Tag: Latin America

The Coming Atlantic Century

Saharan dust reaches the Americas
Saharan dust reaches the Americas. Photo: NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center/flickr.

PRINCETON – The United States is rising; Europe is stabilizing; and both are moving closer together. That was the principal message earlier this month at the annual Munich Security Conference (MSC), a high-powered gathering of defense ministers, foreign ministers, senior military officials, parliamentarians, journalists, and national-security experts of every variety.

The participants come primarily from Europe and the US; indeed, when the conference began in 1963, it was focused entirely on NATO members. This year, however, senior government officials from Brazil, China, India, Nigeria, Singapore, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia also joined, an important sign of the times.

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Regional Stability

Time to Deal with the Epidemic of Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean

Police take a suspected drug trafficker off a helicopter in Hermosillo in the state of Sonora. Photo: Knight Foundation/flickr

The daily bloodshed on the United States’ doorstep is the clearest sign that something is rotten in the neighborhood. Headless torsos swinging from lampposts in Ciudad Juárez in Mexico contrast all too sharply with the clean streets of El Paso just across the border, ranked one of the safest city’s in the United States. But Mexico is not alone in experiencing alarming rates of violence. Taken together, the Americas are home to 14 percent of the world’s population, but more than 31 percent of its homicides according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

A ruthless epidemic of violence is afflicting many states and cities in Central and South America and the Caribbean. The region’s homicide rate is more than double the global average. And in contrast to other parts of the world, whether North America, Western Europe, Africa, or Asia, the patient is getting sicker. Six of the top ten most violent countries in the world are in Latin America and the Caribbean, with most of the victims consisting of young men under 30-years of age. Violence against women is also intensifying. And for youth living in low-income settings, there is a 1 in 50 chance that they will be killed before they reach their 31st birthday.

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Global Voices

Combatting Cocaine Production in Bolivia, Colombia and Peru

Destroying coca plants in the lush mountains in Medellin, Colombia. Photo by Viewpress. Copyright Demotix (05/30/2012)
Destroying coca plants in the lush mountains in Medellin, Colombia. Photo by Viewpress. Copyright Demotix (05/30/2012)

The coca plant is native to the Andes. Its bush has been cultivated and traditionally consumed by local people for centuries. Many products and the leaves themselves can be legally purchased in Peru and Bolivia.

However, coca leaves are also the raw material for the production of cocaine. As a result, Peru, Colombia and Bolivia are the three largest illegal cocaine producing countries in the world.

According to the UNODC World Drug Report 2012 there was an overall decline in global production of cocaine between 2006 and 2010. This was in part due to the reduction of coca bush cultivation in Colombia. In spite of this, the report also underlines that in the same period coca bush cultivation and cocaine production actually increased in Bolivia and Peru.

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Global Voices

Is Bolivia’s Anti-US Rhetoric Harming its Diplomatic Relations?

Image from presidenciaecuador/Flickr.
Image from presidenciaecuador/Flickr.

In the last decade the balance of power has changed in South America. The US hegemony exerted in the second part of the 20th century has been challenged, primarily by the solid emergence of Brazil but also by political initiatives led by left-wing governments like Bolivia.

Despite its relatively small size the landlocked country at the heart of South America, has championed anti-US initiatives since 2006, when President Evo Morales, a left-wing indigenous leader and coca-growers’ unionist, was democratically elected.

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Argentina’s Energy Dilemma

The Repsol-YPF Tower in Argentina
The Repsol-YPF Tower in Argentina. Image by Wikimedia Commons.

BUENOS AIRES – The expropriation of nearly all of the Spanish company Repsol’s stake in Argentina’s energy producer YPF, announced in a vehement speech by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, has raised legal alarms worldwide. In fact, the move will not resolve the country’s energy problems in the absence of enormous inflows of investment to the sector.

Repsol acquired complete control of YPF in 1999; in February 2008, it transferred part of its shares to the Petersen Group, which today holds 25%. Repsol currently holds 57%, with the rest owned by stock-market investors. The Argentine government intends to expropriate 51%, leaving Repsol with a 6% stake.

In the 2008 sale of shares, the two majority stockholders agreed to distribute at least 90% of future profits in cash. That decision was intended to allow the Petersen Group to service the debts to banks, and to Repsol itself, that it incurred with its share purchase, for which it made no initial payment.

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