentina like those 20th-century champagne ads once suggested. Instead, women are helping inject the sommelier profession with smarts, competitiveness and an open-mindedness toward promoting new varieties and styles — out in the vineyards as well as in the cellar.
With a following of some 202,000 subscribers, the show takes on everyone and everything — from gay rights to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to why people kill each other so often in Latin America. If someone in politics pisses off Baena and her team — say, a member of congress flip-flops on health care — you can count on her to pop up on social media with a 4–5 minute YouTube video tearing that person apart. No one gets spared.