Latin America

Big Agra-driven Deforestation is behind floods in South America

El Niño is a cyclical phenomenon, is part of nature, but its effects can be exacerbated by deforestation. The top-three causes of the recent floods in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay are El Niño, AgriBusiness and extremely lousy location of villages. The El Niño phenomenon has brought more rain than usual to south of Latin America, but it alone does not explain the overflowing rivers that have forced over 160,000 ...Read full article...

Costa Rica Under Siege

A politico-military entity is running rampant in the country with the complicity of the sitting president, Luis Guillermo Solis. Costa Rica is well-known worldwide for its natural beauty, friendly population and protection of natural resources. It has even been called the Central American Switzerland. The country has not had an active military since it was abolished over half a century ago. However, that does not mean that Costa Rica ...Read full article...

Latin America Faces a Dark Uncertain Future

Just a few months ago, I wrote about Latin America’s new challenges for the near future. Undoubtedly, the region was adrift back in May, and that situation has gotten worse since then. Latin America had experienced high levels of uncertainty due to its unstable economic and political realities. Now, it seems to be entering a period of transition and no one wants to risk a good forecast about the future. ...Read full article...

Dilma Rousseff to face Impeachment Proceedings

The president of the Chamber of Deputies, Eduardo Cunha, who is himself being investigated for corruption, announced Wednesday to a group of journalists that he decided to accept one of the 28 impeachment requests filed this year against Rousseff. Dilma was re-elected in October 2014 and immediately immersed herself in a political and economic crisis that has overshadowed her government in 2015. The request to dismiss Rousseff accuses her ...Read full article...

The Brazilian Economy has Yet to Bottom Out

The Brazilian economy is like a rotting corpse. Everyone knows it is dead and everyone can smell its decomposing remains from far away. The only reason why the economy in Brazil has not totally imploded is due to the same reason other large economies in the western world have not collapsed. Governments have been resourcing to perpetual indebtedness and out of control money printing to cope with the weakening ...Read full article...

Deutsche Bank cuts 35.000 Jobs in Latin America

eutsche Bank, the biggest German bank, announced yesterday what it called a major restructuring. Its new president, John Cryan, used his first press conference to present hard adjustment plans “to clean up the bank”. After taking record losses of more than 6 billion euros in the third quarter, Cryan said the bank will reduce its workforce by more than 35,000 employees in the next two years. The bank will ...Read full article...

Farmers oppose Construction of Nicaragua Canal

Managua, the Capital city of the country has been paralysed due to the protests. housands of Nicaraguan peasants marched from the countryside to the capital to oppose the construction of a canal whose grant was given to a Chinese businessman, and whose construction is valued at $50 billion dollars. The project has encountered many protests from environmental organizations, although Daniel Ortega’s government argues that it is a great commercial ...Read full article...

Corrupt Politicians in Brazil Exempt Themselves from Corruption

Congressional Commission exonerates Lula and Dilma in Petrobras corruption case. oday the mafia that governs Brazil woke up laughing out loud at the people who thought the country still had a future. The mafia cannot stop laughing at the people who thought that the politicians of the Worker’s Party (PT) and the PMDB would do justice in the Petrobras scandal. According to the report of the congressional commission, there ...Read full article...

Rousseff’s Government still breaking Accounting Laws

The government of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has committed and continues to commit “serious irregularities” in the management of public accounts, said Friday the prosecutor in charge of investigating government wrongdoings with public funds. The member of the Public Accounts Ministry, Julio Marcelo de Oliveira, detected manoeuvres by the government during the last fiscal year to manipulate its standing. These practices have been found to be illegal by the ...Read full article...

Brazilian Political Elite postpones start of Impeachment against Rousseff

In Brazil, unlawful maneuvers by the Rousseff administration are ‘forgiven’ because they were committed in a different administration. On Tuesday, the country woke up expecting some outcome, for better or worse, on the future of President Dilma Rousseff: the leader of the Chamber of Deputies, Eduardo Cunha, had to accept or reject the opening of impeachment proceedings for alleged irregularities in government accounts in 2014. But the plot has ...Read full article...

Impeachment knocks on Dilma Rousseff’s door

Brazilian legislators decide Dilma Rousseff’s political future. The signs of corruption in the Rousseff administration are undeniable. Federal police and national prosecutors have found enough proof to open investigations against corporate leaders, politicians, congressmen and even the former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. So, why not a full investigation on Dilma Rousseff’s actions regarding her administration’s accounting practices? Brazil has, for the moment, more questions than answers, but ...Read full article...

Brazilian Court Approves Investigation of Rousseff’s Reelection Campaign

The Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) of Brazil decided Tuesday night to reopen the process of investigation into alleged irregularities in the election campaign of President Dilma Rousseff. The action was filed by the opposition party, the PSDB, which calls for the annulment of the mandate of the president and her vice president, Michel Temer. The Electoral Court approved a measure to re-open the investigation by a vote of 5 ...Read full article...

Dilma Rousseff ‘splits the loot’ to hold on to her Presidency

I am strong, and I won’t be bullied by false accusations. I do not intend to leave power. This is what we heard from Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, just a few weeks ago as the economic and political storms grew larger in Brazil. This week, Rousseff’s tone has changed radically as she has been obligated to split the loot with her political adversaries to avoid her imminent fall from ...Read full article...

Dilma Rousseff Upsets Peasant Organizations

The most traditional core of supporters of the Worker’s Party (PT) has shown its dissatisfaction and opposition to Dilma Rousseff’s latest round of austerity. The Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Teto (MST) has illegally occupied a particular farm to demand housing. Taking over private property is a common practice in Brazil, where even the government joins farmers and landless people to get them into some land. The occupation is aimed ...Read full article...

Dilma Rousseff seeks Authoritarian powers

There is nothing more dangerous than a bold politician on a power trip whose authoritarian desires blind her up to the point of believing that she should get even more power. In Brazil, career politicians like Dilma Rousseff and Lula da Silva, who have been immune to accountability for years, are now resourcing to authoritarian measures to neutralize popular opposition to new austerity policies. According to local press reports, ...Read full article...