Uruguayan-Spanish journalist, editor, and blogger. Currently living in Chile, tweeting in English and Spanish under @silviavinas, and blogging on silviavinas.com
Latest posts by Silvia Viñas
VIDEO: ‘Happy’ in El Salvador
Salvadorans have created their own version of the song “Happy” by Pharrell Williams. Blogger Mildred Largaespada praises the video on her Facebook page [es]: It's beautiful. And yes, as in real life, this is also real: During most of the day, women and men of El Salvador are happy rather...
Amnesty International: ‘Spiral of Violence a Threat to Rule of Law in Venezuela’
Amnesty International has released a report which documents “allegations of human rights violations and abuses committed in the context of the massive public demonstrations since early February.” “The country runs the risk of descending into a spiral of violence unless steps are taken to bring the conflicting parties around the...
15 Free (or Very Cheap) Things to Do in Bogotá, Colombia
Bogotá and its price points tend to get a bad rap. This is a very valid point when you consider that the average monthly salary in the city as of 2013 was just over 1 million pesos (about $500 at the current exchange rate), and that it has the biggest...
Unlocking Time: A Collective Virtual Album of Old Photos from Latin America
All links lead to Spanish-language pages #plenoverano en ABRIR EL TIEMPO: los animales inflables en el mar. Fotos playeras de Uruguay, 1940! pic.twitter.com/IM3Tg801 — Abrir el tiempo (@abrireltiempo) January 16, 2013 Summer in Unlocking Time: Inflatable animals in the sea. Beach photos from Uruguay, 1940! Abrir el tiempo (Unlocking Time)...
Zapatista Textbook Now Available in English
Put on your thinking caps because the first of four Zapatista textbooks from last year’s widely popular escuelita (little school) have been translated to English. For those who are not yet familiar, the Zapatista Escuelita (Zapatista little school), brought 1630 students from around the world to learn what it really...
El Salvador's Election Tribunal Announces Winner in Presidential Race
El Salvador's election tribunal announced that Salvador Sánchez Cerén of the left-wing FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front) beat conservative candidate Norman Quijano from the ARENA (Nationalist Republican Alliance) party on Sunday's run-off election. Sánchez Cerén won with 50.11% of the vote. Linda from Linda's El Salvador Blog served as an...
5 Important Points on Colombia's Parliamentary Elections
Bloggings by boz lists 5 points on Colombia's parliamentary elections, which took place on March 9, 2014. 1) Though his coalition lost seats, President Santos keeps a divided and fragile majority coalition in Congress. […] 2) Colombia's party system is divided and weak. No party received over 20% of the...
Mexicans are Pushing for the ‘Redemocratization’ of Democracy
The Mexican population is not with Peña Nieto or the political class. Even the polls, which are generally most sympathetic to the president, accept that no one supports Peña Nieto. The political class seems to think it’s just because the economy hasn’t grown, but it goes far beyond that. Mexicans...
El Salvador Second Round Election Too Close to Call
Salvadorans went to the polls on Sunday, March 9 to vote in a run-off presidential election, but results are so close that both candidates have declared themselves winners and the Supreme Electoral Tribunal has announced that they will do a complete recount in the coming days. In a report about...
16 Women Rocking Chile
A photo essay in the website Sentidos Comunes [es] highlights 16 outstanding Chilean women who “are the protagonists of the public agenda in the next five or ten years.” The list includes photographer Paloma Palomino, politician Karol Cariola, journalist Isabel Plant, filmmaker Dominga Sotomayor, and illustrator Fran Meneses.
Political Representation: A Key Struggle for Afro-descendants in Colombia
With 5 million people, or 10.6% of the total population, Colombia has the largest Afro-descendant population in Latin America, behind only Brazil, according to a 2005 census. There are, however, serious difficulties in quantifying blackness, given the mixed ethnic backgrounds of many Colombians. The stigma associated with African descent in much...
Can Scientists Help Preserve Latin America's Cultural Heritage?
“We would suggest you dress up a little bit more ‘formal’ when you have to interact with clients”. By “formal” he means, you have to renounce your cultural heritage because you belong to an indigenous group in Ecuador and your look is too ‘ethnic’ for business. This is a...
Honduras Launches Online Dictionary of Indigenous Languages
A dictionary of Honduran indigenous languages was recently released online [es]. Honduran newspaper Tiempo [es] explains that this dictionary “registers the equivalent [words] in Spanish, chortí, garífuna, isleño, miskito, pech, tawahka and tolupán, languages that make up the country's linguistic heritage.” For example, a search for the Spanish word for...
PHOTOS: Venezuelan Women March for Peace in Caracas
Women who support the government of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro took to the streets on Saturday, February 22, to demand an end to the violence that has been sweeping the country as protests continue. Photographer Jesus Gil shared photos of the demonstration on Demotix: The day before the march, Andreína...
List of Deceased in Venezuela Protests Available in 5 Languages
In the blog Panfleto Negro [es], John Manuel Silva and Emiliana Duarte are keeping a list of confirmed deaths from the ongoing protests taking place in Venezuela. The list -originally in Spanish- has been translated into English, German, Italian and French.
Brief Summary of the Situation in Venezuela for the Curious or Poorly Informed
The protests are being carried out in many parts of the country and are lacking in center and direction, having being called through social media networks. Among the protesters themselves, there are many diverse opinions about the opposition political parties, so it’s possible to find many expressions of support and...
Venezuela Protests: ‘Dear International Media: Step it Up!’
Dear International Editor: Listen and understand. The game changed in Venezuela last night. What had been a slow-motion unravelling that had stretched out over many years went kinetic all of a sudden. What we have this morning is no longer the Venezuela story you thought you understood. In the blog Caracas...
VIDEO: Toward a Fair and Inclusive Education System in Chile
In the video above by Open Society Foundations, Giorgio Jackson, former student leader and newly elected parliamentarian in Chile, discusses the education system in his country and what it means to have an “open society.” Trine Petersen writes: A fair and inclusive system that makes education available to all is...
Collecting Data About Possible Web Censorship in Venezuela
Marianne Díaz, lawyer, digital activist and Global Voices Advocacy author, has been making constant appeals from her Twitter account asking users to collaborate on collecting data related to access to some websites and online platforms from Internet service providers in Venezuela, due to growing reports of partial or total blockage...
Ecuador Makes List of Countries Where Press Freedom Has Declined
Ecuador is the only Latin American country featured on the Committee to Project Journalists’ (CPJ) annual Risk List. CPJ explains: The list is based on the expertise of CPJ staff, but also takes into account press freedom indicators such as journalist fatalities and imprisonments, restrictive legislation, state censorship, impunity in anti-press...
‘Costa Ricans Are Fed Up’
A myriad of articles about the recent Costa Rican elections have proclaimed the country’s “turn to the left.” Perhaps some do this because it is simply too convenient to whip up an article or op-ed about leftist victories in El Salvador and Costa Rica. Or perhaps some are still trapped...
