Hundreds joined international guests, solidarity campaigners and elected representatives for ¡Viva la solidaridad! Latin America’s Left Leads the Way: a session organised by Labour Friends of Progressive Latin America as part of this year’s Arise Festival. Read the report back-or watch the meeting in full below: Chairing the event, Arise’s Sam Browse went through examples of electoral successes and resilience in the face of aggression by the region’s left, and emphasised the importance of international co-operation amongst progressive forces: “those winning gains in the fight for a better future are an inspiration to us all”. Secretary of the Presidency in Honduras Rodolfo Pastor outlined how […]
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Above photo: Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador delivers brief remarks while talking to journalists with US president Joe Biden in the Oval Office at the White House on July 12, 2022, in Washington, DC. (Chris Kelponis — Pool / Getty Images)Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador delivers brief remarks while talking to journalists with US president Joe Biden in the Oval Office at the White House on July 12, 2022, in Washington, DC. Chris Kelponis — Pool / Getty Images. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is wildly popular among Mexicans at home and abroad. It’s not just because of his […]
Above photo: Two women embrace at a rally for the legalization and decriminalization of abortion on Dec. 29, 2020, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Days prior, the Senate of Argentina approved the legalization and decriminalization of abortion, passing a bill that allows the voluntary interruption of pregnancy until 14 weeks. Matías Chiofalo/Europa Press via Getty Images. Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico have recently legalized or decriminalized abortion. Could Chile be next? It was inconceivable, just five years ago, that ultra-conservative Colombia would decriminalize abortion, or that Catholic, neoliberal Chile would be gearing up to vote on a new constitution that enshrines sexual and […]
Above Photo: President Daniel Ortega (L), Managua, Nicaragua, May 18, 2022. | Twitter / @El_Nica_19. Referring To The Unwillingness Of The U.S. To Invite Nicaragua To The 2022 Summit Of The Americas, The Sandinista Leader Pointed Out That Such Event “Does Not Interest Us.” On Wednesday, Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega called for strengthening the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) as the most appropriate space for the meeting of the peoples and their governments of the region. “Our starting point is CELAC. Now we need to strengthen it so that this community has more sovereignty and autonomy,” he said […]
Above Photo: Latin American leaders at the 20th Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America–Peoples’ Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP), among a list of progressive continental alliances. Bruno Rodríguez on Twitter. Latin America does not want a new cold war. The region has already suffered from decades of military rule and austerity. Latin America wants peace. The world wants to see an end to the conflict in Ukraine. The NATO countries, however, want to prolong the conflict by increasing arms shipments to Ukraine and by declaring that they want to “weaken Russia.” The United States had already allocated $13.6 billion to arm […]
Brazil’s left-wing leader Lula da Silva says if he wins the 2022 presidential elections, “we are going to create a currency in Latin America,” called the Sur (“South”), to combat “the dependency on the dollar”. Brazil’s left-wing leader Lula da Silva has proposed creating a pan-Latin American currency, in order to “be freed of the dollar.” A founder of Brazil’s Workers’ Party, Lula served as president for two terms, from 2003 to 2011. He is now the leading candidate as Brazil’s October 2022 presidential elections approach. If he returns to the presidency, “We are going to create a currency in Latin […]
Russia is a large consumer of the Latin American banana—but western sanctions have dealt a devastating blow to farmers who can no longer get their products to market. For Ecuador, the world’s largest exporter of bananas, the setback has been disastrous. Around 25% of Ecuador’s banana exports go to Russia and 90% of all bananas consumed in Russia come from Ecuador. However, commercial ships carrying the bananas can no longer reach the port of St. Petersburg due to sanctions imposed by the US and EU. The sudden drop in demand has left producers with excess supply. Prices have collapsed as a result. Richard […]
Latin America Is Rejecting US Assistance March 14, 2022 Latin America Is Rejecting US Assistance2022-03-142022-03-14https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/12/popres-shorter.pngPopularResistance.Orghttps://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2022/03/220314.png200px200px Above Photo: Commander of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), General Laura J. Richardson testifies before the House Armed Services Committee. March 8, 2022. Latin America and the Caribbean is partnering with China on multi-billion dollar development projects and while turning down assistance offered by the United States. 21 of 31 countries of the region, both friends and foes of Washington alike, have joined the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to the dismay of U.S. lawmakers. Congressional Representative Lisa McClain sought an explanation for the phenomenon at this […]
ALBA Secretary Rejects NATO Presence In Latin America March 3, 2022 ALBA Secretary Rejects NATO Presence In Latin America2022-03-032022-03-03https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/12/popres-shorter.pngPopularResistance.Orghttps://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2022/03/220303-e1646332933115.png200px200px Sacha Llorenti, spoke about regional integration, U.S. and NATO presence in the region, and Bolivia’s search for justice for the 2019 coup. Llorenti served as Bolivian Ambassador to the United Nations under President Evo Morales and sat on the UN Security Council before heading the ALBA bloc. Below, we’ve transcribed a part of the interview, shortened for length. The full interview in Spanish can be watched here. Jessica Sosa: There seems to be a resurgence of CELAC and other mechanisms to retake […]
Above Photo: Vitor Pamplona. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a new initiative emerged in Latin America to address economic inequality, social injustice, and environmental destruction. Established in early June 2020, the Ecosocial Pact of the South—Pacto Ecosocial del Sur—is a response to an upsurge in protests throughout the region: in Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, and Chile in the final months of 2019 followed by another wave of protests in 2020 in Argentina, Brazil, Panama, and elsewhere. The protests have had different targets. Some people have come out into the streets to demonstrate against the authoritarian policies of national governments. Other mobilizations have focused on the pandemic and the […]
Above Photo: A Bolivian man holding the Indigenous flag, the Wiphala. Indian Country Today. Slowly But Definitely. In recent years, various progressive leaders across the region have presented proposals for a plurinational state to achieve true decolonization. The Latin American and the Caribbean region is advancing towards breaking free from colonial mentality and recognizing nationalities of the Indigenous people and their cultural heritage. In recent years, various progressive leaders across the region have presented in their election campaigns proposals for a plurinational state to work towards eliminating perceptions of ethnic and cultural inferiority and a form of internalized racial oppression. In […]
Above photo: Anti-imperialist graffiti in Caracas. Reuters. During the 21st century, the US, working with corporate elites, traditional oligarchies, military, and corporate media, has continually attempted coups against Latin American governments which place the needs of their people over US corporate interests. US organized coups in Latin American countries is hardly a 20th century phenomenon. However, this century the US rulers have turned to a new coup strategy, relying on soft coups, a significant change from the notoriously brutal military hard coups in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and other countries in the 1970s. One central US concern in these new coups has […]
Above Photo: The then-presidents of Argentina, Ecuador and Peru, and the presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Chile at La Moneda presidential palace in Santiago, Chile, March 22, 2019 (Esteban Felix / AP). US policy towards Latin America and the Caribbean continued in a seamless transition from Trump to Biden, but the terrain over which it operated shifted left. The balance between the US drive to dominate its “backyard” and its counterpart, the Bolivarian cause of regional independence and integration, continued to tip portside in 2021 with major popular electoral victories in Chile, Honduras, and Peru. These follow the previous year’s reversal of the coup in […]
Above Photo: A Chinese Sinopharm vaccine preparing for use in Peru. In the last two decades, economic links between Latin America and the People’s Republic of China have been expanding at a dizzying rate. Bilateral trade in 2000 was just $12 billion (1 per cent of Latin American’s total trade); now it stands at $315bn. In the same time period, China’s foreign direct investment in Latin America has increased by a factor of five. Since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, 19 of the 33 countries in the Latin American and Caribbean region have signed up to […]
Above Photo: Nathalia Angarita / Reuters. Pink Tide 2.0 Is Well Underway. Latin America, the 21st century’s leading region for progressive victories, is in the midst of a leftist resurgence. A new “pink tide” is commencing, with the left holding office in a number of countries and challenging for power in upcoming presidential elections. Kicking off a collection of articles on Latin America’s left, we present an overview of the continent’s war between progressive and conservative forces as flashpoints loom from Chile to Brazil. The Rise And Fall Of The First Pink Tide. The original pink tide of leftist electoral victories […]
Above photo: The VI Summit of the Heads of State of CELAC. CELAC. The heads of state of the regional block agreed on a 44-point declaration which addressed the strategy against COVID-19 and climate change and took a stand against the blockade on Cuba. The VI Summit of the Heads of State of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) was held in Mexico City on Saturday, September 18 and concluded with the approval of a 44-point declaration. The historic summit saw the participation of 31 countries and the presence of several important leaders, such as Venezuelan president Nicolás […]
Protests Against Greed And Inequality Are Spreading Like Wildfire Through Latin America By Alan Macleod, Mintpress News. October 25, 2020 Protests Against Greed And Inequality Are Spreading Like Wildfire Through Latin America2020-10-252020-10-25https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/12/popres-shorter.pngPopularResistance.Orghttps://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/10/latinamerica-e1603655060183.jpg200px200px Above photo: Fire from a molotov cocktail explodes in front of police as a police vehicle shoots water at protesters who marched against the commemoration of the discovery of the Americas, organized by Indigenous groups demanding autonomy and the recovery of ancestral land in Santiago, Chile, Oct. 12, 2020. Esteban Felix | AP. Historic protests are taking place across Latin America as people take to the streets to voice […]
Bolivia Is A beacon Of Light For Latin America By Nathalia Urban, Source News. October 21, 2020 Bolivia Is A beacon Of Light For Latin America2020-10-212020-10-21https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/12/popres-shorter.pngPopularResistance.Orghttps://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/10/0_bolivia-e1603285865564.jpg200px200px Brazilian journalist and activist Nathália Urban looks at the sensational Bolivian election, where the left appears set to return to power less than one year after being deposed in a coup. After suffering a coup d’état that cost more than 33 lives, left thousands of people injured, and forced important political figures like President Evo Morales to go into exile to survive, official exit polls say that the Movement for Socialism (MAS) will return to power, […]
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited four South American countries around Venezuela this week, pledging hundreds of millions in aid to those fleeing the South American nation’s economic crisis but also reiterating threats to depose socialist President Nicolas Maduro. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza has accused his US counterpart Mike Pompeo of crying crocodile tears over the South American country’s woes. Arreaza insisted in a series of tweets on Saturday former CIA director Pompeo’s threats to Venezuela during recent visits to four nations bordering Venezuela “proves the only ‘man-made crisis’ affecting the Venezuelan people is the one created by the […]
https://cdn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/09/12/1080505895_0:135:3072:1863_1200x675_80_0_0_2ae4d7f097eb00a76765f51b5c557b4a.jpg Sputnik International https://cdn2.img.sputniknews.com/i/logo.png Sputnik https://cdn2.img.sputniknews.com/i/logo.png https://sputniknews.com/society/202009181080505930-russian-developer-of-covid-drug-areplivir-discussing-deliveries-to-latin-america-africa/ MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Russian pharmaceutical company Promomed is in talks with neighbouring countries, Latin America, and Africa to supply them with Areplivir drug that can help in the COVID-19 treatment, the director-general of the company, Andrey Mladentsev, said. “We are in talks about the delivery of the medication to the countries of Latin America, such as Mexico, South Africa and Commonwealth of Independent States,” Mladentsev said. According to Mladentsev, Areplivir will be available in internet pharmacies in Russia on Saturday and may appear on the shelves of regular pharmacies in Moscow on Monday. “The […]
US-Linked PR Firm Ran Fake News Networks For Right-Wing Latin American Regimes By Ben Norton, The Grayzone. September 14, 2020 US-Linked PR Firm Ran Fake News Networks For Right-Wing Latin American Regimes2020-09-142020-09-14https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/12/popres-shorter.pngPopularResistance.Orghttps://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/09/grayzone.png200px200px A Washington, DC-based PR firm linked to the US government and Democratic Party, CLS Strategies, ran a fake news network on Facebook and Instagram, spreading propaganda for Bolivia’s coup regime and the right-wing opposition in Venezuela and Mexico. A major US PR firm located just a few blocks from the White House has been caught running an industrial grade propaganda operation on social media. The information warfare blitzkrieg relied on […]
‘Que Pena’, a duo by Colombian singers Maluma and J Balvin, was released in September 2019, and the music video has since gained over 200 million views on YouTube. The popular reggaeton artists announced their collaboration in August 2019. Colombian singers Maluma and J Balvin won the Video Music Award for Best Latin nomination, with their song “Que Pena” [“Too Bad”], outrunning collaborations by Black Eyed Peas and Ozuna, Bad Bunny, Daddy Yankee, Anuel AA and others. Maluma attended the ceremony, performing his latest hit “Hawai” from the new album “Papi Juancho” and delivering a speech from the stage. “Wow. Oh […]
Walking The Tightrope: Latin America’s Pink Tide By: Frederick B. Mills, New Politics. August 22, 2020 Walking The Tightrope: Latin America’s Pink Tide2020-08-222020-08-22https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/12/popres-shorter.pngPopularResistance.Orghttps://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/08/pink-tide-daniel-del-toro-e1598107694132.jpg200px200px Above photo: Latin America’s Pink Tide Pink Tide. Daniel Del Toro. Latin America’s Pink Tide: Breakthroughs and Shortcomings, edited by economic historian and prominent Latin Americanist Steve Ellner, offers a critical ethical theoretical framework for assessing the performance of left and left-of-center governments in Latin America during the Pink Tide. The “Pink Tide” refers to the wave of progressive governments beginning with the election of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela in 1998. These progressive governments provided alternatives to the neoliberal economic […]
Mexo, a cryptocurrency exchange designed for the Latin American user, launched on Thursday. Source link
Long Overdue For Latin America: A “Good Neighbor Policy” By Medea Benjamin and Steve Ellner, CODEPINK. July 24, 2020 Long Overdue For Latin America: A “Good Neighbor Policy”2020-07-242020-07-24https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/12/popres-shorter.pngPopularResistance.Orghttps://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/07/hands-off-vnz.jpg200px200px Above photo: An all-encompassing expression of goodwill in the form of a New Good Neighbor Policy will meet resistance from vested economic and military interests, as well as those persuaded by racist arguments. CC. Instead of continuing down this imperial path of endless confrontation, U.S. policymakers need to stop, recalibrate, and design an entirely new approach to inter-American relations. U.S. policy towards Venezuela has been a fiasco. Try as it might, the Trump regime-change […]
A surge in Covid-19 cases across Latin America has made it the second-worst hit region for virus deaths, outpacing the US and Canada and trailing only Europe. The situation has been exacerbated by poverty and lack of mass testing. A total of 144,758 people have died from the coronavirus in Latin America as of July 13, surpassing the US and Canada’s death toll of 144,023, according to a new AFP tally. More than 72,000 patients have died in Brazil alone. Latin America’s largest country has registered more than 1.8 million confirmed Covid-19 cases – the second-highest in the world behind the […]
Coinbase will host its first investor day, New York State prosecutors won a jurisdictional dispute involving Bitfinex and a protocol arms race is unfolding in Latin America. Here’s the story: You’re reading Blockchain Bites, the daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news, and why they’re significant. You can subscribe to this and all of CoinDesk’s newsletters here. Top shelf Not Your Traditional Investor DayOn the same day Reuters reported Coinbase is looking to go public, the exchange scheduled its first-ever investor day, for Aug. 14. Investor days can often signal a planned direct listing, Jamie McGurk, a former operating partner at […]
There may be an enterprise blockchain arms race brewing in Latin America. LatamLink, an alliance of three organizations involved in the launch of the EOS public blockchain in 2018, is now busy integrating the EOSIO software for enterprise uses. The group seems to be competing for business in the region with ConsenSys, a globally distributed outfit focused on all things Ethereum. Up for grabs is LACChain, a blockchain framework that has the backing of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and a host of public and private entities across Latin America and the Caribbean. ConsenSys set up a Besu testnet for LACChain […]
Latin Americans Fighting Mining Companies During COVID19 By Jen Moore, Inequality June 25, 2020 Latin Americans Fighting Mining Companies During COVID192020-06-252020-06-25https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/12/popres-shorter.pngPopularResistance.Orghttps://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/06/demonstration-against-criminalization-of-water-defenders-in-guapinol-honduras.-credit-pedrolanda.-e1593105148732.jpg200px200px Above photo: Demonstration against the criminalization of water defenders in Guapinol, Honduras. Pedro Landa. Over the years, the mining industry has taken advantage of dictatorship, disasters, and a variety of distractions to expand operations in Latin America. In the time of Covid-19, with entire populations under lockdown and economies falling apart, mining companies have also hopped on the pandemic profiteering bandwagon. The potential implications are wide-reaching. In Latin America, the areas of interest to mining companies whether they are exploring or digging […]
As more and more people take matters into their own hands to deal with the looters and rioters, even the Latin gangs in Chicago are coming off looking like the good guys, as they are fighting off the looters. It appears as though several shootings took place, as you can hear shots ringing out as people start scattering. Here is one of the videos from one of the encounters: In another video, we see a few more shootouts, as well as the gangs ramming their big trucks into the looters’ cars. One guy hollers out “F** the looters, n****, we protect […]
Could The Pandemic Start A Biking Revolution In Latin America? By Leonie Rauls, Americas Quarterly. May 20, 2020 Could The Pandemic Start A Biking Revolution In Latin America?2020-05-202020-05-20https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/12/popres-shorter.pngPopularResistance.Orghttps://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/05/bikes-e1589991142531.jpg200px200px Above photo: Mayor Claudia Lopez rides a bike in Bogotá Jyan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images. The crisis offers an opportunity to ease the congestion plaguing the region’s roads and public transit systems. The demand of social distancing is forcing cities across Latin America and the world to rethink public life. That includes a reconsideration of mass transit, with a number of public sector initiatives encouraging biking as a safer alternative. Already, city leaders in Bogotá, […]
The crypto loan startup Ledn, which primarily serves users in Latin America, is now offering USDC stablecoin savings accounts through a partnership with the lending and trading conglomerate Genesis. (Disclosure: Genesis is owned by CoinDesk’s parent company, Digital Currency Group.) Genesis VP of Originations Matt Ballensweig said in a statement his company believes this will “be a successful collaboration” that boosts liquidity for institutional investors in North America as well. Stablecoins have become increasingly popular across Latin America. For example, MakerDAO Head of Business Development Greg Diprisco said Wednesday at Consensus: Distributed that Argentina is the leading market for Maker’s dollar-pegged […]
In advance of her “Crypto Across Emerging Markets” panel at Consensus: Distributed on May 11, Leigh Cuen is writing a three-part column on how cryptocurrencies are used in the developing world. The first installment explored bitcoin adoption in the Middle East and the second covered Africa. Some believe the broader economic crisis might lead to “dollarization” in emerging markets, where people increasingly use global currencies like dollars instead of their local fiat. It remains unclear how bitcoin will play into that prospective shift, as bitcoin is still too immature to be predominately used as a competing currency. But crypto entrepreneurs are still giving it […]
Swedish startup ChromaWay is expanding a project aimed to make land ownership more transparent by putting records on a blockchain. With the launch of its LAC PropertyChain initiative, announced on Tuesday, the company hopes to strengthen blockchain standards, governance and protocols for land transactions in Bolivia, Peru and Paraguay. The initiative complements the LACChain initiative, a consortium of institutions across Latin America and the Caribbean aligned with the Washington, D.C.-based Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). The advance also marks the second phase of a land registry project, which began in 2019 and is funded by the IDB. The project focuses on smart […]