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Latin America Enrique Peña Nieto and Mexico’s Drug War Opening
Taylor Dibbert - 2/10/2013
On December 1, 2012, Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) assumed the Mexican presidency amid a flurry of protests against the party, whose previous 70-year rule defined the country’s authoritarian past. Yet it’s difficult to imagine that the new president’s term could be worse than the unmitigated disaster of his predecessor’s, which was marked by a dramatic militarization of Mexico’s drug war, widespread human rights abuses, and tens of thousands of deaths. Latin America's Shift on Drug Policy
Taylor Dibbert - 4/19/2012
More than two years ago, the former leaders of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico all (rightly) claimed that the “war on drugs” had been unsuccessful, endorsing a discussion of marijuana legalization. The current presidents of Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala (among others) have also called for a rethink on the current prohibition regime. In addition, Adam Siegel, of Eurasia Group, rightly points out that leaders like Guatemala’s Ottó Pérez are not deriding current drug policies because they are champions of individual liberty. Rather, Pérez and company want ... War of Words over Falklands
Dr. Sudhanshu Tripathi - 2/20/2012
An international crisis appears imminent as both Argentina and the United Kingdom have got themselves entangled into a war of words over the Falkland Islands pertaining to their respective claim of sovereignty for which they have already gone into a serious war in 1982. Amnesty and Guatemala’s Civil War
Taylor Dibbert - 1/3/2012
Guatemala’s civil war was, by far, Latin America’s bloodiest—leaving approximately 200,000 people dead. A United Nations-supported truth commission found that more than 90 percent of the human rights violations were committed by the military, including over 600 massacres in primarily indigenous villages. Democratic Speed Bumps in Latin America
Taylor Dibbert - 12/12/2011
After a decade of growing popularity, democracy has hit a slump in Latin America. A recent Latinobarómetro poll cited by The Economist in late October underscores this point. In all but three Latin American countries, fewer people than last year believe that democracy is preferable to any other type of government. In the cases of Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, the drop in support for democracy is significant. Haiti: It’s not Only America’s Duty to Help
Walid Phares, Ph.D. - 2/5/2010
For almost a week, news reports have shocked the world with images of tens of thousands of Haitians dead and injured by the devastating earthquake. More images show millions of Haitians roaming the streets of Port-au-Prince seeking medical attention and food. In search for justice in Guatemala
Luis Figueroa - 9/4/2009
Rafael Espada, Guatemala`s Vicepresident, sued Marta Yolanda Díaz-Durán, a respected journalist and intellectual. Known as el medico machete, the VP accused Marta Yolanda of slandering him on her oped titled El beso de Espada, which she published on Monday August 31st. 2008 on daily Siglo Veintiuno in which she is a regular oped writer. Haiti's Compounding Food and Health Crises
Rupa Chinai - 8/18/2008
Haiti today is a tragic case study of how developing nations can lose the sovereign right to ensure access to healthcare when they lose their right to local food self-sufficiency under globalization. Amazon Tribes Fight to Keep the Xingu Alive
Glenn Switkes - 7/6/2008
For five days in May, hundreds of tribal people from the far reaches of the Amazon Basin came together to protest plans for huge dams on the Xingu River, the largest tributary of the Amazon. The Limited Impact of Foreign Investment in the Americas
Prof. Kevin Gallagher and Prof. Andres Lopez - 6/18/2008
A comprehensive review of the impact of foreign investment liberalization in Latin America shows that, with some exceptions, foreign investment has fallen far short of stimulating broad-based economic growth and environmental protection in the region, according to a report by the Working Group on Development and Environment in the Americas. The report recommends that national and regional policies aimed at improving national firms' capabilities should be implemented and that "policy space" for such policies should be accommodated in bilateral, regional, and global trade and investment treaties. Limits of Economic Growth in Latin America
Eduardo Gudynas - 6/1/2008
It was back in the days of enormous computers. Massive machines that occupied several rooms calculated the surface area of the earth needed to feed the planet's population, and the area lost due to urbanization and other uses. The computers vibrated and spit out their results: in a matter of a few years, a situation of abundance could give way to one of food shortages due to supply that cannot satisfy the exponential growth in demand. Haitian Food Riots Unnerving But Not Surprising
Mark Schuller - 4/29/2008
Beginning early April, Haiti was gripped by a nation-wide mobilization to protest high food prices, reaching a crescendo on Thursday the 10th, as thousands of people took to the streets. Some protestors burned tires, blocking national highways and city streets in Port-au-Prince, and a few looted local stores. Clashes with police and UN troops resulted in an official count of five dead. Military Crisis in South America: The Results of Plan Colombia
Raúl Zibechi - 3/31/2008
The military operative executed by Colombian soldiers on Ecuadorian soil to kill the FARC commander Raul Reyes is part of the strategy of the United States to alter the military balance in the region. In the crosshairs is Venezuelan and Ecuadorian oil; however it also serves as a check on Brazil as an emerging regional power. Energy Integration and Security in Latin America and the Caribbean
Ariela Ruiz Caro - 3/31/2008
The integration of energy markets in Latin America has been discussed for more than three decades. An expression of it was the creation of the regional organizations ARPEL (Association of Petroleum Enterprises of Latin America), CIER (Regional Electrical Integration Commission), and OLADE (Latin American Energy Organization), during the decades of the 60s and 70s. These initiatives took place within the framework of important participation by the State in companies tied to the energy sector. Hunting Hugo Chavez
Conn Hallinan - 10/30/2006
There are times when the tensions between Venezuela and the Bush Administration seem closer to Commedia dell'arte than politics. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez compares President George W. Bush to the devil, right down to the smell of sulfur during a speech at the UN General Assembly. Homeland Security responds by strip-searching Nicolás Maduro Moros, Venezuela's foreign minister, at JFK airport. Venezuela seizes 176 pounds of frozen chicken on its way to the U.S. Embassy in Caracas. Landless Workers Movement: The Difficult Construction of a New World
Raúl Zibechi - 9/28/2006
“Breaking down the fences of the large estates was not as difficult as fighting the technological packages of the transnationals,” Huli recounts as he sits in his kitchen and pours hot water into the mate we share while his son romps around the house. He says the campesinos of Brazil's Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST, for the Portuguese initials) dreamed for years of reclaiming their land, believing that it would solve all their problems: food for their children, a dignified life of hard work on the farm, education, health, and housing. However, the reality would prove much more difficult, for surprises they had never imagined lay ahead. Chavez-China Oil Deal May Produce Unsuspected Winners
Trevor Houser - 9/9/2006
The Venezuelan president announced plans to increase oil exports to China tenfold over the next five years, with the expectation that China will invest in the nation's oil infrastructure, particularly in developing the reserves of the Orinoco Belt. The heavy tar-like reserves, which require special technology to extract, amount to about 20 percent of the global oil supply. But any agreement between China and Venezuela does not necessarily mean less oil for other countries, particularly the US, which has had a rocky relationship with the Chávez administration. China lacks the technological abil... South American Ministers Vow to Protect Access to Medicines
Martin Khor - 6/22/2006
Editor's Note: The following article by Martin Khor, director of the Third World Network, describes a recent declaration by ten South American countries to protect access to life-saving medicines from expanded patent barriers. The declaration represents an important move to establish a united position in the face of U.S. and other developed country pressures to provide extended patent exclusivity to transnational pharmaceutical companies. Unfortunately, the declaration must be taken with a grain of salt, since several of the countries that signed on—notably Peru and Colombia—have already acced... IIRSA: Integration Custom-Made for International Markets
Raúl Zibechi - 6/22/2006
The project for Integration of South American Regional Infrastructure (IIRSA, by its initials in Spanish), is swiftly but silently moving forward. IIRSA is the most ambitious and encompassing plan to integrate the region for international trade. If completed in full, the project would connect zones containing natural resources (natural gas, water, oil, biodiversity) with metropolitan areas, and both of these with the world's largest markets. Bolivia: Nationalization without Expropriation?
Raquel Gutierrez and Dunia Mokrani - 6/20/2006
On May 1, Evo Morales announced “Supreme Decree #28701” that establishes “the nationalization of Bolivian hydrocarbons.” The decree is worth analyzing in depth to understand how the Bolivian government is carrying out the measure. After Bolivia's Gas Nationalization—Toward a New Regional Map
Raúl Zibechi - 6/2/2006
In a single sweep of the pen, Bolivian President Evo Morales has rearranged the continent's entire geopolitical map. The May 1st decision to nationalize hydrocarbons placed South America's second largest gas reserves under state control. Oil and gas are powerful weapons, capable of reshaping South American alliances, as evidenced by the close relationship between Venezuela and Bolivia, the continent's largest reserve holders in both sectors who have taken the political initiative and displaced the primary regional powers. Andean Community: Requiem for a Dream
Ariela Ruiz Caro - 6/1/2006
The announcement of Venezuela's withdrawal from the Andean Community of Nations puts an end to the conflicted relationships that dominated among member countries since the beginning of free trade agreement negotiations in May 2004. In July of that year, at the XV Andean Presidential Summit in Quito, President Chávez warned his Andean neighbors that signing free trade agreements with the United States could put regional integration in jeopardy. Peru's Humala is Washington's next "Worst Nightmare"
Ronald Bruce St. John - 5/1/2006
Bolivian President Evo Morales, during his recent successful campaign, repeatedly described himself as Washington's “worst nightmare.” Ollanta Humala Tasso, the front-runner at the end of the first round of the Peruvian presidential race, could well be Washington's next “worst nightmare.” Sharing a political philosophy with Bolivia's Morales and Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, Humala promises to move Peru in a very different direction than that followed by outgoing President Alejandro Toledo Manrique. Made in Argentina: Slave Conditions for Bolivian Workers
Marie Trigona - 5/1/2006
Bolivian workers in Argentina are pressing the government to take action against slave-like conditions inside clandestine textile shops after a fire in a factory killed six people in Buenos Aires on March 30th. The government has initiated inspections of seamstress shops employing Bolivians and Paraguayans. Inspectors shut down at least 100 of these plants. Mexico: An Uprising Against the Inevitable
Laura Carlsen - 4/20/2006
“The inevitable' has a name today: fragmented globalization…the end of history, the omnipresence and omnipotence of money, the substitution of politics for police, the present as the only possible future, rationalization of social inequality, justification of super-exploitation of human beings and natural resources, racism, intolerance, war.”
- Subcomandante Marcos. Recuperated Enterprises in Argentina: Reversing the Logic of Capitalism
Marie Trigona - 3/20/2006
Argentina’s worker-run factories are setting an example for workers around the world that employees can run a business even better without a boss or owner. Some 180 recuperated enterprises up and running, providing jobs for more than 10,000 Argentine workers. The new phenomenon of employees taking over their workplace began in 2000 and heightened as Argentina faced its worst economic crisis ever in 2001. Nationwide, thousands of factories have closed and millions of jobs have been lost in recent years. Despite challenges, Argentina’s recuperated factory movement have created jobs, formed a broad network of mutual support among the worker-run workplaces and generated community projects. Peru's Lourdes Flores Challenging Neopopulist Trends
Ronald Bruce St. John - 3/15/2006
Lourdes Flores Nano, lawyer, centrist politician, and former legislator, looks set to become the next president of Peru. If her campaign stays on track, she will reverse the neopopulist trend in Latin America, most recently evidenced by the election of Evo Morales in Bolivia. She will also become the first woman elected president of Peru, just months after Michelle Bachelet made similar history in Chile. As with Bachelet in Chile, a Flores Nano victory will signal a major cultural change in Peru. Femicide On the Rise in Latin America
Kent Paterson - 3/10/2006
On the eve of International Women's Day 2006, a delegation of Latin American women made a historic journey to Washington, DC. Rather than celebrating the gains women have made through their many struggles, the group arrived at the headquarters of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States with an alarming message: femicide, the murder of women, is spreading. Another World is Possible: The Ceramics of Zanon
Raúl Zibechi - 1/26/2006
On some occasions, rare though they are, the slogan “Another world is possible,” becomes reality. The workers of a ceramics factory who took control of the company and have been functioning as a cooperative for four years now, demonstrate that even working for a large, high-tech business, it is possible to create another life. Will Marcos cost Mexico’s Left the presidency
Thomas Muirhead - 1/25/2006
The Zapatista rebel Subcomandante Marcos has shed his violent past and made a move towards formal political influence. His campaign to gather supporters to a far-left agenda could, however, split the country’s left-leaning voters and hand the presidential election to the right. Bolivia: Evo´s Challenges
Luis Figueroa - 1/24/2006
Evo Morales, the socialist, will assume as president of Bolivia. He was favored by the Bolivian voters, so the coca grower and leader of the Movement Towards Socialism (Movimiento al socialismo) has the opportunity to vindicate the above mentioned corrupt and pauperizing ideology. Chavez, Oil and American anxiety
Abid Mustafa - 1/17/2006
Once again tensions have surfaced between Hugo Chavez, the leader of Venezuela, and the Bush administration. Amid rumours of a planned US coup against the Venezuelan government, Chavez has again come out to publicly deride the US. On Jan.10, 2006, President Hugo Chavez said that the US administration is the principal threat for Venezuela today. He also noted that should a US invasion occur, "it would be crazy, they would certainly be defeated." Such bellicose statements have come to define the deteriorating relationship between the Chavez and the Bush administration. México and Mercosur: A Trojan Horse?
Laura Carlsen - 1/12/2006
Mexico's absence was noted in the most recent meeting of Mercosur. Neither President Vicente Fox nor Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Derbez, invited to represent the second-largest economy in the region, attended the event in Montevideo, citing previous commitments. For many observers, the real reason they left the duty to the Mexican Ambassador to Uruguay was to avoid the obligation to congratulate Venezuela and President Hugo Chavez on its induction as a member of Mercosur. Mexico and Venezuela mutually withdrew their ambassadors in November due to a difficult ‘conflict of ideas' resulting from the Fouth Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata. Evo Morales No Che Guevara
Ronald Bruce St. John - 1/12/2006
Evo Morales, president-elect of Bolivia, is often described in the Western media as a “leftist” if not a reincarnation of the legendary Ernesto “Che” Guevara. A mid-December article in The Independent saw Morales walking “in the footsteps of Che Guevara” while a more recent Los Angeles Times editorial was entitled, “Where ‘Che' Left Off.” Flaccid comparisons like these fuel the conservative hysteria generated by Morales' election, adding to the confusion as to the current political situation in Bolivia. Federations: States Punching Above Their Weight - Is South America Next?
Thomas Muirhead - 1/2/2006
The days of international relations being conducted on the basis of states are over - or have at least been dramatically modified. The world is moving towards a balance of regional federations. The dramatic difference in economic and political power wielded by a few larger states in comparison to the many smaller states is to be challenged by the creation of economic and political entities that can match the largest states. These federations will bring the world to a stage where there are fewer, more equal, political and economic entities. IMF and Guatemala: Do you see the Road?
Luis Figueroa - 12/25/2005
An old joke tells the story of the meeting of two Latin American presidents (but frankly they can be from almost any other continent). The meeting takes place at their countries' border and they begin a conversation. "What´s up?", asks the President of country A to his colleague of country B. - "Everything OK, man", answers President from country B. "How about commissions?", asks the first one. "Well enough. Do you see that road?", says President B. "Yes!", answers the president from county A. - "Well, you see", says President B, "20% in my bank account". "So you see that airport?" asks ag... Global Migration Coursing Through Mexico
Michael Flynn - 12/25/2005
President Bush’s “comprehensive strategy” on border security aimed at preventing “people from coming here in the first place,” announced last month, does nothing to address the growing phenomenon of global migration. What’s more, it leaves Mexico to clean up a mess it didn’t make. So What if Morales Wins in Bolivia
Ronald Bruce St. John - 12/16/2005
Evo Morales, indigenous candidate and bête noire of the Bush administration, looks set to become the next president of Bolivia. In polls released less than two weeks before elections scheduled for December 18, 2005, Morales leads with 36% of the vote, compared to 30% for former President Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga and only 12% for cement magnate Samuel Doria Medina. Once again misreading events in Bolivia, the White House is up in arms with the real prospect of a Morales victory. Two Opposing Views of Social Change in Bolivia
Raúl Zibechi - 12/16/2005
Bolivia's social movements divide roughly into two camps on the issue of how to effect structural reforms: those who advocate that the central government should play the leading role and those who insist that organized civil society must play that role. The Free Market Versus Regional Integration
Raúl Zibechi - 12/9/2005
The difficulties regional integration faces come from distortions caused by the free market—asymmetries, inequalities, and contradictions—that are virtually insurmountable. Natural Resources in the U.S.-Andean Free Trade Agreement
Ariela Ruiz Caro - 11/25/2005
The blueprint for integration of the Community of Andean Nations (CAN) follows the neoliberal accumulation model that took root in the 1990s. The result has been a significant reduction of the power of the State to regulate trade and define economic policies and a sharp turn toward export promotion. A small core of big businesses continues to gain control over market segments, while small- and medium-sized businesses struggle to participate in regional and international trade at all. And yet, it is this latter group that generates 70% of the employment in the Andean region. Timely Demise for Free Trade Area of the Americas
Laura Carlsen - 11/25/2005
The stage was set for a showdown. When the Bush cabinet announced intentions to revive the moribund Free Trade Area of the Americas at the Fourth Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, the countries of the Southern Common Market closed ranks to prevent it. What followed was a diplomatic melee that reflects not so much divisions within Latin America, as a growing resistance to the current free trade model throughout the developing world. El Alto: A World of Difference
Raúl Zibechi - 10/17/2005
Chaos in motion. Street vendors, traders, merchants and stallholders, scouts and agents grind out their insistent songs. Traffic churns along the black, sticky mud that overflows sidewalks and streets. Car horns mixed with Andean music--traditional sounds of the hoarse pututu as well as electrifying guitars--fuse with voices offering-selling-demanding-marketing. Hundreds of trucks prepare to dive into the hole that is La Paz, and a few others tackle the feat of returning up the interminable slope: this is La Ceja of El Alto--the political and commercial center of this Aymara city. A bacchanal ... Two Decades of Aftershocks from Mexico's 1985 Earthquake
Laura Carlsen - 10/17/2005
Twenty years ago, on September 19th 1985, an 8.0 earthquake struck Mexico City. Over 20,000 people died that day, or in the aftershock the following day. A nation mourned, surrounded by a devastation unimagined in the complacency of urban daily life. But as in the 2005 hurricane that hit New Orleans, the wreckage revealed that the fault lay not so much in the natural disaster as in disasters of the human variety. EXCLUSIVE: Interview with Brazilian Former Guerilla/Terrorist and Current Congressman Fernando Gabeira
Nelza Oliveira - 10/11/2005
Brazil is passing through one of the worst political crises in its history. The Workers' Party (PT) of President Luiz Inio Lula da Silva has been dogged by corruption scandals, accused of paying for the support of allied parties in the Brazilian Congress and using illegal and undeclared election funds. In this process, congressman Fernando Gabeira, 64, is gaining more and more support by defending ethics and the punishment of the politicians involved in the corruption scandal. Journalist and writer, former left-wing guerrilla, and founder of Brazilian Green Party, Fernando Gabeira was the firs... Chavez's Inspiration - Simon Bolivar
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 9/8/2005
Simon Bolivar (1783-1830) is a Latin American folk hero, revered for having been a revolutionary freedom fighter, a compassionate egalitarian and a successful politician. He is credited with the liberation from Spanish colonial yoke of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, a country named after him. Venezuela's new strongman, Hugo Chavez, renamed his country The Bolivarian republic of Venezuela to reflect the role of his "Bolivarian revolution". Peru's Shining Path Offers Failed Ideology
Kamala Sarup - 9/5/2005
"In 1989, the Maoist guerrillas hacked to death my uncle and his family whom they accused of helping counterinsurgency forces in Lima. They hacked them with knives and machetes before slitting their throats. That was one of the bloody violence by Maoists". Dr. Naritoma said. She stated "Maoist and Al Queda are no different. Shining Path and Maoists are criminals and murderers, so without eliminating them peace will not exist in this world. We Peruvians condemn them. We don't want to hear their name. Shining Path is a failed ideology in this world". What to Do About Hugo Chavez?
Tom Barry - 9/3/2005
As President Hugo Chavez adeptly leverages Venezuela’s oil wealth to forge an array of regional alliances that leave the United States out in the cold, U.S. – Venezuela tensions are heating up. Boosted by the rising prices of oil and the deepening regional anger over U.S. imperial arrogance, Chavez has proved able not only to construct a counter-hegemonic constituency in Venezuela among the country’s poor majority but also to piece together a regional network that is challenging U.S. political and economic dominance. Uncle Sam is becoming the odd man out in the hemisphere claimed as U.S. domain since the early 19 th century. Castro's Cuba - Interview with Author Humberto Fontova
Ryan Mauro - 8/15/2005
Humberto Fontova was born in Havana, Cuba in 1954, arrived with his family in New Orleans in 1961 while his father was held as a political prisoner. He is the author of "The Helldiver's Rodeo" (chosen by the Publisher's Weekly as their Book of the Week in August 2001), "The Hellpig Hunt", and "Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant." Mr. Fontova has a Master's Degree in Latin American Studies. Before becoming a writer, Fontova was a business analyst for ten years for Dun & Bradstreet. He is currently a columnist for Newsmax.com. Terrorism's Triple-Border Sanctuary: Islamist World Terror from Argentina, Brazil & Paraguay
Thomas Muirhead - 8/15/2005
Since the demise of two of the world's more supportive regimes, that of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, which finally drew to its inevitable close with his recent capture, Islamic terrorism's traditional sources of income and harbour are dissipating. Terrorism is being forced to adapt and adopt new channels of revenue and new havens within which to scheme. A recent example of this, which is rapidly attracting attention away from the long-established hotspots of Central Asia, the Sudan etc., is the infiltration of known terrorist cells into the region known as... South America’s New Militarism
Raúl Zibechi - 7/26/2005
South American societies are militarizing as a result of the regional superpower’s intervention, which is undoubtedly a crucial factor on the continent, but also as a consequence of the profound economic and political changes we have come to call neoliberalism. Bolivia’s Referendum: More Than Gas
Ronald Bruce St. John - 7/22/2005
President Carlos Mesa won a stunning political victory last month when Bolivian voters overwhelmingly approved a five-point referendum, endorsing his plans to develop Bolivia’s gas reserves. Surrounded by energy-hungry neighbors, Bolivia’s reserves are estimated at more than 50 trillion cubic feet, about as much as Kuwait and second only to Venezuela on the continent. They are valued at approximately $70 billion. Bolivians Struggle for Democracy
Nadia Martinez and Juan Montecino - 7/21/2005
The recent crisis that forced the resignation of Bolivia’s second president in less than two years stems from a much deeper problem that is plaguing the entire Latin American region: namely, what is best for the people and who decides? Bolivia Steps Back from the Abyss
Ronald Bruce St. John - 7/21/2005
Dispensing with three presidents in less than two years, Bolivia enjoys the dubious distinction of being the most politically unstable state in Latin America today. After popular protests in October 2003 forced President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada to flee the country, the ousted leader was replaced by then-Vice President Carlos Diego Mesa Gisbert. Initially enjoying an approval rating of over 70%, Mesa eventually agreed to step down in June 2005 in the face of street riots that he feared were leading the country to civil war. He was replaced by Supreme Court President Eduardo Rodríguez Veltzé, ... Jamaican OverDrive - Outsourcing and Offshoring Case Study
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 7/6/2005
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) tried and failed to find proof or traces of widespread outsourcing and offshoring. “There is little hard evidence of the extent of international outsourcing and offshoring, despite widespread media attention.” - its baffled analysts conclude in a June 2005 report. Latino & Hispanic? It’s Time to Rethink these Terms!
Michael Grande - 7/5/2005
The words Latino and Hispanic have been so carelessly thrown around, used to label individuals, taken advantage of by some of the popular media (ie: Latin Grammy’s, AOL Latino, and the Hispanic Heritage Awards), and even used by some unknowing people as a tool to define their heritage. Yet do we really know what these words mean? Fair Trade Business Model in Haiti
Marcelle Strazer - 5/19/2005
The fair trade market offers small coffee farmers a chance to benefit from globalization through direct links to markets in wealthy countries. But these advantages do not come automatically with fair trade certification. Small-scale farmers, inexperienced in global trade and markets, rely on key partnerships with their fair trade buyers and other support agencies to lend critical organizational development assistance to the farmer cooperatives. Long term success of fair trade initiatives depends on these partnerships and whether or not there is a mutual commitment to transforming the fair trad... Are Fidel Castro's Days Numbered?
Angelique van Engelen - 4/25/2005
Cuban leader Fidel Castro is making attempts to drag his country out of the guagmire he has landed it in since rejecting adopting market economic principles when its sponsor, the Soviet Union, fell apart in 1991. Even though his way of doing it -telling the Cuban population to save on energy and work harder- is not likely to effect much change, perhaps his efforts evidence that the Cuban leader is losing hope of an impending end to the US trade embargo on his own terms. Developing Cuban Crisis
Frederick Stakelbeck, Jr. - 4/10/2005
Over forty years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, America once again finds itself in the crosshairs of a determined, Cuban-based adversary possessing the capability to inflict incalculable damage to U.S. democracy efforts and regional stability. That adversary is China. For two decades, Soviet defense, economic and intelligence assistance allowed Fidel Castro's Cuba to project its own brand of Stalinist totalitarianism throughout Latin America infesting countries such as; Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Chile. Castro's dream of leading a new Latin American empire ended abruptly in the ea... Hugo Chavez's Threat to U.S. Security and Regional Stability
Frederick Stakelbeck, Jr. - 2/20/2005
Although their actions have slipped largely under the radar screen due to America's continuing duties in the War on Terror and in Iraq, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his minions have initiated an aggressively anti-American campaign in recent months that poses a direct threat to the security of the United States. Latin America's Embrace of Red China
Luis Figueroa - 1/21/2005
It is not by chance that one of the most horrible dinosaurs is called Tyranosaurus. It is also not by chance that the two last dinosaurs and tyrants of communism, Hu Jintao and Fidel Castro embraced themselves in brotherly love 'to advance Socialism.' Hu noted on his visit to Cuba that "The Chinese government expects that Cuba continues with his socialist system", said the president of the People´s Republic; and added that "we hope that the Cuban people advances through the road of building socialism". [1] Bolivian Waves Of Resentment At Chile
Thomas Muirhead - 1/19/2005
A century's old friction between two South American neighbours has recently been awakened from dormancy by the repeated and prominent outbursts of an extraneous leader, Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's controversial president. Most recently he reiterated, loudly, his fanciful desire to swim in Bolivian seas. To most this will seem a rather surprising desire, being aware that Bolivia is quite clearly a landlocked country. There is no Bolivian shoreline for Chavez to bathe off. Herein lies the friction. Over a hundred years ago, Chile invaded Bolivia and began the bloody War of the Pacific. This ended a... Liberating Cuba from Communism
Ryan Mauro - 12/23/2004
For a half-century now, Fidel Castro has been in power in Cuba, just 90 miles away from Florida. Unfortunately, not only could this have been prevented, but the United States today has the resources to finally give the Cuban people the freedom they deserve, without a shot being fired. The mass opposition to Castro's dying regime makes it a unique opportunity and an obligation to free the Cuban people. Elimination of the Castro regime will also help win the War on Terror. The Latin American Bloc: The Ignored Danger to Freedom
Ryan Mauro - 12/15/2004
"Venezuela? Ecuador? Bolivia? Oh right, yes I know how horrible the condition is of Africa." Believe it or not, expecting an answer like that is well-advised when talking to the average American about Latin America. The countries of Mexico and Colombia are the only countries that come to the mind of the average American when hearing the term "Latin America". Maybe if you're lucky, the person you're exchanging with will know that Brazil is part of Latin America also!
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