Recently, Ecuador opened a new chapter in its long-running legal campaign against U.S.-based Chevron Corporation. Government-backed lawyers purporting to represent residents of Ecuador’s Amazon rain forest filed a lawsuit to seize Chevron’s assets in Brazil in an attempt to collect a multi-billion-dollar award won last year in an Ecuadorian court.[1] Regrettably, the…
On January 8, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lands in Venezuela to start a brief but highly symbolic Latin American visit. The Iranian leader aims to bolster ties with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and some of the region’s most strident anti-American leaders. For the Obama Administration, the Iranian visit reflects a continuing erosion of U.S. influence in the region and…
Abstract: In the past, “Bolivarian” referred to those Andean countries that had been liberated by Simón Bolívar. Today, for the three countries in the Andes that are following Hugo Chávez’s “Bolivarian Alternative” path— Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela—it has come to signify declining economic freedom. A closer look at those countries’ scores on the 10 indicators in The…
Next week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will travel to Lima, Peru, to attend the Organization of American States (OAS) general assembly. She is also planning a brief visit to Ecuador, Colombia, and Barbados in what will be her second swing through the region in 2010. Clinton cannot afford to squander this opportunity to focus attention on Venezuela’s increasingly…
Felipe Calderón, who began his single sexenio (six-year term) as President of Mexico in December 2006, has made significant progress in the fight against narcotrafficking, but Mexicans are still waiting to see whether his government will successfully challenge the private- and public-sector monopolies and duopolies that dominate huge portions of mexico economy. These…
A group of populist Latin American states—led by Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela—hopes to reduce the role of an...…
If cancer revokes President Hugo Chavez’s mandate for indefinite rule in Venezuela, it will leave leadership of the...…
The recently launched “Americas Barometer,” by Vanderbilt University’s Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP),...…
Homer’s epic The Iliad tells the story of Achilles’s near-fatal encounter with the Xanthus River. After Achilles slays...…
Earlier this month, Ecuador’s National Assembly passed legislation that would nationalize the country’s private credit...…
Yesterday, WikiLeaks creator Julian Assange, a 41-year-old Australian fleeing rape charges, stood on the balcony of...…
After hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for two months, Julian Assange was granted asylum in Ecuador yesterday...…
On April 5, Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa rashly declared the U.S. Ambassador Heather Hodges persona non grata....…
The radical left in Latin America often prides itself in its ability to stir up the masses and make nations...…
While Colombia’s new president Manuel Santos was at the United Nations today, he received welcomed news: Colombia’s...…