Latin America

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 7, 2009
3:35 PM

CONTACT: North American Congress on Latin America
Joao Da Silva, Outreach Coordinator
(646) 613 1440 ext. 203
joao@nacla.org

New NACLA Report Examines the Causes and Consequences of the Food Crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean

NEW YORK - May 7 - In response to the mainstream media's short-lived and sometimes superficial coverage of rising food prices, the May/June 2009 issue of the NACLA Report on the Americas aims to reconsider the ongoing food crisis within its long-term context, focusing on the corporate monopoly on food production.

Key pieces in this Report, which can be accessed both in the print edition as well as at http://nacla.org, include:

###

The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) is an independent, nonprofit organization founded in 1966 that works toward a world in which the nations and peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean are free from oppression and injustice, and enjoy a relationship with the United States based on mutual respect, free from economic and political subordination. To that end, our mission is to provide information and analysis on the region, and on its complex and changing relationship with the United States, as tools for education and advocacy - to foster knowledge beyond borders.

Posted in food crisis, Latin America

US Strategy in Latin America was Wrong

Three years ago I wrote an article arguing that the political changes sweeping across Latin America were epoch-making and probably irreversible, and that they would fundamentally alter the relationship between the region and the United States. Some of the most important economic causes of the region's shift to the left - including the unprecedented long-term growth failure since 1980 - were unrecognised then and remain mostly unacknowledge

Posted in foreign policy, Latin America

Why Latin America's Left Keeps Winning

A few months ago I ran into an economist who was formerly head of the Bolivian Central Bank in the La Paz airport. He had been reading Nouriel Roubini, the New York University economist whom the media has nicknamed "Dr Doom", and was predicting a very gloomy economic future for the hemisphere, the region and especially his own country.

Posted in Politics, Latin America

More of the Same Drug War Isn’t the Answer

BOGOTÁ - Here we go again. The other week our president traveled to Mexico to declare that the scourge of drug trafficking is killing thousands abroad and harming our children at home and that therefore we must redouble our efforts to fight the drug war.

Posted in war on drugs, Latin America

Is President Obama Serious about a New Relationship with the Americas?

President Obama's stance at the Summit of the Americas signals that we may, finally, be stepping into a new era in our relationship with our neighbors.

This is very good news, especially after eight years in which the U.S. president was either ignored as irrelevant or repudiated in much of Latin America. But to be successful, Obama will have to look for advice beyond his secretary of state, whose husband advocated NAFTA and other trade policies now rejected by much of the region.

Posted in foreign policy, Latin America

Words and Deeds in Trinidad

The stage was set for a showdown. Hugo Chávez and Barack Obama exchanged another round of insults before getting on their planes to head to Trinidad and Tobago. Many countries came prepared for an all-court press to admit Cuba to the Organization of American States (OAS) and demand lifting the U.S. embargo against the island. Five nations that form part of ALBA, the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America, vowed not to sign the official declaration of a Cuba-less OAS.

Posted in foreign policy, Latin America

Chávez's Perfect Gift to Obama

Some surprise has been expressed in the Anglo-Saxon world that Hugo Chávez should have presented a book to Barack Obama by Eduardo Galeano. Ignorance can be the only defence, the very fault that the Venezuelan president had earlier accused his US counterpart of suffering from.

Posted in foreign policy, Latin America, venezuela

Presidents Thaw US-Venezuela Rift

PORT of SPAIN - Venezeulan President Hugo Chavez has vowed to seek closer ties with the US and is considering taking steps to send an ambassador to Washington after the countries expelled each others' envoys last year.

Mr Chavez said he spoke with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, marking a change from his approach to diplomacy with the administration of George Bush, whom Mr Chavez once likened to the devil.

Posted in foreign policy, Latin America

Barack Obama Shakes Hands with Hugo Chavez

The surprise encounter came at the opening ceremony of the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad, where Mr Obama has made Cuba a key priority.

After several days of the US and Cuba trading warm words that have hinted at a détente after a half century of hostility, Mr Obama said that he was seeking "a new beginning" with Havana.

But it was his unexpected handshake and the smiles he exchanged with Mr Chavez that caught many at the summit by surprise.

Posted in cuba, Latin America, venezuela

Summit Unlikely to Bridge Gap Between Washington and Latin America

The Obama administration is seeking a "new beginning" in the hemisphere, and a "more equal partnership" with Latin America - according to President Obama's point man for the Summit of the Americas. The Summit will gather 34 presidents from the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago on April 17-19.

But there is little movement to match the rhetoric, and the political gulf between Washington and most of Latin America is large and growing.

Posted in foreign policy, Latin America