Whether Biden or Trump, US’s Latin American Policy Will Still Be Contemptible
By John Perry and Roger D. Harris With Donald Trump as the new US president, pundits are speculating about how US policy towards Latin America might change. In this article, we look at some of the speculation, then address three specific instances of how the US’s policy priorities may be viewed from a progressive, Latin […]
What’s Left in Latin American and the Caribbean: Year 2024 in Review
By Roger D. Harris and John Perry The progressive regional current, the “Pink Tide,” could be better called “troubled waters” in 2024. The tide had already slackened by 2023 compared to its rise in 2022, when it was buoyed by big wins in Colombia and Brazil. Then, progressive alternatives had sailed into power replacing failed […]
River of Darkness
When Spanish ships first reached the Americas in 1492, they had no idea of the size of the lands on which they’d set foot, nor did they realise that they were twin continents in their own right. Columbus died believing he’d found an alternative route to the ‘Indies’, because although the early explorers new the […]
The slum dwellers’ Nobel Peace Prize nominee
He missed out to Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi, but Jockin Arputham’s nomination is a landmark for the grassroots. In nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize, grassroots activists usually compete with politicians. Few of the latter, however, have spent their adult lives searching for peaceful solutions to conflict. Among nominees for this year’s prize, one […]
The houses were made of cardboard
Worldwide, one billion people live in slums. By 2050, it might be two billion. India has the world’s second largest slum population, after China. In 2009, the government launched a plan for a ‘slum free India in five years’: since then, slum growth has continued unabated. Mumbai has more than nine million slum inhabitants, up […]
Brazil ♥ India
Britain may have invented the soap opera but nowhere has the format been promoted more vigorously than in Latin America. For decades, telenovelas have been produced in Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina and elsewhere, and viewed by hundreds of millions daily from Mexico City to Buenos Aires. Their reach extends to the US and (on a more […]
John Perry lives in Masaya, Nicaragua where he works on