Opinions

By Danilo Arbilla For many years now, Latin America has not figured on the U.S. State Department’s agenda. If the continent did appear, it was at the bottom of the government’s list. This indifference has only grown starker since Donald J. Trump moved into the White House. This state of affairs is neither good nor...

By José Miguel Vivanco and Tamara Taraciuk Broner Tens of thousands of Venezuelans who have reached a breaking point over the country’s humanitarian and political crisis poured into the streets all over the country on Wednesday. They demanded that the government let aid enter Venezuela to help the many people who are desperate for food...

By Soledad Stoessel If Netflix had known how Ecuador’s April 2 presidential election would turn out, it might have waited to promote the fourth season of its award-winning political drama House of Cards. The post-run-off scenes in this South American nation were worthy of any political thriller. The second round of voting handed victory to...

By Naomi Herndon The important thing is not to stop questioning. – Albert Einstein As an expat coming from the United States, living in Ecuador for almost three years has been a great experience. There is so much to see and do and learn. Although I enjoy my new home, the United States will always...

By Dawisson Belem Lopes Atacama is a cool and arid region that occupies a continuous strip for about 1,000km along the coast of the northern third of Chile, reaching as far as the Peruvian border in the north. As the driest desert zone on Earth, it is a good metaphor to describe Latin America’s current...

By William K. Black Ecuador has just staged another successful democratic election — as even the Wall Street Journal now reports, based on international election observers from the Organization of American States (OAS) that have no love for the Ecuadorian party that won the election. Most of the foreign reportage on the election focuses on...

By Jason Kopp The growth of Islamic extremist activity in Latin America is a major security threat to our country. And Iran’s influence in Latin America demands a new national security strategy in the region. That is all according to a new report released by the National Center for Policy Analysis, a nonpartisan public policy...

Editor’s note: The following includes reports from the Netizen project of Global Voices regarding government efforts to monitor, control, restrict and sometimes punish users of social media and the Internet. In mid-February, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out a sweeping vision of the social network’s role in “bringing us all together as a global community.”...

By Ha-Joon Chang and James K. Galbraith Over the past ten years, Ecuador has achieved major economic and social advances. We are concerned that many of these important gains in poverty reduction, wage growth, reduced inequality, and greater social inclusion could be eroded by a return to of the policies of austerity and neoliberalism that...

By Ramiro Crespo Only in Venezuela and Ecuador have the judiciaries failed to disclose the names of people involved in the corruption scandal acknowledged by Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht in the Americas and Africa. Ecuador prosecutor General Galo Chiriboga has insisted that his office is doing all in its power to bring those at fault...

By Greg Grandin On April 2, Ecuador will hold its runoff presidential ballot, the first major Latin America election since Donald Trump’s unexpected November victory. Polls could be wrong, but so far all but one of them indicate that Ecuador’s next president will be wheelchair-bound Lenín Moreno, who is promising to continue the progressive agenda...

Grandpa died the day after Valentine’s Day, at 9:10 a.m. on a sunny morning. He just stopped breathing and went peacefully where he belonged. Cancer had taken him over. He was never a grumpy person; he was always laughing, telling jokes, and playing tricks on everybody. When I used to comb his hair and touch...