If you’re wondering why only about a tenth of the more than $10 billion that international donors pledged to Haiti’s reconstruction has actually been disbursed so far, we likely got another reminder on Monday, April 25. Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) announced that it was delaying certification of results from 19 …
Maybe it’s because it’s Semana Santa, or Holy Week, when everyone in Mexico heads for the beach or their country homes. But the record $1 billion fine levied over the weekend against América Móvil – the mobile telephone giant controlled by the world’s richest man, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim – hasn’t generated the buzz …
Three years ago, just before Raúl Castro was declared his older, ailing brother Fidel’s successor as President of Cuba, the world thought a new generation of leadership would emerge with him. Raúl, then 76, had promised to make Cuba’s sclerotic communist system more open and efficient, and younger, reform-minded apparatchiks …
Fifty years ago this weekend, the Cuban Revolution had its crystallizing moment: the defeat of the Bay of Pigs invasion. On April 17, 1961, a small army of 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles stormed Cuba’s southern coast, only to be routed in three days by the forces of the island’s leader, Fidel Castro. It was an embarrassing debacle …
Is it another sign of Washington’s withering clout in Latin America? Or does it indicate the rule of law’s rising stature in the region? Or will it just let Venezuelan officials who are allegedly in the pockets of drug lords off the hook? When it comes to Colombia’s final decision to extradite alleged narco-kingpin Walid Makled to …
Now that an El Paso, Texas, jury has acquitted Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles of perjury, the buzz back in Miami is that at least he got the fair trial that people in communist Cuba are usually denied. Now, say Cuban exile leaders, it’s time to put the whole ugly Posada drama to rest. But Friday’s verdict only throws into sharper …
Updated: April 7, 2011
Another U.S. Ambassador in Latin America bit the WikiDust this week. This time it was a leftist rather than a conservative government pushing the yanqui envoy out, but the reason was similar – and similarly lame. WikiLeaks recently released a confidential U.S. diplomatic cable from 2009 – which the Spanish …
When Haiti’s presidential election got under way last summer, the big question was how large a role the nation’s large and disaffected youth vote would play. We now know the answer: Huge. Half of Haiti’s population of 9 million is under the age of 25, and Monday evening, April 4, that cohort’s candidate, flamboyant former …
This time, don’t blame so much the knuckle-dragging preacher in Gainesville, Fla. Or a 24-hour media culture that’s ready to hype any loser playing with matches. This time the real culpability lies with Afghan President Hamid Karzai – to whose reputation for cynical opportunism can now be added the 12 people who were tragically …
Mexican President Felipe Calderón could stand to build a few bridges with Washington at the moment. Last month saw the resignation of the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual, who many believe was forced out by Calderon’s unusually public complaints about confidential U.S. diplomatic cables, released last December by WikiLeaks, …
Question: If former U.S. President Jimmy Carter didn’t go to Cuba this week to win the freedom of jailed U.S. contractor Alan Gross, what was he there for? Answer: To win the freedom of jailed U.S. contractor Alan Gross – but down the road. And that road could be a long one.
Gross, 61, a Maryland lawyer, was arrested in Cuba in …
This article was written by Tim Padgett with Aaron Nelsen in Santiago
During President Obama’s visit to Chile this week, he and President Sebastián Piñera were supposed to have ceremoniously signed a nuclear energy cooperation agreement. Instead, the pact, under which Chile would gain U.S. nuclear technology and training, was …
When WikiLeaks released U.S. diplomatic cables last fall expressing fears and criticism about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, the Pakistani government largely shrugged. That’s because its leaders understood that frank private discussion is what any country’s taxpayers expect of their diplomats. They knew that …