Matt Kennard on August 9, 2010 0 Comments
Chavez, Morales and Correa must speak out on Iran
Editor's Pick, Politics
Latin America’s drug policies have damaged its people
The Washington Office on Latin America — July 15, 2010 1 Comment
Drug policies in Latin America have made no dent in the drug trade and instead have resulted in severe collateral damage to societies. Across the region, drug laws have led to overwhelmed criminal justice systems, overcrowded prisons with petty offenders, and long prison sentences that are disproportionate to the crimes committed
Social Policy
The fight to preserve Latin America’s democratic revolution
Matt Kennard — June 28, 2010 0 Comments
For Prof Anderson the template of Spain after Franco’s destruction of civil society “has become the general formula of freedom: no longer making the world safe for democracy, but democracy safe for this world.” Through a confluence of historical factors, Latin America is the crucible where the last chance to make a world safe for democracy is being fought. The importance of this battle shouldn’t be underestimated: if it fails, we might not get another chance
Editor's Pick, Politics
Andrew Roberts, right-wing historian, on neoconservatism and the English-speaking peoples
Matt Kennard — June 7, 2010 0 Comments
I don’t think democracy can be immediately transported to every country in the world because some countries are too feudal, theocratic, obscurantist or backward, frankly, to do anything other than immediately vote for a government which would be so antipathetical to the English-speaking peoples as to negate the whole process, frankly
Politics
Hondurans still mixed up about coup
Rose Gibson — June 1, 2010 0 Comments
When I arrived in Honduras I had no idea what I’d find, nearly one year after the coup which deposed president Manuel Zelaya, the country had undergone a transition first to military rule and then to the election of Porfirio Lobo (in elections orchestrated by the coup leaders).
Editor's Pick, Politics
Joseph Stiglitz on the left turn in Latin America and the privatization of Iraq
Matt Kennard — April 27, 2010 4 Comments
I think we live in a different world than we lived in the 1980s. In the 1980s the CIA could get away with change of regimes that it didn’t like in other countries. We are in a different world, and we are in a world in which that kind of strategy risks backfiring. And it happened in Venezuela: after the US attempted coup, Chavez’s electoral vote increased markedly, and I think it’s partly because countries don’t like the US coming in and changing their government from the outside. No matter where it is, in general it’s not welcome
Economics, Editor's Pick
Containing the “virus” of decency in the Obama era
Noam Chomsky — October 28, 2009 2 Comments
In thinking about international affairs, it is useful to keep in mind several principles of considerable generality and import. The first is the maxim of Thucydides: the strong do as they wish, and the weak suffer as they must. It has an important corollary: every powerful state relies on specialists in apologetics, whose task is to show that what the strong do is noble and just, and if the weak suffer it is their fault. In the contemporary West, these specialists are called “intellectuals,” and with only marginal exceptions, they fulfill their assigned task with skill and self-righteousness, however outlandish the claims, a practice that traces back to the origins of recorded history
Politics
John Pilger on Uribe and those US bases
John Pilger — September 22, 2009 0 Comments
What He Said: “This agreement with the United States is in force by the principle of sovereign equality. I want to state to you all: there is no Colombian resignation of sovereignty. This move does not imply any abdication of sovereignty at all.” Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, late August, in a meeting with Latin American [...]
What They Really Mean
Militarizing Latin America
Noam Chomsky — September 16, 2009 5 Comments
Establishing US military bases in Colombia is only one part of a much broader effort to restore Washington’s capacity for military intervention. There has been a sharp increase in US military aid and training of Latin American officers, focusing on light infantry tactics to combat “radical populism” – a concept that sends shivers up the spine in the Latin American context.
Editor's Pick, Politics
A Clandestine Service Is Never Safe: Women fight for abortion rights in Argentina
Ana Caistor-Arendar — February 19, 2009 6 Comments
The case of a girl in Argentina being raped and then refused the morning after pill has reignited the debate on abortion in this strongly Catholic country.
Editor's Pick, Religion
An interview: Joseph Stiglitz on Latin America and Iraq
Matt Kennard — November 18, 2008 0 Comments
In an exclusive interview, Matt Kennard talks to Columbia University Professor Joseph Stiglitz on Iraq, Latin America and free-market fundamentalism.
Economics
Latin America is finally breaking free of the global superpower
Matt Kennard — October 17, 2008 2 Comments
Latin America has been the U.S.’s ‘backyard’ for too long, and finally with a new generation of nationalist leaders it is finally breaking free of its subjugation.