Geography Archives: Latin America

The Foreign Ministers of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, meeting in Caracas, Venezuela on 9 September 2011, recalling the Special Communiqué of the Political Council on 4 March 2011 and the Special Communiqué of the Ministerial Social Council on 19 March 2011, condemns the NATO intervention in Libya and its illegal […]

One month ago I argued in this space that Brazil should set a timetable for getting its troops out of Haiti, since there is no war in Haiti and no legitimate reason — nor legal justification — for the UN military force (MINUSTAH) to be there.  Now Brazil’s new Defense Minister, Celso Amorim — who […]

The election of Bolivia’s first indigenous president, on the back of a mass rebellion that overthrew successive governments, has stirred great interest in this small Andean nation.  Given that the Evo Morales government recently celebrated its 2000th day in power — a feat in its own right for a country that has had around 180 […]

It is becoming widely acknowledged that the leading ideas of some of the most prestigious late-20th-century economists (such as Alan Greenspan and Lawrence Summers in the American government) are outmoded and that a new paradigm of economics is needed.  Part I of this essay will focus on two issues which we think it has to […]

“Poor Europe, so far from Latin America, so close to the United States.” Victor Nieto is a cartoonist in Venezuela.  His cartoons frequently appear in Aporrea and Rebelión among other sites.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).  Cf. Moisis Litsis, “Latin American Lessons for the European Crisis: Interview with Michael A. Lebowitz” […]

Dear Guardian editors: We, the undersigned, ask why the Guardian has ignored one of Venezuela’s most serious human rights problems — the assassination of hundreds of peasant activists since 2001 by gunmen hired by wealthy land owners. On June 8, VenezuelaAnalysis.com reported a 10,000 person march on the National Assembly to demand justice for the […]

  Herman Rosenfeld is a member of the Canadian Socialist Project and the Greater Toronto Workers’ Assembly, a new initiative aiming to reinvigorate working class and radical politics in the city.  He spoke to Tom Denning about the methods and activities of GTWA and the challenges it faces. Who initiated the GTWA, and with what […]

  It is very difficult to explain American politics to those who are not Americans and/or have not lived here long enough.  Add to that the confusion over basic economic principles, and it becomes almost impossible to explain the debt-ceiling debate to rational people. As noted by James Galbraith, this is not a fiscal crisis, […]

U.S. diplomatic cables now released from Wikileaks make it clearer than ever before that foreign troops occupying Haiti for more than seven years have no legitimate reason to be there; that this a U.S. occupation, as much as in Iraq or Afghanistan; that it is part of a decades-long U.S. strategy to deny Haitians the […]

Javier Batiz, the great Mexican rock-and-roll guitarist, played and sang last week in a concert that embodied and gave voice to everything that is most wonderful about Tijuana and the U.S.-Mexico border region.  Batiz, who since he was thirteen has played in the bars and nightclubs of Tijuana, performed this time with the Baja California […]

The US government has been increasing aggressive actions against the Chavez administration in an attempt to isolate the major petroleum-producing nation and aid in ousting the Venezuelan President. During a hearing last Friday, June 24, in the Foreign Relations Committee of the House of Representatives regarding “Sanctionable Activities in Venezuela,” Democrats and Republicans requested the […]

  Default is not the dirty word that nobody wants to say.  Almost everybody now accepts that Greece will default.  Several people will prefer to use the euphemism of “re-profiling debts,” but we all know what it means.  The interesting thing is that at least some authors, like Martin Wolf in a recent Financial Times […]

Iran’s biggest economic problem is the growing production slump at its factories and workshops.  For both workers and the business elite, Iran’s domestic industrial troubles are far more pressing — and generating far more public anxiety — than international sanctions. The biggest danger for Iran in 2011 is the combination of higher unemployment and inflation […]

In January the government of the United States of America saw fit to seize $4.207 million in funds allocated to Cuba by the United Nations Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for the first quarter of 2011, Cuba has charged.  The UN Fund is a $22 billion a year program that works to […]

One less emphasised lesson from the global financial crisis was that developing countries that are successful in attracting foreign financial investors take a hit when such a crisis occurs because of a reverse flow of capital.  Foreign financial firms needing to cover losses or meet commitments at home withdraw their capital, generating a credit crunch […]

In just a few days, on June 5th, an election will take place that will have a significant influence on the Western Hemisphere.  At the moment it is too close to call.  Most of official Washington has been relatively quiet, but there is no doubt that the Obama Administration has a big stake in the […]

Former Honduran President Zelaya’s return home today has important implications for the Western Hemisphere that, we can predict, will be widely overlooked.  Zelaya was ousted from the presidency when he was kidnapped at gunpoint by the military on June 28, 2009.  Although no hard evidence has yet emerged that the U.S. government was directly involved […]

  Compañero Manuel Zelaya: we are back in the place where we last met.  Your return to Honduras is only the first step for which we took to the streets. In Honduras we still await justice and punishment for those responsible for the coup d’état and for the violations of human rights. All of Latin […]

In the long and impressive catalogue of Michal Kalecki’s contributions to economics, the proportion of writings devoted to what is now called “development economics” is relatively small.  And most of his work in this area is concise to the point of being terse, in short articles that simply state some crucial principles, typically without much […]

On the morning of Friday, May 6th, President Mauricio Funes of El Salvador’s left-wing FMLN party arrived at the La Maroma agricultural cooperative in the department of Usulután for a potentially historic meeting with hundreds of small family farmers.  Usulután has often been referred to as the country’s breadbasket for its fertile soil and capacity […]