From Decoupling to Deleveraging and Divergence
The global financial crisis has caused a dramatic disruption in Latin American capital markets. While asset values in mature markets had been diminishing for well over a year prior to the fall 2008 meltdown, the crisis hit Latin American markets abruptly. In a matter of months, major regional stock indices lost nearly half their value, … Read more
Are We There Yet?
It is now clear that the advanced economies are facing a severe recession in 2009, with an output contraction of 2 percent according to the IMF’s latest projections. The volume of global trade in goods and services is expected to contract by almost 3 percent in 2009, and non-fuel commodity prices will likely decline by … Read more
Untapped
Since the days of Richard Nixon, U.S. presidents have called for energy independence — even as their country’s appetite for foreign sources of oil has continued to grow. Today the U.S. consumes almost a quarter of global oil supplies, with little sign of a cutback in consumption, which will likely consign President Barack Obama’s $150 … Read more
Markets, States and Neighbors
Where will Latin America be 25 years from now? Most commentators, probably with good reason, prefer to focus on muchshortertimeframes. But extending the time horizon allows us to see larger trendsshaping the region beyond the volatile cycles of changes in government. From my perspective, the trends look troublesome. Let’s start with economics. By 2034, Latin … Read more
[i]Leftovers: Tales of the Latin American Left [/i]
Over the past two decades, Latin America has experienced a dramatic political makeover. In January 1990, just three years before Jorge G. Castañeda published his classic analysis of the post–Cold War Left, Utopia Unarmed, only two Latin American countries had leftist governments: Cuba and Nicaragua. In neither case did the head of state come to … Read more
[i]7 años secuestrado por las FARC[/i]
Luis Eladio Pérez, a local politician and former senator in the state of Nariño in southern Colombia, was kidnapped in June 2001. When it happened, the media covered it just like one of the many daily kidnappings. That year, an average of over nine Colombians were kidnapped every day, according to País Libre, a Colombian … Read more
The Pinochet Era: [i]The Pinochet Regime[/i] by Carlos Hunees, [i]The Dictator’s Shadow: Life Under Augusto Pinochet[/i] by Heraldo Muñoz, [i] The Judge & the General[/i] Produced and directed by Elizabeth Farnsworth and Patricio Lanfranco
General Augusto Pinochet, who died in December 2006 at the age of 91, continues to stir controversy. The man and his era have been the subject of countless books and articles, and the human rights violations during his 17-year-rule as Chile’s president have received worldwide condemnation. But readers will welcome two recent books that provide the first in-depth accounts available in English of Pinochet’s long sojourn in public life.
Sur Solidarity: Bolivarian Dreams of Integration Confront Economic Reality
Sudden and sharp shifts in commodities and financial markets in the last few months are realigning geopolitics worldwide. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, whose ambitions are greased by oil wealth, is taking an especially hard hit. An early casualty of the global economic slide could be the regional alliances promoted by Chávez to challenge what he … Read more
Abortion: Women’s Rights
Abortion in Latin America presents an awkward paradox. The rate of abortion is the world’s highest —31 for every 1,000 women aged 15 to 45 years, according to a 2007 World Health Organization (WHO) report. Yet abortion is illegal in most countries in Latin America. Even in cases where it is permitted, legal restrictions far outstrip those of any other region.
Dispatches: Observing the U.S. Elections
It is difficult to find an American over 50 who does not remember what he or she was doing the day John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Those moments are as vivid as photographs. For a new generation of Americans (not to mention millions of people worldwide), Barack Obama’s election and … Read more
Arts Innovator: Tonolec, Argentina
Often associated with melancholy tangos and chart-topping rock en español, Argentina’s music scene is taking a techno/traditional turn with the band Tonolec (www.tonolec.com.ar). The Buenos Aires-based duo, Charo Bogarín and Diego Pérez, have introduced indigenous musical traditions from their native Resistencia (in Argentina’s northeastern Chaco province) to the mainstream.
Civic Innovator: [i]Bibliotecas Independientes[/i], Cuba
Thre are no banned books in Cuba; there just isn’t any money to buy them,” Fidel Castro famously said at the 1998 International Book Fair in Havana. Later that year, Ramón Colás, a psychologist and journalist, and his then-wife, economist Berta Mexidor, took up Castro’s challenge. They opened their home library to the public, thereby … Read more
POLITICAL INNOVATOR: Claudio Orrego, Chile
Affluence isn’t a prerequisite for being at the cutting-edge of connectivity. The proof is Peñalolén, a working-class municipality on the outskirts of Santiago, which was named this year as one of the most-connected municipalities in Chile by the Universidad Adolfo Ibañez, and declared the most digital medium-sized city in Latin America by the Ibero-American Association of Research Centers and Telecommunication Enterprises in Madrid.
The reason for Peñalolén’s stature is not hard to find: smart political leadership.
BUSINESS INNOVATOR: Juan Hinestroza, Colombia
Imagine a shirt that can change colors with the wave of a magnet or a jacket that can protect you from disease. Thanks to Colombian-born engineer Juan Hinestroza, these products may soon be available at your local store.
Policy Wonk Corner: The New Europeans
Latin Americans are migrating to Europe in increasingly larger numbers. As a result, immigration has come to loom large on the European public policy agenda—much as it has in the United States. Experts have warned that, as the numbers continue to grow, European government policies are likely to get less “immigrant-friendly.” At a December 2008 … Read more
