Selected Articles

  • What's Next for Honduras?

    Honduran Democracy in Tatters

    NACLA, News Analysis, Jul 13, 2009

    Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya has reiterated his vow to quickly return to his country to re-assume his rightful place as the nation's president. This week will be a determinant moment in the outcome of the crisis caused by the June 28 military coup against Zelaya. The major players in this crisis have all shown signs of growing impatience with the current situation, meaning that everything could come to a head.

  • The Dark Side of Plan Colombia

    Curvaradó Palm Plantation

    The Nation, Investigative Report, Jun 15, 2009

    The US Agency for International Development (USAID)through Plan Colombia, the multibillion-dollar US aid package aimed at fighting the drug trade, appears to have negligently put drug-war dollars into the hands of notorious paramilitary narco-traffickers. A study of USAID internal documents, corporate filings and press reports raises questions about the agency’s vetting of applicants, in particular its ability to detect their links to narco-paramilitaries, violent crimes and illegal land seizures.

  • Puerto Rico to Lay Off 30,000 Workers

    PR Boot

    New America Media (NAM), News Report, Mar 04, 2009

    Amid one of the gravest economic crises in global history, Puerto Rico announced that it is laying off 30,000 public sector employees and freezing government salaries for two years. The island’s current economic crisis can be traced partly to "Operation Bootstrap," a set of radical free market policies implemented in the 1950s on the island that were later replicated across Latin America.

  • Latin American Media See Mexico as New Drug King

    Mexican Cartel Map

    New America Media (NAM), News Analysis, Sep 01, 2008

    While U.S. media express concern about Mexican narco-violence spreading into the United States, media in Latin American countries highlight a different reason for worry: Mexican cartels are already there. 

  • Colombia: AIDS in the Time of War

    NACLA Report on the Americas, Feature, Jul 14, 2008

    Colombia’s armed conflict is taking the AIDS epidemic among the country’s women and displaced population in radically new directions. Both guerrillas and paramilitaries often run prostitution rackets in areas under their control, forcing sex workers to have unprotected sex and extract bits of information from enemy clients. Combatants themselves are five times more likely than civilians to contract HIV.

  • U.S. Military Looks to Colombia to Replace Base in Ecuador

    base

    Third World Network, News Analysis, Jun 06, 2008

    With the U.S. military's lease on its base in Manta, Ecuador set to expire in 2009, a new report suggests U.S. military operations in South America might have found a perfect new home in central Colombia's Palanquero air base, one of the region's most state-of-the-art military installations.