Latest from Latin Pulse – September 25

Culture and politics provide the themes on Latin Pulse this week. The program looks backward at the end of the popular Univision program Sabado Gigante and how it survived despite criticisms of its content. The program provided a cultural link on Saturday evenings to many audiences throughout Latin America. Latin Pulse also reviews the upcoming presidential elections in Argentina and how the final stage of the presidency of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner casts a shadow on the process.

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admin September 28, 2015

What Cuban Jews and Pope Francis can tell us about the promise of change in Cuba

Despite the shrinking size of their community over the years due to emigration, Cuba’s remaining Jews have done their best to sustain their ritual and community spaces. Reforms in the 1990s allowed outsiders to visit on religious grounds, including visits, cultural exchanges and support from American Jews. As small as the Cuban community is today, it was, and is, sustained in many ways by the support of those abroad. Their story points to the importance of contact across borders—embodied in the recent U.S.-Cuba changes—and how it builds and sustains the values of tolerance and pluralism.

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Natasha Zaretsky September 28, 2015

The Jon Stewart of Guatemala?

As former President Pérez Molina sits in jail, former comedian Jimmy Morales is the front-runner in the campaign for President of Guatemala. The Morales campaign was not central to the anti-corruption marches that brought down Pérez Molina, but he has become the politician most associated with the protest movement and the end of Pérez Molina. Is Morales the real face of the “Guatemalan Spring” or just the accidental beneficiary of the protests?

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Rick Rockwell September 25, 2015

Honduras – Innovation in the fight against gangs and narcotrafficking

The approach chosen by Honduras to combat gangs and narcotics trafficking is not perfect. Yet despite its military character and the unrelated, but distracting, political crisis currently faced by the Hernández government, the Honduran approach to the nation’s overwhelming security challenges is creative, credible, and home-grown.

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Evan Ellis September 24, 2015

Latest from Latin Pulse – September 18

It’s the fourth anniversary of Latin Pulse, and the program celebrates in its own way: a medley of out-takes and pithy comments from the most popular programs of the past year. The topics on the program range from a review of the crisis of unaccompanied minors on the U.S.-Mexico border to covering various fronts in the Drug War.

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admin September 21, 2015

Preview of UNHRC 30 and predictions on how Latin American countries will vote

The United Nations Human Rights Council opened this week, and on its agenda are the heated topics of Sri Lanka, Ukraine and Syria. The region has historically split in votes on these issues, with a majority, led by Argentina and Brazil, supporting the protection of human rights. On the other side, Cuba and Venezuela have helped to lead the movement to prioritize national sovereignty over the human rights.

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Amy Williams September 18, 2015

The importance of human rights to sovereignty

In a speech before the start of the new session, the head of the UN Human Rights Commission emphasized the complementarity between human rights and national sovereignty. Was his message intended for any specific countries and their representatives on the Council?

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admin September 18, 2015

UNASUR’s epic fail… again

UNASUR’s statement that it would not question the judicial decisions of its member states over the recent sentencing of Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez was as predictable as it was troubling. It’s a perfect example of how the region has regressed, with little respect for its troubled past and a warning of things to come.

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Christopher Sabatini September 17, 2015

Latin America’s Middle Class

The first decade of the 21st century was a good one for Latin America. A recent Pew Research Center report estimates that some 63 million individuals entered the

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admin September 16, 2015

Breaking promises

Corruption scandals and slowing economic growth have forced President Michelle Bachelet to backtrack on her campaign promises. Now facing the lowest levels of popular approval for any elected president since the 1990 transition, can Bachelet re-focus her government’s policy drift in time for the 2016 local elections?

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admin September 15, 2015
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