On September 19, 2017, exactly thirty-two years after the devastating earthquake of 1985, a powerful quake shook central Mexico. The 7.1 magnitude quake crumpled many buildings into huge clouds of dust, killed hundreds, and sent thousands fleeing into the streets. In densely populated parts of Mexico City, mounds of rubble were all that was left

On September 8, 2017, Mara Fernanda Castilla Miranda, a 19-year-old college student in the city of Puebla, Mexico, left a party and caught a ride from a Cabify driver. On September 15, her body was discovered in a Puebla motel. Soon thereafter, massive demonstrations erupted throughout the country in which women demanded justice in the

From the 6th to the 11th of September 2017, Pope Francis toured various Colombian cities where he was met by enormous crowds of the faithful. The stated purpose of his visit was to inspire peace and promote reconciliation in the deeply polarized country, and the motto of his tour was “Let’s Take the First Step.”

Latin America’s longest-lived guerrilla army, Las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, Ejército del Pueblo (Las FARC-EP), has become La Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Común (La FARC). In keeping its old initials, La FARC angered many, but demonstrated continuity with its past struggle. Political odds makers debated its possible strengths and weaknesses as a political party,

A crisis erupted in Guatemala on August 28, 2017, after Attorney General Thelma Aldana denounced President Jimmy Morales’ decision to expel Colombian lawyer Iván Velásquez, head of the Comisión Internacional Contra la Impunidad en Guatemala (CICIG), which was created in 2006 with the support of the United Nations. While Morales claimed that he was expelling

Vice President Mike Pence took a quick trip to four countries in the region in mid-August 2017. While the trek was overshadowed by President Trump’s clearly impulsive ejaculation about a possible “military” solution to the on-going crisis in Venezuela, any visit by a sitting U.S. vice president to Latin America receives ample coverage on many

In what seemed like an off-the-cuff utterance, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to end the crisis in Venezuela with military action. His statement caught even his closest advisers off guard, and could upend diplomatic efforts by his own administration to isolate embattled Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Predictably, Trump’s hint at a “military option” was roundly

With tensions running high in Venezuela and around the region, President Nicolás Maduro pushed ahead with his constitutional convention, essentially cutting the growing opposition movement out of any role in Venezuela’s political life. Maduro’s supporters say he is defending the Bolivarian Revolution, while his critics say he is a dictator bent on destroying Venezuelan democracy,

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s most popular and significant president in living memory, was convicted of graft and money-laundering in mid July 2017. He was sentenced to nine-and-a-half years in prison. Lula, as he is known, denied the charges and promised to appeal, while also going ahead with preparations for another campaign for the

Since the beginning of April 2017, Venezuela has experienced repeated waves of demonstrations. Most of these mobilizations have been in protest of President Nicolás Maduro’s government, and many of them have turned violent, leaving almost 80 people dead, thousands wounded, and many hundreds detained. The protesters want to halt the non-democratically elected constitutional assembly that