On June 23, the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States discussed OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro’s report invoking the group’s Democratic Charter against Venezuela. Almagro’s report underlined not only Venezuela’s democratic deficits—including the lack of separation of powers, the jailing of political opponents, and the crackdown on protest—but also scarcities of food and medicine, inflation, and dramatic rates of crime and violence. At the very same time, 1,800 miles to the south, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Rodrigo Leon Echeveri, the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), signed a historic cease-fire agreement calling for an [...]
Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on a range of countries’ space priorities and programs. According to reports last month, Argentina is planning to increase its annual space program budget to $180 million through 2027 in order to develop and launch low-orbit satellites used for earth observation. In an email interview, Pablo de León, an associate professor in the Department of Space Studies at the University of North Dakota, discusses Argentina’s space program. WPR: What are Argentina’s space capabilities, in terms of its domestic public and private space-industrial complex, and who are its major international [...]
Argentine President Mauricio Macri was in Brussels earlier this month to push the European Union on finalizing a free trade agreement with the South American trade bloc Mercosur. In an email interview, Inmaculada Martinez-Zarzoso, a professor of economics at the University of Goettingen, discusses the state of the free trade negotiations between the EU and Mercosur. WPR: How extensive are trade and political ties between the EU and Mercosur, and what is standing the way of a free trade agreement between them? Inmaculada Martinez-Zarzoso: Mercosur—and especially Brazil, Mercosur’s largest economy—is an important market for EU goods and services. The main [...]
