Can southern regional organizations strengthen the bargaining position of less-developed countries and their societies’ needs in health care? By bringing together South American countries, UNASUR is advancing a broader rights agenda in access to medicines and attention to developing country demands.
Latin American and the Caribbean have made incredible strides in electing women heads of state and in implementing gender quota laws for national legislative elections. But how well represented are women in current national congresses and parliaments? Not as well as you may think.
In the final stages of the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, the U.S. is still pushing for the elimination of safeguards to regulate capital inflows and capital flight. Those controls have mitigated past crises and prevent others in economies that for decades have been buffeted by financial instability.
July 18th will mark the 21st anniversary of the 1994 AMIA bombing. Sadly, that case remains unsolved. On August 6th a new trial will start to investigate high-ranking public officials of covering up one of the worst terror attacks in the Americas. Unfortunately, that trial still won’t bring to justice those who committed the act, nor get to the bottom of the death of Alberto Nisman the prosecutor who had led the investigation and died this past January under mysterious circumstances.
This week we look at how countries voted in the UNHRC regarding Sri Lanka. The government of then-Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa was accused of engaging in genocide against the civilian Tamil population in its military campaign to end the civil war with the terrorist Tamil Tigers.
Despite Brazil’s image as a regional leader, South America’s largest democracy has become one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. According to research by the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least fourteen journalists have been killed since January 2011. Will President Dilma Rousseff improve conditions in the lead up to next year’s Olympics?
El malestar del gobierno argentino con el poder judicial no es novedad. Desde 2013, cuando impulsó un paquete de leyes con el supuesto objetivo de “democratizar la justicia”, la relación entre el poder ejecutivo y los jueces se ha tensado de manera incesante.
Beyond the economics of the 30 million Latin Americans living abroad, out-migraton from the region has also created a looming a political problem. Countries and societies are losing political and civic talent and leadership, precisely at a time when Latin America confronts complex, technical policy and economic reforms.
In 2013, Uruguay became the first country in the world to legalize the possession, cultivation and distribution of marijuana. The bold move unlocked the discussion on drug policy reform in the Americas. But is it working in its purported objectives in reducing violence, illegality and health risks?
This past May, El Salvador suffered its highest murder rate since the end of the country’s civil war 23 years ago. But this grisly flash of news—what journalists in the region call the nota roja—doesn’t give the wider context. There’s another story to be told here beyond the numbers: how Latin American journalists are affected by the violence they cover and how, in turn, their coverage is creating a cultural acceptance of violence.
