LATIN AMERICA

Photo Credit: Maria Alferez

Daniel Dávila knew he would become a devil at age 12.

He prepares his costume weeks ahead of Day of the Dead celebrations in San Agustín Etla, in southwest Mexico, where families take to the streets on Nov. 1 to remember how death can be as joyful as life.

Photo Credit: Arnulfo Franco

An indefinite moratorium on new mining activities passed a second vote in Panama's National Assembly Thursday. One article was removed, however, that would have revoked a controversial mining contract which had sparked nationwide protests over the past two weeks.

The bill had already passed a second debate on Wednesday while it still included an article revoking the government's contract with Minera Panama, a local subsidiary of Canadian mining company First Quantum.

Lawmakers reversed that decision Thursday, sending the bill back to a second debate and stripping the article specifically related to the Minera Panama contract.

Photo Credit: Mirja Vogel / Al Jazeera

Paola Cruz and her nephew, Nicolas Sanches Gallardo, made a deal when they were kids playing in the hills of Oaxaca, Mexico.

They agreed that, when one of them died, the other would seek out a mariachi band to play their favourite Mexican songs at the funeral.

But Nicolas warned Paola that if he died first and she didn’t honour the pact, he would travel back to the world of the living on Dia de los Muertos — Mexico’s Day of the Dead holiday — just to give her the scare of her life.

Photo Credit: AP

A magnitude 6.6 earthquake struck off the coast of northern Chile on Tuesday morning and was felt in several provinces of neighboring Argentina, but there were no immediate reports of damage and authorities said there was no tsunami risk.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake struck at 9:33 a.m. local time (12:33 p.m. GMT), and its epicenter was 42 kilometers (26 miles) southwest of Huasco, a city in Chile’s Atacama region. The quake had a depth of 35 kilometers (22 miles).

Photo Credit: Gustavo Garello

Former Argentine presidential candidate Patricia Bullrich, who placed third in Sunday’s election, endorsed right-wing populist Javier Milei on Wednesday for next month’s runoff, a move that could rupture the country’s main center-right opposition coalition.

Bullrich, a former security minister, received 24% of the vote, compared to 37% for Economy Minister Sergio Massa and 30% for Milei.

“In the case of Javier Milei, we have differences, and that’s why we competed. We don’t overlook them. However, we are faced with the dilemma of change or the continuation of a mafia-style governance for Argentina and putting an end to the shame of the present. We have the obligation not to remain neutral,” Bullrich told a news conference.