In the referendum held in Chile on October 25, 2020, Chileans demanded reform of their constitution by enormous margins. The current constitution, foisted on the nation in 1980 by Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, had survived many decades of democratic rule, but was now thoroughly rejected. The vote came after a year of constant protests, many

On October 18, 2020, after multiple delays, Bolivia finally held its repeat presidential election, almost exactly a year after the disputed contest that sent former President Evo Morales into peripatetic exile. His Movimiento al Socialismo or MAS party, led by former finance minister Luis Arce, won a decisive first round victory. Pundits, editorialists, and analysts

During the first weeks of August 2020, Chileans continued to take to the streets of their nation’s cities to protest against inequality and police brutality, and in favor of the upcoming referendum on constitutional changes. As has happened repeatedly throughout the last year, beginning with protests that erupted on October 18, 2019, over increased transport

Joaquín Salvador Lavado Tejón, better known as “Quino,” was the Argentine artist most widely known for his iconic and much loved comic strip, “Mafalda,” about a small girl with potent powers of observation and a sharp wit. He died on September 30, 2020, at the age of 88. Artists, writers, politicians, and journalists around the

On September 26, 2020, protesters joined the families of the 43 students from the Escuela Normal Rural “Raúl Isidro Burgos” in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, to mark the sixth anniversary of their forced abduction in 2014. After President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) affirmed that state and federal officials were involved in the students’ disappearances, and apologized

On September 17, 2020, Bolivia’s Interim President Jeanine Áñez announced that she was withdrawing her candidacy for the October presidential election. She did so calling for unity among rightwing factions against the MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo) candidate, former Economy Minister Luis Arce, who replaced former President Evo Morales as the party’s champion after Morales’ resignation,

Beginning on Wednesday, September 9, 2020, massive protests erupted in Colombia after the death of law student  Javier Ordóñez at the hands of Bogotá police. The night before, the 46-year-old father of two, who worked as a taxi driver while he was finishing a law degree, was detained by police who used a Taser to

On September 3, 2020, the online news site El Faro published a deep dive article based on extensive research and reporting about a secret truce negotiated between the administration of President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador and Salvadoran “maras” or gangs. Bukele offered benefits in exchange for a decrease in the number of homicides and

On August 31, 2020, the Venezuelan government of President Nicolás Maduro announced that it had “pardoned” more than one hundred individuals, including dozens of political opponents that the Maduro regime had imprisoned, as well as others who had taken refuge in foreign embassies in Caracas, or had fled the country. The surprise move came three

In mid-August 2020, Colombia was rocked by a series of massacres in the departments of Nariño and Valle del Cauca. They point to ongoing problems in the years since the Colombian government signed a peace agreement with the FARC, and the heavy burden created by over seventy years of guerrilla warfare. The situation is complicated