Issue Sep 13-19 2023: On September 15, 2023, Colombian painter and sculptor Fernando Botero died at age 91. Called the “Picasso of Latin America,” he was a prolific artist who produced more than 3,000 paintings and over 300 sculptures that have been displayed in countries around the world. His signature style depicted surreal and deadpan

Issue Sep 06-12 2023: On September 11, 2023, Latin Americans marked the half century since the military coup in Chile against President Salvador Allende, the region’s first elected socialist leader. Allende rose to power at the head of Unidad Popular, a coalition of Chile’s main leftist parties which included the Socialists, Communists, and Social Democrats,

Issue Aug 30-Sep 05 2023: Beginning around 2010, the Darién jungle between Colombia and Panama (which still has no road linking South and Central America) emerged as a new migratory route for migrants headed for the United States. Generally characterized as “impassable,” the difficult and dangerous trek through the gap that millions of people from

Issue Aug 23-29 2023: Despite (or perhaps because of) the victory of Movimiento Semilla’s Bernardo Arévalo in Guatemala’s presidential runoff election on August 20, 2023, the political party has come under increasing attacks by Guatemala’s traditional political establishment. Though the Tribunal Supremo Electoral (TSE) confirmed that Arévalo won the election, the same body suspended Semilla’s

Issue Aug 16-22 2023: On August 20, 2023, Ecuador and Guatemala held much anticipated and momentous elections. In Ecuador, Luisa González, a lawyer with close ties to former socialist President Rafael Correa, emerged as the frontrunner with 33% of the first-round vote. She will face off with the surprise second-place candidate, Daniel Noboa, the son

On August 13, 2023, Argentina held its Primarias Abiertas Simultáneas y Obligatorias, or PASO primary elections. The contest jolted the entire Argentine political system from left to right as far-right Libertarian candidate Javier Milei of La Libertad Avanza emerged as the top vote getter, out-pacing both the opposition candidate of Juntos por el Cambio, Patricia

Issue Aug 01-08 2023: In the week before August 13, 2023, Argentines were preparing to vote in the PASO primaries, in preparation for the General Elections on October 22, in a context of surging inflation, economic stagnation, and poverty touching an ever-growing portion of the population. Political experience seems to indicate that the ruling Peronista

Issue Jul 01-31 2023: The third European Union (EU) – Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños (CELAC) Summit was held on July 17-18, 2023, in Brussels. Anticipated with optimism and hope and ending with European pledges of significant investment in the region, the meeting stumbled on the obstacles of the war in Ukraine and the

On June 25, 2023, Guatemalans went to the polls in a tense environment of uncertainty and political crisis for a general election that would also winnow down the presidential field. Unsurprisingly, former First Lady Sandra Torres Casanova came in first with over 15% of the vote and will head to the second-round runoff on August

Issue Jun 14-20 2023: On June 14, 2023, a Guatemalan court handed down a 6-year prison sentence to José Rubén Zamora, founder of El Periódico, a newspaper critical of Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei. El Periódico went out of business on May 15 after 27 years of publication. Known as one of the founding fathers of