Operating in Brazil comes with inherent risks; yes we’re talking about a nation on the rise, strong economic potential and a major boost in infrastructure that will raise the collective eyebrows of the international community. However, when mining a precious metal, one must heed caution. Many times, risks include corruption and political unrest. In some [...]

Marifeli Pérez-Stable is vice president for democratic governance at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, DC and a professor of sociology at Miami’s Florida International University. Dr. Pérez-Stable chaired the Task Force on Memory, Truth, and Justice which published the report, ‘Cuban National Reconciliation‘, in April 2003. On both the website of the Inter-American Dialogue and indeed [...]

Free and fair elections are a pillar for tangible change in government. Many have long strived to see the fruition of democracy in all of its values reach contemporary Latin America, more recently in the Arcadia Foundation taking to task the former Honduran government of dubious dealings and questionable practices. Their anti-corruption campaigns shone a spotlight [...]

This article was first published in The Wall Street Journal.
Human rights are under attack, and language is the weapon. The very grammar of justice has fallen into the wrong hands, instrumentalized in the elaborate and sensational theaters of due process. A trial without any rights of defense is still called a “trial,” a conviction ordered [...]

There are scant signs of help from the Haitian government during the ongoing crisis that has truly shook the world. The government appears scattered by the 7.0-magnitude earthquake Tuesday evening. The streets were filled with beleaguered residents milling about, left with no jobs, no instructions on what to do, and no place to buy food [...]

Honduran Congress has approved a decree handed down in December by President Roberto Micheletti to end Honduras’ membership in the Bolivarian Alternative to the Americas (ALBA), a regional organization started by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
Presidential spokesman Rafael Pineda, in an apparent reference to Venezuela, explained that the decision to leave was taken because “some of the countries in [...]

Venezuela’s narcissist-Leninist President Hugo Chavez is not getting his money’s worth for the billions of dollars he is spending in public relations abroad: According to a new poll, his approval ratings in Latin America could hardly be worse.
The Miami Herald’s Andres Oppenheimer has published a newly-released poll of 20,200 people in 18 Latin American countries originally [...]

Billionaire Sebastian Pinera led Chile’s presidential vote and is seen the favorite to win a run-off and lead a political shift in Latin America’s most stable economy after 20 years of leftist rule.
Pinera, an airline magnate who ranks No. 701 on Forbes’ global rich list, won 44 percent in Sunday’s voting, shy of the more than [...]

Nearly two decades after the global arms race of the Cold War ended, many Latin America watchers today are worried about a new military standoff: between Colombia and Venezuela. As before, Washington is integral to the debate.
Tensions on both sides of the border have run high for several years, but a joint U.S.-Colombia military cooperation [...]

Last week may have been the most important one of the year for troubled Honduras. It brought a number of important decisions both in and outside of the country, each of which will have implications for years to come.
The first decision was that of the majority of Hondurans in Sunday’s presidential vote to elect Porfirio “Pepe” [...]