Monday Memo: U.S. Immigration – Petrobras Scandal – Francisco Flores – Private Equity – Chile’s September 11
This week’s likely top stories: Barack Obama delays executive action on immigration; a former Petrobras director names 40 politicians in scandal; former Salvadoran President Flores turns himself in; private equity fundraising in Latin America this year could reach $8 billion; Chileans remember September 11, 1973. Immigration reform stalled: U.S. President Barack Obama’s promise to use … Read more
These Are a Few of My Favorite [AP] Words
If there are two things that inspire me it’s a ramped up, over-the-top, scurrilous AP story about democracy promotion and a Broadway musical–especially a Rodgers and Hammerstein production. So, here is my adaptation of the classic Sound of Music, “My Favorite Things,” based on the recent series of articles published by AP on USAID’s democracy … Read more
Cuba and the Summits of the Americas
If the U.S. wants to keep the Summit of the Americas process on track and regain some measure of influence in the hemisphere, it will have to change its Cuba policy, pronto. Reframing our policy and saving the Summit process isn’t as tough as it seems; it just takes leadership. In coming months, the United … Read more
Guatemalan Armed Forces Chief Dies in Helicopter Crash
General Rudy Israel Ortiz Ruiz was one of five military officials involved in a helicopter crash Wednesday morning. After the Fuerza Aérea Guatemalteca (Guatemalan Air Force—FAG) helicopter Bell 206 took off from Huehuetenango for a routine fly-over inspection of units along the Mexican border, the pilot rerouted from landing in Ixquisis to Las Palmas due … Read more
Majority of Americans Support Sheltering Unaccompanied Minors
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday revealed that 51 percent of Americans oppose President Barack Obama’s plan to fast track deportations for unaccompanied Central American children apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border. The online poll had a sample size of 1,566 people. The poll showed a divide in public opinion over how long the children should be allowed … Read more
Dear AP, Sometimes a Democracy Program Is Just a Democracy Program—Even in Cuba
For the past several years, with almost predictable regularity, The Associated Press (AP) has been producing a series of articles supposedly revealing the secret, unaccountable cloak-and-dagger misdeeds of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in its Cuba program. For all the implied sinister intentions, bureaucratic overreach and shades of John le Carré-like intrigue, though, … Read more
Beyond the Blame Game: Visualizing the Complexity of the Border Crisis
Much has been written and discussed in the last month about the causes of the migration of thousands of undocumented minors and women with young children from Central America’s Northern Triangle region (Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras) to the United States.[1] The debate has ranged from analyzing the so-called “pull factors” in the U.S. to … Read more
Monday Memo: USAID and Cuba – Mexican Energy – U.S. Immigration – Argentine peso – Bridge in Colombia
This week’s top stories: USAID is accused of running a secret program in Cuba; Mexican energy reform passes in the lower house; U.S. Republicans pass immigration bills before recess; the value of the Argentine peso drops over debt woes; a bridge in Montería, Colombia collapses. USAID and Cuba: In a statement this morning, the United … Read more
Arts Innovator: X Alfonso
The hippest place to be in Havana is an old olive oil factory once known as El Cocinero. Reincarnated this February as the Fábrica de Arte Cubano (Cuban Art Factory—FAC), it is the brainchild of Cuban rocker, rapper and filmmaker Equis Alfonso (“X”) and is already taking the Cuban arts scene by storm. Part Miami … Read more
Hard Talk
Will warming Cuba-EU ties open up U.S.-Cuba relations? Yes: Sarah Stephens; No: Joel Brito
The EU has recognized that its Common Position has failed to improve human rights in Cuba. It’s time for the U.S. to do the same with its embargo.
When Louis Michel, then-development commissioner for the European Union (EU), met in 2009 with Bruno Rodríguez, Cuba’s foreign minister, he worried openly about the slow pace of EU diplomacy. “I think that if the European Union does not consolidate the normalization of relations with Cuba,” Michel said, “the Americans will do so before us.”1 He … Read more
The EU is engaged in a discussion that will yield no change in human rights conditions on the island. The U.S. would be wise not to follow the EU’s lead.
In March, the European Union (EU) and the Cuban government announced a renewal of bilateral talks on trade and investment. Lured by Cuba’s proposed social and economic reforms, including a new foreign investment law, the expansion of self-employment, and loosened travel restrictions, the EU agreed to return to the negotiating table for the first time … Read more
Protest U.
Millions of students have taken to the streets across Latin America in recent years in protests that reflect an unprecedentedly broad mobilization of popular opinion. Following massive demonstrations led by secondary school students in 2006 in Chile, university students launched a series of protests in May 2011. Powered by a coalition of public and private … Read more
The Future of Latin American Studies
The field of Latin American studies has been a target for critics ever since it became a prominent feature of the U.S. academic landscape in the 1960s. Earlier critiques were quite severe, often permeated by the premise that studying Latin America from the North (and even the very concept of “Latin America” as an object … Read more
Latin America at the Winter Olympics
Latin American and Caribbean countries may not be as well-known for their winter sports as Canada, Russia or the United States, but the region does have a storied tradition at the Winter Olympic Games. Argentina, the first Latin American country to participate, sent a five-man bobsled team to the second-ever Winter Games in 1928. Chile … Read more
