Andrés Manuel López Obrador was inaugurated Saturday, in a ceremony unlike any other seen in Mexico. What’s next for the new president?
It has been two years since the crime of Ayotzinapa. The anniversary provoked a moment of soul-searching for Mexico - Part three in our series on Ayotzinapa after two years.
Mass protests over 43 missing students from Ayotzinapa raise questions about state complicity in the murder and disappearance of Mexican youth.
Thousands of Hondurans are now in the streets to protest the coup d'etat in their country. They have been met with tear gas, anti-riot rubber bullets, tanks firing water mixed with chemicals, and clubs. Police have moved in to break down barricades and soldiers used violence to push back protesters at the presidential residence, leaving an unknown number wounded. If the coup leaders were desperate when they decided to forcibly depose the elected president, they are even more desperate now.
The Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), launched in 2005 by the NAFTA countries, aims to securitize the “shared economic space” of Canada, Mexico, and the United States. This has profound implications for Mexico, whose shaky democracy could regress to presidential authoritarianism, with explicit U.S. support.
Opinion divides sharply on whether the Democratic candidate's platform for U.S. policy in Latin America is really the stuff of "Change We Can Believe In." Looking at it closely, the picture gives reasons for hope, but also some important points to work on. Electoral posturing aside, the cards have been laid out for a first reading on the hemispheric future. Obama's approach, more than the policies themselves, gives us much to work with in turning disaster into a genuine good neighbor policy for the region.
Fourteen years after implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, a majority of the population in all three countries believe the agreement has had a net negative effect on their nation, and it turns out that the North American Free Trade Agreement is a misnomer in every one of its terms—it wasn't an agreement, it isn't free trade, and North America doesn't exist. So now what? First, stop extending it. Second, stop copying it.
It's got millions of rightwing citizens calling Congress, sponsoring legislation, and writing manifestos in defense of U.S. sovereignty. It comes up in presidential candidates' public appearances, has made it into primetime debates, and one presidential candidate—Ron Paul—used it as a central theme of his (short-lived) campaign.
Not bad for a plan that doesn't exist.
U.S. drug czar John Walters heaped praise on Mexico’s drug war this week, to prepare the groundfor a billion-dollar counter-narcotics aid package expected to be announced within days.
Agrofuel development has arrived on the global stage. Just this year, the number of declarations, dollars, and development plans that have gone to agrofuels are unparalleled in any other sector. An idea that languished for decades has suddenly become the darling of politicians, big business, international financiers and the media.
This fact alone should make us worry.