Cuba is experiencing a wave of U.S. “unofficial” tourism. Even as the hidebound communist regimes claims it isn’t looking for U.S. investment, the contact with tourists and U.S. communications are changing Cuba from the bottom up.
On the campaign trail, Jimmy Morales skillfully avoided any details about his platform or policy plans. That vagueness has left a lot of questions about what President Morales will do in office: chief among them is whether he will continue the prosecutions against the military for human rights abuses.
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?
When journalists are intimidated into self-censorship and governments distort or hide data on violence, the real victim is a responsible debate on security and crime. Sadly, that’s what’s happening in El Salvador and Honduras.
This past May, El Salvador suffered its highest murder rate since the end of the country’s civil war 23 years ago. But this grisly flash of news—what journalists in the region call the nota roja—doesn’t give the wider context. There’s another story to be told here beyond the numbers: how Latin American journalists are affected by the violence they cover and how, in turn, their coverage is creating a cultural acceptance of violence.
Conspiracy theories are a standard way for populists to distract citizens and stoke up their base. But the governments in Argentina, Ecuador and—particularly—Venezuela have turned it into a real art form.
