President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Rodrigo Londoño announced that within six months a final peace agreement should be signed.  Their optimism was based in large part on their agreement over how to deal with the issue of war crimes in the almost 70 years of conflict.  The still tentative understanding involves a controversial

On September 26, 2014, 43 student teachers from the Escuela Normal Rural “Raúl Isidrio Burgos” in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero were abducted in mass near Iguala, Guerrero.  They had commandeered several buses to travel to Iguala so they could protest at a rally led by María de Los Angeles Pineda Villa, the wife of Iguala’s mayor, José

While the first Latin American pontiff paid his first visit to Cuba from September 19-22, 2015, the region’s media paid close attention.  Pope Francis spoke of the Church’s role in society, but offered only subtle criticisms of his Cuban hosts, disappointing pundits who had hoped he would make overt calls for greater social and political

Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López was sentenced to nearly 14 years in prison on charges of inciting the 2014 anti-government protests that spiraled into violence and claimed the lives of more than 40 people.  Many observers characterized the proceedings as a classic show trial, and called López a “political prisoner” and a “prisoner of conscience.”

To the surprise of many pundits, television comedian Jimmy Morales shot out of the pack to take a significant lead (with about 24%) in the first round of Guatemala’s presidential election on September 6, 2015.  Guatemalans were in an anti-establishment mood just days after sitting President Otto Pérez Molina resigned and was arrested on corruption

Racked by inflation, plunging currency values, a full-blown recession, and growing job losses, Brazil is also witnessing an ugly power struggle among the elite of its political class as they all feel the pressure from the Petrobras kickback investigation.  President Dilma Rousseff has watched her approval numbers drop into the single digits just months after

Argentina’s compulsory, simultaneous, and open federal primaries, known as the PASO, took place on August 9, 2015.  Parties selected their candidates for president and both houses of congress.  Since public opinion polling in Argentina is considered suspect and unreliable, the votes received in the PASO are considered the strongest indicator of where the race for

The escape on July 11, 2015 by Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, a.k.a. “El Chapo,” from the high security Mexican prison Penal Federal del Altiplano I, has slammed the credibility of Mexico’s already distrusted federal government.  The first time El Chapo escaped from a federal lockup occurred January 19, 2001, when he broke out of the

The head of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, the CNE, finally announced that the election for all 167 seats in the National Assembly will be held on December 6, 2015, and that electoral campaigns will begin on November 13 and must end on December 3.  The announcement ended a cycle of uncertainty and recrimination in which

On June 7, 2015 Mexico held elections to elect 500 federal deputies, 9 governors, and 1000 mayors.  In the midst of violence and pernicious narco influences, many observers were worried about electoral manipulation and vote suppression, as well as absenteeism.  President Enrique Peña Nieto’s ruling PRI party managed to eke out a victory, in the