Caribbean Archive

When I became a correspondent covering the Caribbean and portions of Latin America—my first overseas job for the New York Times—in the spring of 1990, Cuba’s then-leader Fidel Castro already seemed like an antiquated figure to many observers, a literal greybeard at the age of 63. This impression was accentuated for me in part due to the youthfulness of his country’s population, not to mention my own. It also derived from political history, as well as the geopolitical context of the moment. Castro had already been in power since 1959, making him one of the longest-serving leaders in the world. […]

This is the web version of our subscriber-only Weekly Wrap-Up newsletter, which uses relevant WPR coverage to provide background and context to the week’s top stories. Subscribe to receive it by email every Saturday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your email inbox. The outbreak of protests in Cuba this week represents a shocking departure from the status quo, while also fitting into familiar narratives that have been playing out for a while now. We’ve become used to seeing periodic, small-scale protests in Cuba—most recently involving an artists’ collective known as the San Isidro Movement—that, while […]

The worst of the coronavirus pandemic has receded considerably in countries with high vaccination rates, despite the new challenge posed by the more contagious delta variant. So far, this mostly means that rich countries are finding it possible to restart their economies safely, while lower- and middle-income countries, whose populations continue to be brutally battered by the pandemic, are struggling with massive public health demands, along with the economic and political crises ignited or worsened by COVID-19. Nowhere is this relentless predicament more urgent than in Latin America, which is why multilateral organizations are urging the rich nations that have […]

During my first reporting trip to Haiti, in January 1988, on my very first day in the country, I rode 50 miles from the capital, Port-au-Prince, to St. Marc, a coastal city to the north, to write about the atmosphere in the provinces on the eve of national elections. At a roadblock just shy of St. Marc, armed remnants of the feared militia of the country’s former dictatorship, the Tonton Macoutes, were burning vehicles and extorting money from passengers in broad daylight. One of the militiamen warned me that if they allowed me to pass, I would not be permitted […]

Editor’s Note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only Weekly Wrap-Up newsletter, which uses relevant WPR coverage to provide background and context to the week’s top stories. Subscribe to receive it by email every Saturday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your email inbox. There’s still a lot of confusion about the circumstances surrounding the attack that took Haitian President Jovenel Moise’s life and seriously wounded his wife, who is being treated at a hospital in Florida. But one thing is certain: The power vacuum it created has exacerbated a political crisis that already seemed […]