Stories about Latin America from January, 2007
Peru: Video of Lima in the 50's
PosPost has posted some black and white videos of Lima from the 1950's which were found on Archive.org.
Puerto Rico: Learning English
Studies show that although English is a compulsory subject in Puerto Rican schools from elementary level upwards, only 20% of the country's population has a mastery of the language. Eugenio Martínez Rodríguez thinks he knows why.
Brazilian Blogs on Chávez, Lula and the Mercosur Summit
Presidents from most South American countries are gathered in Rio de Janeiro for a meeting of the Mercosur trading group, and Hugo Chavez is again the attention drawer. Local bloggers have been substantially posting about the Venezuelan president since he announced the move to cancel the broadcasting license to (TV...
Cuba: Sexual diversity
Zenia presents a portrait (ES) of two same-sex couples living lives of relative tranquility in Cuba, and concludes that the climate in the country has become more tolerant of homosexuals since the days of the film “Strawberry and Chocolate”.
Mexico: Manuel Andrade Díaz: Hefty Spending
Mark in Mexico shows how ex-governor Manuel Andrade Díaz “fattened up” at Tabasco's expense including a costly highway monument to himself.
El Salvador: Assessment of the Peace Accords 15 Years Later
January 16 marked the 15th anniversary of the signing of the Peace Accords which ended the 12 year long civil war in El Salvador. Tim Muth offers his own assessment of their effectiveness a decade and a half later.
Chile: A Ride for the Climate
Eco-trans-hemispheric cyclist Dave of A Ride for the Climate has arrived to Santiago, Chile where he was featured in the English daily The Santiago Times as well as La Nacion.
Bolivia: Update on a Crisis
While Jim Shultz does not believe that protesters either in opposition or support of Governor Manfred Reyes were paid to be there, he does think that “those on the streets (and the families affected who weren't in the streets) were caught in a political power play that none of them...
Argentina: Buenos Aires Japanese Gardens
Both Alan Patrick of Buenos Aires Travel Guide and Buenos Aires Weekly give tours of the Japanese Gardens in the Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires.
Colombia: Paramilitary and Politics
Forum on Democracy has translated an Op-Ed by anthropologist Aldo Civico which “compares the collusion between politicians and paramilitaries in Colombia, to the Mafia-controlled government of Palermo in the 1970s.”
Bolivia: “Women Creating” Against Evo Morales
Francisco Giglio has posted photos from the Casa de la Culture in La Paz by a group of female anarchist artists called Mujeres Creando (“Women Creating”) protesting Evo Morales’ government. Rosario Lizana has transcribed the text [ES] from one of the photographs.
Chilean Bloggers on Bolivia’s Chaos
Chilean Bloggers are concerned with what is happening in Bolivia. As Tomás Bradanovic (ES) explains: La horrible situación por la que está atravesando Bolivia tiene en su base un enorme malentendido donde tanto el gobierno como la oposición son incapaces de comprender el pensamiento del otro. Juzgan y actúan equivocadamente...
Haiti: Reflecting on National Soccer
Reflecting on Haiti's recent defeat at the hands of the Trinidad & Tobago soccer/football team, Collectif Haiti de Provence writes (Fr): “Yes, formerly our regional rivals had names like Mexico. Today we align with difficulty with nations where soccer/football has no popularity and hence no budget: Cuba, Martinique, Dominican Republic....
Cuba: Show yourself, Fidel
Ziva demands that ailing Cuban president Fidel Castro stand up and be accounted for: “Where the hell is fidel? He's healing? Show us a photo, send us a current tape that proves he's alive, not something that looks photo-shopped. Adidas? Where the hell is his uniform? If you want people...
Jamaica, Colombia: Identity etc
In response to some questions posed to him in December, Jamaican writer Geoffrey Philp writes an open letter recounting a visit to a Colombian restaurant in Florida with his (part-Colombian) family: “Of course, I’ve chosen to blog about it and this is one way about talking about your questions, which...
Chile: Last Words of Salvador Allende
Professor Zero puts up some YouTubed archival footage of the 1973 bombing of the Palacio de la Moneda in Santiago dubbed with the final speech of President Salvador Allende who was killed in the coup attack. An English translation of that speech is also available.
Mexico: IHOP in San Pedro
Noting the recent arrival of American restaurants like Chilis and Starbucks, Ocho Cuartos is still a bit surprised to hear that IHOP, or International House of Pancakes, will be making its debut [ES] in the upscale Monterrey neighborhood of San Pedro.
Bolivia: Waiting in Cochabamba, Making Demands in El Alto
Writing from Cochabamba, Jim Shultz reports that soldiers are maintaining at least a façade of calm while Bolivia Rising translates an article from La Razón about demands from El Alto for the immediate resignations of Cochabamba Prefect Manfred Reyes Villa and La Paz Prefect Jose Luis Paredes.
Guatemala: Apocalypto in Context
Nowadays about 80% percent of the population in Guatemala has their genetic and cultural origins in ancient Mayan culture; that was not a uniform group but a Society formed by alliances among several groups in Mesoamerica, reaching its highests point in the Classical Period. The biggest mayan city, Tikal, is...
Chile: Burning Alive
Chileno points his sarcastic pen first at a man who burned himself alive (only to jump into a nearby fountain) and then the Chilean telecommunications monopoly, Telefónica.
Colombia: A Dirty War Against Paramilitaries?
“In early December, shortly after President Álvaro Uribe confined most of Colombia's paramilitary leadership in a maximum-security prison, an article in El Tiempo, the country's most-circulated newspaper, contended that the paramilitaries had one ‘secret weapon’ left. If they felt they were getting a bad deal out of the negotiation process,...
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