In late April 2016 almost 2 million Venezuelans signed a petition calling for a referendum on the removal of President Nicolás Maduro from office, well in excess of the 200,000 signatures needed to start the process.  Over the course of a couple of days more than 1.8 million voters signed on, many claiming to have

Experts from the outside group of investigators (the Grupo Interdisciplinario de Expertos Independientes, or GIEI, created by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, IACHR) examined the Mexican government’s version of events surrounding the mass kidnapping and presumed murder of the 43 male students from the Escuela Normal Rural Raúl Isidro Burgos in Ayotzinapa. They ended

Observers on the ground in Brazil report passions inflamed, families torn apart, friendships strained or ended, children confused, and social media on fire over the vote on April 17, 2016 in Brazil’s lower house of Congress to impeach President Dilma Rousseff.  Protestors for and against the measure have flooded Brazilian streets, with plenty of raised

On April 10, 2016 Peru held national elections and the first round of its presidential electoral process.  Keiko Fujimori of the Fuerza Popular (FP) won the largest share of votes, but fell well short of the 50% needed to avoid a second round, and her opponent in the June run-off will be former World Bank

On April 3, 2016, news of the so-called “Panama Papers” broke with powerful force in the international press, catching many world leaders and celebrities in a harsh spotlight that points to potentially untoward activities. Millions of documents from a prominent Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca, had been leaked to the German newspaper Südeutsche Zeitung that

United States President Barack Obama recently took a tour around Latin America, hitting two very controversial cities on his journey. After spending time first in Havana, Cuba, he then moved on to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he spent two days in bilateral meetings with Argentine President Mauricio Macri, business leaders, and young entrepreneurs, as well

President Barack Obama opened a new era in the United States’ complicated relationship with Cuba on March 20, 2016 during an “historic” two-and-a-half-day trip.  Obama is attempting a tricky and somewhat contradictory maneuver, as he moves to normalize diplomatic and economic relations between the two nations, while also nudging Cuba’s leaders in more democratic directions. 

After Brazilian federal and São Paulo state prosecutors said they believed former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had accepted illicit payments and favors connected to the massive corruption scandal known as “Lava Jato,” or “Car Wash,” at the state-owned oil company Petrobras, and had brought him in for questioning, a series of massive protests

Berta Cáceres, the winner of the 2015 Goldman Prize for environmental activism and one of the founders of the Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, COPINH) was killed in her home on March 3, 2016.  Cáceres was a leader of the Lenca indigenous

Latin American governments of a “progressive” bent have hit some strong turbulence of late, and one of the recurring themes has been the near universal obsession with “corruption.”  Nowhere is this more evident than in Brazil, where beloved former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been caught up in the ongoing investigations just as he announced that he plans to run