The Americas Archive

After a rollicking election, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski took office as Peru’s new president yesterday. To fulfill his broad pledges for Peru’s economy—mainly, to maintain market-friendly policies while reducing poverty—his administration will need to move quickly and decisively on several issues, especially the energy sector. Kuczynski has committed to closing the gap for access to electricity in Peru by 2020, but that requires efforts aimed at improving power distribution across the country—no easy task. He has prioritized natural gas as a power source, focusing on completing a touted but stalled pipeline connecting the Camisea gas fields in Cusco to Peru’s southern […]

On Tuesday, the Obama administration announced that it would admit more migrants from Central America into the United States as refugees, expanding a program that observers have criticized as inadequate in the face of an exodus of people, many of them unaccompanied minors, fleeing violence and poverty in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras over the past two years. Under the program to date, unaccompanied Central American children seeking to reunite with their families living in the United States have been allowed to apply for refugee status; since it came into effect in 2014, the program has received some 9,500 applications. […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and host Peter Dörrie discuss the fallout from the attempted coup in Turkey and political turmoil in Zimbabwe. For the Report, David Smilde discusses Venezuela’s ongoing political and economic crisis and how it could affect Colombia’s peace process with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Listen:Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant articles on WPR: With Friends Like Turkey, the U.S. Needs Russia in Syria Failed Coup Is a Victory for Erdogan, but Not for Turkey’s Democracy Erdogan’s Post-Coup Purge Puts a Chill on U.S.-Turkey Ties As Turmoil Sparks the […]

In late June, the Canadian government announced the lifting of visa requirements for Mexican visitors starting Dec. 1, one of several measures that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hopes will improve ties with Mexico. In an email interview, Laura Macdonald, a professor of political science at Carleton University, discussed Canada’s ties with Latin America. WPR: How extensive are Canada’s diplomatic and economic ties across Latin America, and who are its main partners in the region? Laura Macdonald: The United States is by far Canada’s most important economic, political and military partner in the world. However, the stagnation of the U.S. and […]

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 […]

In late 2013, in a highly publicized address to the Chinese Communist Party’s plenum, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that his newly elected government would unleash the private sector after decades of gradual economic reforms that left many of China’s biggest industries in the hands of state-owned giants. Market forces, rather than the state, would now play a “decisive role” in the Chinese economy, Xi declared, a line touted by Chinese and foreign media. The declaration represented a major shift: State-owned enterprises consumed the majority of lending from China’s four big banks, and dominate the list of the largest corporations […]

In November, Nicaraguans will head to the polls to elect a president, members of the National Assembly and representatives to the Central American Parliament. The elections will be the country’s first since constitutional reforms were passed in 2014. The likely victor of the presidential race, President Daniel Ortega, can now be elected with a simple plurality, although he is predicted to win more than 60 percent of the vote. It would be his fourth term since being elected in 1984 and his seventh presidential campaign overall. Though his candidacy comes as no surprise, two recent controversies—one international and one domestic—have […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and host Peter Dörrie discuss the challenges of building sustainable peace in former conflict zones. For the Report, Ilan Noy joins us to talk about preparing for and recovering from natural disasters. Listen:Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant Articles on WPR: Why This Time’s Different for the Border Clashes Between Ethiopia and Eritrea A Year After Algiers Accord, Flexibility Is the Key to Durable Peace in Mali Instability the Norm in Central African Republic as Rebel Violence Surges New Ways of Defining Success in Post-Disaster Recovery Trend Lines is produced, […]

The year 2010 started with two large earthquakes less than two months apart. The strongest one, by far, was the earthquake in February in Concepcion, Chile, that killed about 250 people. Unfortunately, the earthquake also generated a tsunami, and since an adequate early warning was not issued along the Chilean coast, the tsunami ended up doubling the death toll. A month before, however, a much weaker earthquake shook another coastal city on the other side of the Americas: Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Tragically and catastrophically, many of the city’s buildings collapsed, and the death toll may have reached more than a quarter […]