AQ Top 5 Politicians Under 40: Verónika Mendoza
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The former presidential candidate stoking hopes that a modern, more electable left may be taking root in Peru.
Peru
Include the Indigenous in Climate Change Talks
Leer en español In the new issue of Americas Quarterly, we asked people, “What would you tell the next U.S. president about Latin America?” To see other authors’ responses, click here. Dear Mister / Madam President, Indigenous communities have contributed the least to climate change, but they have suffered the most from its consequences. Extreme … Read more
Incluya a los indígenas en las discusiones sobre cambio climático
Leer en inglés Estimado(a) Sr(a) Presidente(a): Los pueblos indígenas somos los que menos hemos contribuido al cambio climático pero los que más sufrimos sus consecuencias. Las catástrofes climáticas han puesto en riesgo nuestras fuentes de alimentación y medios de vida tradicionales. Pero nuestros problemas palidecen ante la crisis global de mayores proporciones que no sólo … Read more
This Week in Latin America: Brazil’s New Speaker
Sign up here to get This Week in Latin America delivered to your inbox every Monday. Brazil’s New Speaker: Brazil’s lower house will elect a new speaker on Wednesday, following the tearful resignation of Eduardo Cunha on July 7 amid an ethics investigation. Accused of taking up to $40 million in bribes and lying about an offshore bank account linked to the vast … Read more
This Week in Latin America: Polls Close in Peru
Sign up here to get This Week in Latin America delivered to your inbox every Monday. Peru Votes: With over 90 percent of votes counted as of publication, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski holds a slim lead in Peru’s run-off presidential election thanks to a late surge against his rival Keiko Fujimori. The 77-year-old Kuczynski, who would be the country’s oldest president at the time of taking office, positioned … Read more
AQ Top 5 de Chefs Jóvenes: Israel Laura
Read in English A los 22 años Israel Laura estaba trabajando en una fábrica de cables eléctricos situada en las afueras de Barcelona, ciudad a la que había emigrado desde Perú siendo adolescente. Ante la poco inspiradora perspectiva de una vida de trabajo en una fábrica, y cansado de saltar de un empleo a otro, … Read more
Peru Election: The Unlikely Political Endurance of the Fujimoris
Hillary Clinton is not the only former first lady running for president in the Americas. Keiko Fujimori, who served as first lady of Peru in the 1990s during the presidency of her divorced father, is the leading candidate heading into the South American nation’s election April 10. And as might be expected, the Fujimori family’s … Read more
AQ Top 5 Young Chefs: Israel Laura
Leer en español See the rest of the AQ Top 5 At age 22, Israel Laura was working in an electric cable factory outside of Barcelona, where he had emigrated from Peru as a teenager. Faced with the uninspiring prospect of a life of factory work, and tired of bouncing from job to job, Laura … Read more
Peru Election Is ‘Scandalous,’ Says Barred Presidential Candidate
Julio Guzmán is running out of options. Barred from running for president in Peru’s April 10 elections on a technicality, Guzmán late on March 13 lost what appears to be a final legal appeal for his candidacy to be reinstated. A center-right technocrat who worked at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington for 10 years, … Read more
Peru’s LGBT Community Frustrated By Violence, Presidential Election
With less than six weeks to go before Peru’s presidential election, gay rights activists are fighting to put LGBT inclusion on the national agenda and find a candidate to rally behind. It isn’t easy, says Carlos Polo in Lima. Over Valentine’s Day weekend, Polo was beaten by police while kissing his boyfriend during a small … Read more
AQ Corruption Busters Celebrate Successes, Urge Even Greater Progress
To watch a video of the event, click here. “He stole, but just a bit.” “Corruption is just something we live with.” Declarations such as these were once a common refrain in Latin America. But from Brazil to Guatemala, a historic crackdown on corruption is making the old tropes obsolete. Leading this dramatic shift is … Read more
AQ Top 5 Corruption Busters: José Ugaz
This article is adapted from our 1st print issue of 2016. For an overview of our Top 5 Corruption Busters, click here. José Ugaz was just a few years out of law school in his native Peru when a client came to him with an unusual request: A judge was demanding $1,000 to settle a … Read more
Former UN Climate Talks President Says Latin America Has Much to Gain at Paris Conference
On the opening day of international climate change talks in Paris this week, Manuel Pulgar Vidal, Peru’s environment minister, officially handed over the presidency of the United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) to French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. AQ sat down with the minister to talk about Latin America’s role in climate negotiations in Paris … Read more
Indigenous Residents of Lima’s Cantagallo Shantytown Confront an Uncertain Future
The pueblo joven, or shantytown, of Cantagallo sits atop a former landfill in Lima, wedged between a freeway and the Rímac River. Founded in 2000 by roughly 15 indigenous Shipibo families who were part of a mass exodus of Amazonian immigrants pushed out of their communities by logging, illegal mining and infrastructure development in the … Read more
Why Consulta Previa Is Among the Most Divisive Issues in Peru
In 2011, shortly after he took office, Peru’s President Ollanta Humala signed a law guaranteeing the right to prior consultation for indigenous communities that could be affected by development projects on or near their land. The legislation, known as consulta previa in Spanish and based on the International Labor Organization’s Convention 169, was enacted in … Read more
