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All Venezuelans Are Under House Arrest. Now They Should Be Freed, Too.
The Venezuelan government needs to be celebrated for releasing Leopoldo López from prison to house arrest. But it should also be condemned if that’s all it does. Democracies just don’t place leaders of opposition parties in jail, and the whole case against the 46-year-old opposition leader was baseless to begin with. As such, over the … Read more
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Mid-Terms, Graduation, Fighting a Dictator: Venezuelan Students’ Shifting Priorities
CARACAS – Students at Caracas’ Simón Bolivar University (USB) haven’t had an exam in three months. Professors at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) stopped taking attendance. At the Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB), protests and road closures count as excused absences. As a large portion of the 3,500 people detained by security services in recent … Read more
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Brazil’s Rollbacks Jeopardize the Amazon’s Future
Brazilian President Michel Temer’s June 26 indictment on corruption allegations marked a new peak in the country’s political crisis. While the charges grabbed global headlines, they also overshadowed the environmental crisis unfolding in the Brazilian Amazon, where vast tracts of protected forests and indigenous territories are under growing threat. Brazilian forests are being felled … Read more
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Pardinas: Mexico Needs an International Commission to Explore Espionage Claims
Mexico is experiencing a dramatic crisis in leadership and should call an international commission to investigate reports that spyware bought by federal agencies to uncover criminal activity was instead turned on critics like lawyers, journalists and anti-corruption activists, said Juan E. Pardinas, one of Mexico’s leading transparency advocates and one of the espionage targets. Pardinas … Read more
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If NAFTA Ends, Ford’s Move to China Will Be Just the Start
Ford announced this week that instead of building its new Focus – the best-selling car in the world – in a new $1.6 billion dollar Mexico-based plant, it will ship cars for North American customers from China. Ford has promised that its decision won’t reduce its workforce. Yet even if that is true, American workers … Read more
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AQ VIDEO: A Mexico Border Tour With Alfredo Corchado
“This is the Ellis Island of the Southwest,” says author and journalist Alfredo Corchado. He knows from experience. Born in Mexico, Corchado’s family moved to El Paso when he was a boy, and he was a waiter in their restaurant just two blocks from the border itself. In this short video, Corchado shows AQ Editor-in-Chief Brian Winter how … Read more
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Maduro Justice: Secret Evidence and Military Courts for Venezuela’s Protesters
On May 15, Carlos Ramírez, a student activist in Mérida, Venezuela, was picked up by police at an anti-government protest. Forty-eight hours later, he’d been flown to a military base 300 kilometers away, accused of treason, given only one phone call – and 30 minutes to find an attorney before his first hearing. “It’s very … Read more
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Let’s Stop Vigilante Attacks in Brazil
The images, spread over social media, were shocking: Two men caught a teenager whom they suspected of trying to steal a bicycle. As punishment, they tattooed the phrase “I am a thief and a moron” on his forehead. The act was recorded with the tattoo artist’s cell phone camera, and went viral. This happened in … Read more
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How a New Program Is Cutting the ‘Brazil Cost’ for Entrepreneurs
Marcelo Sasso worked in the finance department of a São Paulo advertising firm, and was good at his job. So good, in fact, that friends and acquaintances often came to him for advice. This raised a question: Why not start his own financial administration and consulting company? For starters, the risks were daunting. The country … Read more
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The Trouble in Naming Latin America’s Most Violent City
Another year, another ranking of the world’s most murderous cities. The latest study released by the Mexican think tank Seguridad, Justicia y Paz (SJP) suggests that Caracas took the top spot in 2016. Earlier this year, the Igarapé Institute and The Economist released a table tipping San Salvador as number one. So which is it? Both, or neither – depends … Read more
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Peru’s Opposition Plays Hardball
This article has been updated. Correction appended below. Twelve months ago, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski pulled off a major upset when he beat Keiko Fujimori, daughter of the jailed hard-right strongman Alberto Fujimori, in Peru’s presidential runoff. The septuagenarian centrist economist squeaked in by just 41,000 votes — out of a total of more than 17 … Read more
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Invasive New U.S. Visa Rules Hurt Americans Too
When the Zika virus arrived in Florida in 2016 after wreaking havoc in Latin America, Governor Rick Scott gave state universities $25 million to research how to combat the virus’ transmission, how to develop a potential vaccine, and how to treat those infected. Teams of scientists – Americans, Brazilians, Venezuelans, Colombians and Haitians – worked … Read more
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Debt Crisis Gives Urgency to Puerto Rico’s Coming Statehood Vote
As Puerto Ricans in New York gather this weekend for an annual parade riven by debate over its Board of Directors’ decision to honor nationalist Oscar López Rivera, Puerto Ricans on the island will be discussing, and voting on, another hot topic: the island’s complicated relationship to the United States. Voters in Sunday’s plebiscite will … Read more
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A Kirchner Comeback in Argentina?
If you thought Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was finished with national politics, think again. Less than two years after relinquishing Argentina’s presidency, the 64-year-old Fernández has been meeting with foreign dignitaries, giving primetime interviews, even tweeting out campaign-style videos – in other words, behaving like a candidate for Congress in October’s midterm elections in all but … Read more
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Venezuela: No Solution Without Beijing
For years, governments across the hemisphere have failed to halt Venezuela’s slow descent into strife-riven autocracy. This is partly because their discussions have overlooked an important element: Beijing’s key role as President Nicolás Maduro’s largest and most stalwart financial supporter. China as a political actor can no longer be left out of the search for solutions to … Read more
