Latin America News

By Nacha Cattan At the nightclub door, a security guard checks every bag, pocket and makeup pouch with a mini flashlight. In the bathroom, another stands watch as drug dealers sell cocaine in bags marked with skulls. That guard escorts revelers into a stall where they can snort in private. Drug gangs are ever more...

By Ken Parks Paraguay plans to turn its remote, sparsely populated northwest into an international transport hub and a key link between ports on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America, in a proposal its government likens to a latter-day Panama Canal. Investment of over $2 billion in basic infrastructure such as roads and...

Venezuela has been hit by another massive power cut with the capital, Caracas, among the areas affected. As of noon Tuesday, power was slowly being restored after the blackout reportedly hit 16 of the country’s 23 states as well as Caracas. Information Minister Jorge Rodríguez claimed the power cut was caused by an “electromagnetic attack”...

By June Webber and Frederica Cocca Once the world’s most prosperous emerging region, Latin America has fallen behind in recent years — due in part to its missing middle: a lack of medium-sized companies, and a shortage of middle-class consumers, according to recent research. Although emerging economies’ contribution to global growth has risen from 37...

By Alex Vasquez and Ben Bartenstein If Venezuelan politics weren’t convoluted enough, they just got a bit more complicated this week. The opposition-aligned Progressive Advance party hired Ari Ben-Menashe, a Montreal-based lobbyist, to “pursue Henri Falcon’s election as President of Venezuela,” according to a contract filed with the U.S. Justice Department. Days after the public...

The U.S. Department of State reissued a travel advisory cautioning against travel to Peru on July 18. Certain areas in the South American country have increased risk, according to the State Department. The advisory was similar to the one issued for Colombia in June. “Crime, including petty theft, carjackings, muggings, assaults, and violent crime, is...

By Carlos Eduardo Pina On January 23, when U.S.-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself interim president of Venezuela, he thought deposing President Nicolas Maduro from power would be easy. He had a simple, three-thronged plan: declare Maduro’s presidency illegitimate by exposing the irregularities in the election that brought him to power, establish a transition...

Colombia is working to halt scores of slayings of community leaders by criminal groups and remnant bands of rebels following the country’s historic 2016 peace deal, President Ivan Duque said on Friday, during a visit from the UN Security Council. The peace agreement with Marxist FARC rebels ended a half-century conflict that killed some 260,000...

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s right-hand man Diosdado Cabello has ruled out early elections despite talks between representatives of the government and the opposition in Barbados. Maduro’s removal from office has been a key demand of the opposition, which is led by Juan Guaido, the National Assembly head who declared himself acting president in January. But...

As it has for almost a decade, Venezuela’s murder rate leads all South American countries. In fact, its rate of more than 81 homicides per 100,000 residents is the highest in the world, far ahead of El Salvador’s 51 and Honduras’ 40. Trailing Venezuela in South America are Colombia and Brazil, both with murder rates...

Talks between the Venezuelan opposition and the government of President Nicolas Maduro to resolve the country’s political crisis will resume this week in Barbados but the countries most affected by the millions of Venezuelans leaving home have low expectations for the results. The Norwegian foreign ministry, which has been acting as a mediator, said the...