Category: Latin America/Caribbean

Petrofraude: the scam that emptied Venezuela’s tables

     

Venezuela has more oil than Saudi Arabia and more poverty than Colombia. Once one of Latin America’s richest countries, it’s now plagued with shortages of everything from toilet paper to antibiotics and food, The… Read more »

Bolivia’s populist lessons for the West

     

Bolivia’s Evo Morales, a former leader of a coca-growers’ union, has won three elections fairly and by large margins. He hopes to win a fourth in October. But his attempts… Read more »

Cuban doctor program condemned as ‘human trafficking’

     

The Cuban program that exports doctors around the world qualifies as human trafficking according to a resolution introduced in the U.S. Senate on Thursday, Reuters reports: The resolution specifically mentions… Read more »

Nicaragua: Pope seeks dialog, regime commits ‘crimes against humanity’ 

     

Pope Francis today expressed the hope that a process of reconciliation could help resolve Nicaragua’s crisis. “The various political and social groups may find in dialogue the royal road to… Read more »

Guatemala: new attack on anti-corruption body

     

The decision by the government of President Jimmy Morales to expel investigators with the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala is a major blow to efforts to bring corrupt officials… Read more »

Venezuela no longer a model nation

     

Venezuela was once a model nation, prosperous, advanced, democratic. Did Antonio Ledezma ever imagine that it could slide into tyranny and poverty — not just poverty but starvation itself? “No,… Read more »

Democracy being replaced by crypto ‘alternocracy’?

     

Trust, Facts, Democracy from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project   Will the Alternocracy will emerge as the tech-inspired alternative to democracy and nation states? A collapsing petro-dictatorship… Read more »

Reform and renewal: democracy staging a comeback?

     

By almost any measure, 2018 has been a disastrous year for democracy, notes analyst Frida Ghitis. Authoritarian leaders have made decisive moves to tighten their grip on power by eroding practices indispensable… Read more »

Nicaragua: government crackdown targets civil society

     

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet is urging the government of Nicaragua to stop intimidation and harassment against civil society and the media, according to reports. The High Commissioner’s request… Read more »

How authoritarians are ‘dismantling democracy from the inside’

     

Authoritarian learning facilitates the ‘dismantling of democracy from the inside’, The Washington Post’s Amanda Erickson writes. It used to be that autocrats came to power through coups or by enacting states… Read more »