BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Old-fashioned political graffiti still shouts calls for social change on the walls of Latin American cities like Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Young idealists still preach the virtues of revolution, and an occasional taxi driver can startle you with an excited display of admiration for Colombia’s Marxist rebel leader Manuel “Sureshot” Marulanda. Observing this scattered evidence of wishes to overthrow the system, one could easily be fooled into thinking democracy in Latin America is on shaky ground. A closer look, however, points to strong evidence that democracy is throwing deep roots in Latin soil. A few decades [...]
Angarsk, a city of about 270,000 in southeastern Siberia, is the home of the Angarsk Electrolyzing and Chemical Combine, a plant created to enrich uranium for the Soviet nuclear program. Throughout its history, the plant has been a restricted area — closed to all foreign visitors. On Nov. 28, 2006, however, the state-funded Russian news agency ITAR-TASS reported that the Russian government has decided to remove the Angarsk plant from its list of restricted areas. Soon, according to the report, Angarsk will become the site of the world’s first “international uranium enrichment center” (IUEC). Enriched uranium fuel is required by [...]
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Brazil defies definition. Its contrasts and contradictions are everywhere — from the Europeans of the south to the African heritage of Bahia, the megalopolis of Sao Paulo to the untouched remoteness of the Amazon, the joyous samba amid the chronic gun violence of the shanty settlements. It has world-class companies like energy giant Petrobras, but in many ways is a highly uncompetitive economy. But the most overwhelming contrast is between the fabulously wealthy and the desperately poor. By every international measurement, Brazil is one of the most unequal societies on earth, a condition that has [...]
