The International Coffee Organisation (ICO) has drawn attention to the spread of a coffee fungus – known as coffee leaf rust – through Central America, with potentially devastating consequences.
These are comparatively early days in the spread of the disease but both the ICO and independent...
Most of the Hispanics of Mexican origin living now in the US were actually born in the US, a new study has revealed. This is partly the result of the slowdown in recent years of the inflow of immigrants from Mexico. Still, Mexico remains the largest single source country of immigrants to the US,...
On 24 May Justice Minister José Eduardo Cardozo stated that the government led by President Dilma Rousseff had “no plan” to repeal the 1979 Amnesty Law. Cardozo was responding to a recommendation by the new Truth Commission, which began its work a year ago, that the government should take measures...
Los Caballeros Templarios (LCT, ‘Templar Knights’), a splinter of the Familia Michoacana gang, has been shown up as having no intention of honouring its recently announced withdrawal from criminal activities in Michoacán and leaving it up to the government and the law-enforcement agencies to...
The 26 July 2012 draft legislation for a new elite military-police unit called ‘Tigres’ (Tropa de Inteligencia y Grupos de Respuesta Especial de Seguridad - Intelligence Troop and Special Security Response Troop) is to be taken up for a second time by congress, prompting fresh concern about the...
They are the two largest economies in the Americas, but the US and Brazil could do better in terms of business collaboration.
Bilateral trade last year was estimated at US$59bn, but from a Washington perspective at least, Brazil is seen as too much of a closed market to US manufactured exports....
The number of US nationals caught trafficking drugs across the border has increased threefold between 2005 and 2011. That is the headline conclusion of research conducted by the California-based Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) which was published in late March. Though the report claims...
Successive Uruguayan heads of state are developing a habit of being caught out making inappropriate and tactless remarks about Argentina, which, while delighting the national media, could have an adverse effect on diplomatic relations and bilateral cooperation. President José Mujica continued a...
A new Russian-built training centre for anti-drugs officials, recent joint drug seizures and the prospect of a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA). These are the latest signs of strengthening ties between Russia and Nicaragua in the key areas of security and trade. This cooperation, which has...
A major combined operation in the Vizcatán area of the VRAEM led to the seizure of several camps of the Sendero Luminoso (SL) unit led by the Quispe Palomino clan, including what appears to have been the group’s logistical hub. It did not, however, succeed in capturing or killing the group’s...
Former president Michelle Bachelet waited more than three years to confirm that she would seek to run for the presidency again, despite being the constant source of speculation. When, this week, she finally revealed her intention to seek another term in November, it was totally overshadowed by the...
Latin America and the Caribbean is the most violent region of the world. This emerges from the third successive listing by the Mexico-based Consejo Ciudadano para la Seguridad Pública y Justicia Penal (CCSPJP) of homicide rates across the world. The highest rates are not only concentrated mainly...
Costa Rica has an extraordinary number of legislative officials, in comparison with more developed nations with roughly the same size population. A report published on 11 March by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) found that Costa Rica’s legislative assembly employed 683 members of...
On 3 March President Dilma Rousseff accused the political opposition of being “merchants of pessimism” and said it had “placed all its bets on the failure of country”. The president, who was speaking at the national convention of her main coalition ally, Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro...
Cuba’s President Raúl Castro confirmed on 24 February that he would only remain in power for five more years, stepping aside in February 2018. If he is true to his word, then the Castro dynasty will have held sway for 59 years in Cuba. Castro said his decision was consistent with the commitment by...
Nothing more has been heard from President Hugo Chávez since his surprise return to Venezuela early on 18 February, fuelling speculation that plans are afoot for him to swear in privately before the supreme court and then step aside, triggering snap elections in which Vice-President Nicolás Maduro...
Globally, most emerging markets stocks and bonds performed well in January. Investors regained their appetite for risk. This was thanks in part to the last-minute deal between President Barack Obama’s administration and the Republican leadership in the US Congress over the ‘fiscal cliff’. It was...
A resurgence of violence in Mapuche territories that began in late December and continued into January provoked the government into placing the need to combat ‘terrorism’ at the top of its agenda — without appearing to have a clear idea of the kind of challenge it is facing or the extent to which...
Dressed in a floppy camouflage hat, the president of Argentina emerged from a leaf-strewn tunnel hidden beneath the forest floor in the most striking photo call of her tour of the Middle East and Asia. Visiting the Cu Cu tunnel complex in Vietnam, built by the Vietcong during the French occupation...
There are grounds for optimism regarding the future of Mexico-US relations under the new administrations of President Enrique Peña Nieto and Barack Obama. Peña Nieto’s swift appointment of Eduardo Medina Mora as the new ambassador to the US was widely considered a positive sign. The former...
