In spite of the decades of pressure coming from the United States, Canada has maintained consistently cordial relations with Cuba—in fact, Canada and Mexico were the only two countries in the hemisphere to maintain uninterrupted diplomatic relations with Cuba following the revolution in 1959. [Interesting Wikipedia fact of the week: Former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre […]
Spain’s Telefónica announced today the successful takeover of leading Brazilian mobile operator Vivo after weeks of strained negotiations with its joint-owner Portugal Telecom (PT). The move will allow Telefónica to merge its fixed landline services with Vivo’s national mobile network and begin offering Brazilian consumers ‘triple-play’ and ‘quadruple-play’ service packages (i.e. fixed-phone, internet, television, and […]
Cuba watchers and analysts pick apart every move, every statement in Washington or Havana that might be a political / economic / diplomatic bellwether and yet on a daily basis, particularly lately, we find ourselves stymied in the art of predicting the “what next.” Fidel emerges unexpectedly for a string of appearances after years out […]
Immersed in the agony of the distraught victims, and 20 million cubic meters of rubble, some little candles –sparks of hope– barely noticeable, are flickering in Haiti. They are optimistic signs indicating that the lives of many Haitians are improving. However, if like most people, you were bombarded with traumatic images of the reprehensible conditions […]
The recent car bomb set off in Juarez marked an escalation in Mexico’s drug wars. After police and medical workers were lured to the car’s location, the bomb was detonated using a cell phone, killing three innocent men. Similar tactics denoted Colombia and Iraq’s spiral into anarchy, but this was the first time a car bomb […]
Spending a week in Tuscany has its benefits, certainly, but without dependable Internet access and Western Hemisphere-centered news items, it seems I’ve missed a number of notable (and indeed, unusual/surprising/jaw-dropping) events in Cuba… Here are a few of the ones I’m picking up in the airport now. What else have I missed? Cuba indicates that […]
“You have several hundred NGOs operating in Haiti, and basically doing what they want, with no regard to the wishes of the Government of Haiti.” These are the words of Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit expressed during a recent meeting of Caribbean leaders in Montego Bay, Jamaica. “We have called on the UN Secretary General […]
This year’s Presidential candidates are increasingly resorting to fear and competing claims of victimization to win over the electorate. Today Jose Serra’s running mate (and de facto attack dog) Indio da Costa furthered allegations tying Dilma Rousseff’s Workers Party (the PT) to organized crime and drug trafficking. Indio da Costa not only reiterated previous claims […]
On economic policy, the smart money is on Brazil’s 2011 government to spend and regulate the same — or more — but surely not less.
Already there has been lots of speculation on why Fidel Castro chose this moment specifically to give himself a bigger presence in Cuban life than he has had for the last several years, during which he had taken on the role of a nearly invisible but omnipresent source of critical opinion through his written commentaries. […]
Fidel Castro returns to Cuban TV (NPR) After so very few public appearances since intestinal surgery in 2006, this was news indeed. Fidel Castro appeared on Mesa Redonda, a prominent talk show on Cuban television, to discuss world events. His comments included an accusation that the United States was the culprit in the sinking of […]
More than 50 “drug subs” have been seized by law enforcement from Ecuador to Mexico over recent months. Many of these vessels are considered “semi submersibles,” capable of travelling 5-10 meters below the water’s surface and carrying hundreds or thousands of pounds of drugs. At this depth, they tend to leave a surface wake, allowing […]
Petrobras announced today the discovery of gas reserves in the Camarupin fields in the Santos Basin as well as the signing of a landmark $160 million-dollar deal with GE Oil & Gas to develop power turbines for offshore platforms. These announcements come on the heels of Tuesday’s press release by Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency (Agência Nacional […]
Desmond Boylan/Reuters Negotiations at the end of July between Cuban President Raul Castro, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Havana Jaime Ortega, and Spain’s foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, yielded unusual results: Havana decided to release 52 of the individuals currently identified internationally as political prisoners—a full third of those currently held under that status. The website […]