latin america
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Yesterday, the 2014 World Cup began at São Paulo Arena. At a total cost of roughly $11 billion — and at least eight workers’ lives — Brazil will host the most expensive World Cup in history. (Though the scandalous unfolding atrocity in Qatar may prove even worse.) Brazilians overwhelmingly supported bringing the event to their country when FIFA awarded them the honor in 2007 (no other nation in the Americas volunteered),
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Colombia has been at war for over 50 years. The internal armed conflict between the government and the Marxist guerrilla group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC after their Spanish acronym, originated in the aftermath of a bloody period of political violence during the 1950s known as “La Violencia,” or “The
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Despite repeated denials by the government that Argentina has a problem with drugs, including President Cristina Kirchner’s assertion this week that her country is neither a producer nor a consumer of illicit substances, there is some evidence the country may finally be coming to terms with the issue… Read this piece in its entirety at Southern Pulse.
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Mexico’s plan to incorporate citizen self-defense forces known as “autodefensas” into its official security strategy in the state of Michoacán is going about as well as expected. While the militias had some success in rolling back the influence of the Knights Templar cartel in their state, their reputation has been marred by deadly infighting among various factions,
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It is relatively easy to critique individual foreign policy decisions made by the United States with regard to specific countries and situations that arise in Latin America, but it is more difficult to suggest broad changes in America’s stance toward the region as a whole. Nevertheless, there are some overarching matters of US foreign policy
Mike LaSusa 