Blog entries

Hundreds of Bolivian miners are continuing to block road access to La Paz in an escalating standoff between miners and the Bolivian government over access to the Colquiri tin and zinc mine. The Bolivian government expropriated the Colquiri mine from the Swiss company Glencore in June, leading to a dispute over which Bolivian mining groups … Read more

Unlike in other Canadian provinces, a Québec election can have repercussions on the functioning and future of the Canadian federation. Since 1970, the separatist Parti Québécois (PQ) has been a significant force in Québec politics. It has formed governments on two occasions: 1976-1985 and 1994-2003. Last week, on September 4, PQ won a minority government … Read more

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay asked the Venezuelan government on Tuesday to reconsider its decision to withdraw from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Venezuela’s pronouncement will challenge resolutions recently passed by the United Nations Human Rights Council to improve dialogue and cooperation among regional human rights organizations. Hugo Chavez … Read more

In what is perhaps a dream come true for political science researchers, Honduras has agreed to let investors build three private cities inside its territory. In about six months the investors—business consortium NKG and the South Korean government—will supposedly begin to construct the first of three private city-states complete with their own police, government, legal … Read more

Cuba’s power grid gradually came back online yesterday morning after a massive blackout left 5 million Cubans without electricity on Sunday evening. The outage affected Havana and much of the western half of the island and was caused by an “interruption in a transmission line” near Ciego de Avila, 250 miles west of the capital, … Read more

Top stories this week are likely to include: a political fracture among the Mexican Left; one month before the Venezuelan election; impact of U.S. suspension of intelligence sharing with Honduras; and the tenuous El Salvador gang truce.  A Split among Mexico’s Progressives: Presidential runner-up Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) departure from the Partido de la … Read more

In Canada, the Conservative party has had a majority government since May 2011, yet it never talks about dismantling the nation’s social safety net.  Both the opposition parties, the New Democratic Party (NDP) and the Liberals, have led governments in our federation—in the case of the NDP at the provincial level, and Liberals at both … Read more

The Peruvian government announced Thursday that it will meet with Indigenous communities early next year to discuss Peru’s natural resource extraction projects. The meetings, scheduled between February and March 2013, mark the first time the Peruvian government will consult with indigenous communities about controversial projects like Lot 1AB in the northeastern Amazonian region of Loreto. … Read more

Lo impensable hace un mes, se estaba cocinando en secreto hace por lo menos un año: unas conversaciones exploratorias entre el gobierno y las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) para la consecución de la paz en Colombia. La alocución este martes del presidente Juan Manuel Santos confirmó en modo, tiempo y lugar las noticias … Read more

Earlier this week, Ecuador’s Secretaría Técnica de Cooperación Internacional (Technical Secretariat for International Cooperation—SETECI) revoked operations permits for 26 foreign NGOs in the country, effective immediately. SETECI announced the changes in a bulletin, which also mandated that 16 other NGOs subscribe to new operating agreements within 15 days. According to a spokesperson for SETECI, “those … Read more

After accepting the government’s offer of a 15.8-percent pay raise over three years, some 400,000 public-sector employees ended their month-long strike and returned to work on Monday.  While the workers may have gotten what they wanted, popular patience with public sector workers and unions may be wearing thin. The strikes started in May with university … Read more

During a televised speech on Tuesday afternoon, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced that peace talks between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, will take place in October. Santos, who has been holding exploratory talks with the FARC since February, said that the talks will take place in Oslo, … Read more

It is now official: Enrique Peña Nieto of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party—PRI) is president-elect of Mexico. The nation’s highest electoral court, the Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación (Electoral Tribunal of the Federative Judicial Power—TEPJF) declared July’s presidential contest valid, after runner-up Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) questioned the credibility … Read more

The Chilean Movement for Sexual Minorities (Movimiento de Integración y Liberación Homosexual—Movilh) filed a lawsuit against the Chilean State to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) on Monday. The action followed the Supreme Court’s rejection of a protection claim presented by three gay couples that were denied the possibility to get married. The Chilean … Read more