Blog entries

From Americas Society/Council of the Americas. AS/COA Online’s news brief examines the major—as well as some of the overlooked—events and stories occurring across the Americas. Check back every Wednesday for the weekly roundup. Sign up to receive the Weekly Roundup via email. CFK Wins Argentine Election by Huge Margin As many predicted, Cristina Fernández de … Read more

Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court announced yesterday that it will investigate claims that Orlando Silva, Brazil’s sports minister, embezzled millions of dollars in public funds. The court has demanded that Silva and his ministry hand over relevant documents within 10 days. The allegations took form when the influential Brazilian magazine Veja published a report earlier this … Read more

Peter Smith’s classic text on U.S.-Latin American relations, Talons of the Eagle, posits a basic rule: the greater the perception of extra-hemispheric threat, the greater the attention to Latin America.  This is particularly true in the U.S. Congress, where the region’s diversification of relations beyond the Western Hemisphere tends to arouse suspicion and competitive pressure. … Read more

Colombian Foreign Affairs Minister María Angela Holguín and her Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolás Maduro, agreed on Monday to a three-month extension of bilateral trade preferences in the hope that a permanent agreement will be concluded by the end of January 2012. During a joint press conference in Bogotá’s Palacio de San Carlos, the officials said the … Read more

Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was re-elected on Sunday with 53.2 percent of the vote, a larger share of votes won than any president since the restoration of Argentina’s democracy in 1983. She will be the fifth Argentine president to govern the country for more than one term. Thousands of people flooded the streets … Read more

The closure of public universities during a nationwide strike against government reforms to Colombia’s higher education system is costing the country $5.6 million a day, Education Minister Maria Fernanda Campo said on Thursday. More than 550,000 public university students, led by  Colombia’s National Student Round Table (MANE), have joined the protests against the reforms proposed … Read more

Of the top universities in Latin America, five countries dominate the top 30 schools: Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia. Further, according to the recent survey by the University of Queensland in Australia, Peru’s Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Peru came in 34th place. What are these five countries doing right that other countries in Latin … Read more

More than 1,500 Indigenous Bolivian protesters arrived in La Paz on Wednesday after a 603-kilometer (375 mile), 66-day march demanding that President Evo Morales renegotiate the construction of a 305-kilometer (190-mile) road that is slated to traverse the Isiboro-Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS). Hundreds of supporters in the Plaza San Francisco received the … Read more

From Americas Society/Council of the Americas. AS/COA Online’s news brief examines the major—as well as some of the overlooked—events and stories occurring across the Americas. Check back every Wednesday for the weekly roundup. Sign up to receive the Weekly Roundup via email. Floods Hit Central America Rainfall of as much as 47 inches fell in … Read more

Although a Venezuelan Supreme Court ruling earlier this week barred him from holding elected office, Leopoldo López, a leading opposition candidate, pledged yesterday to continue his presidential campaign. The Supreme Court mandated that the verdict reached last month by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) was “unfeasible.” The IACHR verdict in question demanded that … Read more

Being a journalist in Mexico, especially one working in a volatile part of the country, is getting tougher by the day. Recent assassinations and kidnappings underscore this worrying trend, one of which was the disappearance of a 17-year-old journalist in Veracruz last month. Another was the murder of two communications professionals at the end of … Read more

Severe flooding has claimed the lives of more than 80 people and displaced thousands in the wake of some of the region’s heaviest rains since Hurricane Mitch ravaged Central America in 1998. After rainfall totals reached nearly 40 inches in 72 hours in the hardest-hit areas of El Salvador and Guatemala, officials in both countries … Read more

Bolivians appear to have delivered a sharp rebuke to President Evo Morales, according to unofficial, partial results from Sunday’s election to choose 56 top judicial officials. A preliminary count by the opinion polling firm Ipsos Apoyo found that 46 to 48 percent of voters had cast null votes, and an estimated 20 percent of Bolivians … Read more

On Wednesday, October 12, just in time for the October 13 State Visit of South Korean leader Lee, both the House of Representatives and the Senate passed the pending trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama.  The agreements were too long delayed, but the overwhelming margin of victory for all agreements in both chambers … Read more

Yesterday was a monumental moment for the future of reproductive rights in Colombia. Five years after Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruled in favor of abortion under three specific circumstances—rape, risk to the mother’s life or congenital malformation of the fetus—the fate of reproductive and sexual rights was on the cusp of change. This would have been … Read more