The Americas Archive

The plight of migrant workers around the world got significant attention from rights advocates this week ahead of International Labor Day on May 1. Across the globe, according to advocates, migrant workers face a broad range of serious human rights abuses that range from unpaid wages and long working hours, to sexual abuse and murder. Hundreds of thousands of migrant domestic workers continue to face abuse in Asia and the Middle East despite moves by several governments to reform legislation and provide better training for law enforcement, Human Rights Watch charged in a new report. Most of the domestic workers, […]

Last week, I highlighted the “bad news” that came out of Brasilia with regards to Washington’s Iran policy. There was, however, a silver lining that should not be ignored. Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva hosted two meetings that week — that of the Brazil-Russia-India-China group (BRIC) and another for the India-Brazil-South Africa forum (IBSA). What is interesting to note is that China’s interest in playing a greater role in IBSA — with some even talking about expanding that group to become CHIBSA — was politely rebuffed. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stressed that IBSA is not simply a […]

When the finance ministers of the G-20 nations met on the sidelines of the annual IMF-World Bank meetings in Washington last weekend, it marked the sixth time they had convened since the fall of 2008. When the G-20 leaders meet this summer in Toronto, the total number of summits held since the global financial crisis erupted will hit double digits. And yet, despite early cooperation that addressed the global liquidity shortfall, little substantial progress has been made in the area of international financial regulation. Given the trauma that the entire world economy has suffered, in part due to a lack […]

Despite fist fights and smoke bombs within the parliament building as well as protests outside the Supreme Rada, Ukrainian legislators yesterday ratified the controversial Russian-Ukraine base-for-gas agreement. According to the deal’s provisions, in exchange for Moscow accepting lower prices for Ukraine’s gas purchases, the Russian Navy can remain at its Sevastopol base in the Crimea for another 25 years after the current lease expires in 2017. Ukrainian protesters attacked the new government under President Viktor Yanukovych for allegedly “trading sovereignty for gas.” While the precise amount of revenues that Russia will forego by subsidizing gas sales to Ukraine will depend […]

At a meeting last week in Tallinn, Estonia, the foreign ministers of NATO’s member states began addressing the question of what to do about the estimated 200 U.S. tactical nuclear weapons stationed in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey. The missiles’ controversial presence is shaping up to be the most important issue facing the alliance’s heads of state during their November 2010 summit in Lisbon. Many critics argue that these weapons have no plausible military purpose. In a World Politics Review briefing early last month, Johan Bergenäs offered a variety of reasons why the Obama administration should unilaterally withdraw […]

Announcements by New Zealand and the United States this week on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples moved the world community tantalizingly close to achieving consensus on a human rights issue with ongoing relevance in many parts of the world. The declaration protects indigenous rights related to land, resources, cultural identity, education and others issues. Only four countries — Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States — opposed it when the U.N. General Assembly originally voted on it in 2007. Australia dropped its opposition to the instrument last year. On Monday, New Zealand said it […]

Voters in Colombia are reluctantly preparing for life without the man they view as the nation’s savior. On May 30, they will go to the polls to elect a successor to President Alvaro Uribe, the leader they chose eight years ago in a bold break with tradition. It was a decision that paid off spectacularly for a country that stood perched on the brink of catastrophe. But Uribe’s success in tackling the nation’s problems and his resulting sky-high approval ratings created a dangerous challenge for the country’s democracy. Colombians pondered the prospect of granting their president an unprecedented third term. […]

In the early hours of June 28, 2009, military personnel arrested Honduras’ President Manuel Zelaya at his home in Tegucigalpa. Clad in his nightgown, Zelaya was brought to the airport at gunpoint, where he was put on a plane bound for Costa Rica. His ouster capped months of conflict between Zelaya and nearly every other political actor and institution in Honduras, ranging from the Supreme Court to the country’s highest religious authority to the president’s own Liberal Party. Zelaya’s removal from power became the object of acute controversy and gave way to a complex political battle with hemisphere-wide implications. The […]

It has been a devastating few weeks for the global mining community. In late March, a flood in a coal mine in northern Shanxi province in China resulted in the deaths of more than 30 workers. Then last week, in West Virginia, an explosion at a coal mine killed nearly 30 miners. Both accidents revealed some of the safety hazards associated with mining. Meanwhile, as the United States was coping with its worst mining disaster in years, two nations in Latin America were dealing with mining tragedies of their own. Those tragedies, however, had little to do with the dangerous […]

As the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review is released, NewsHour’s Jeffrey Brown talks to Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a foundation that promotes a nuclear-free world and Stephen Rademaker who has served in the administrations of both George H.W. and George W. Bush, focusing on arms control and proliferation issues. Cirincione says this NPR is “night and day” in comparison to the similar report conducted under the Bush administration that expanded the role of nuclear weapons in military operations. Conversely, Rademaker says that the most recent report is more verbiage than substance, with enough wiggle room to still use […]

Secretary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Admiral Mike Mullen conduct a press briefing to introduce the New Nuclear Posture Review.

In reflecting on the results of his first-ever visit to Venezuela, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin estimated on Monday that Venezuelan orders for Russian weapons “could exceed $5 billion.” The resulting headlines are somewhat misleading, and may overlook developments that will have a larger impact on the bilateral relationship in coming years. The $5 billion figure appears to include Russian arms still being supplied under existing contracts, including four MI-17 multirole combat helicopters whose delivery coincided with Putin’s visit. These were the last in a contract for 38 of the helicopters signed in 2006. No new arms deals were announced […]

To what extent does the ownership and management of a nation’s information infrastructure represent a question of national security? This question is all the more important because of recent changes in the models by which IT infrastructures are currently deployed, owned, and used. In general, we use the term “protected industry” to refer to an industry or economic segment protected from external competition or influences (e.g., ownership likely to export production and jobs). Barriers to importation are raised to protect domestic industry from foreign competition, while foreign investment and ownership are blocked or restricted in some instances, both to protect […]

The system we have in place today to ensure the nation’s security from terrorism can be overwhelmingly complex, reflecting a broad diversity of major players and dozens of strategic objectives. This complexity is due, in part, to successive administrations redefining an increasingly intricate web of relationships, roles, and responsibilities, often without rescinding — or fully integrating with — direction established by their predecessors. As a result, the nation’s counterterrorism system has evolved largely in a piecemeal, ad hoc fashion, without the benefit of an overarching strategy or blueprint for how best to organize for success. Over five years ago, the […]

With growth in Asia increasing the long-term demand for oil, the quest for energy conservation has increasingly focused attention on lithium, the key resource needed for the manufacture of energy-efficient ion batteries powering hybrid cars. Demand for lithium carbonate doubled from 2003 to 2007, and a report by Credit Suisse states (.pdf) that the market for lithium-ion batteries may expand to 14 times its 2009 size by 2030. Lithium is typically recovered from high-altitude desert areas, chiefly in the Andes Mountains, with roughly 80 percent of the world’s known lithium reserves found in Argentina, Bolivia, or Chile. Alone, the salt […]