May 30, 2023

The Meanest of Streets

NEED TO KNOW The Meanest of Streets HAITI [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/49e3c059-ec02-49d2-b8d4-2a7e10c83ff3.png"] Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva recently called for the richest countries in the world to help Haiti, the violence-wracked, impoverished, politically unstable nation in the Caribbean. “In Haiti, we need to act quickly to alleviate the suffering of...

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May 15, 2023

The Ephemeral Ballot

NEED TO KNOW The Ephemeral Ballot VENEZUELA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f52c66cd-9299-42e6-acd8-f970f62c524b.png"] Venezuelan voters are supposed to go to the polls sometime next year to elect a new government. It’s not actually certain that a ballot will be held, however. That said, as Americas Quarterly wrote, even if an election is held,...

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May 05, 2023

Bona Fides and Possibilities

NEED TO KNOW Bona Fides and Possibilities CHILE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/baed026e-8c02-42fc-8c27-383b8bf87a6c.png"] Early last year, shortly after he was elected president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, 37, quoted a Chilean poem in his remarks at a meeting with the country’s most important industrialists and business leaders. The lines recalled a cemetery in...

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April 28, 2023

Change and Its Discontents

NEED TO KNOW Change and Its Discontents PARAGUAY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ee550bff-ea25-4704-9d3e-337485aa4528.png"] Presidents from the Colorado Party have ruled Paraguay for all but five years since the South American country adopted democracy in 1992. Now, however, as Paraguayan voters head to the polls to elect a new president on April 30,...

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April 21, 2023

Paradise, Imperfect

NEED TO KNOW Paradise, Imperfect COSTA RICA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1680456f-646a-4ee8-9ddf-e349708a0ee2.png"] Those who live in Costa Rica practice what they refer to as the “pure life.” They dwell in a beautiful ecosystem where the culture is easygoing. The country’s army was abolished in 1948. In contrast with the 1980s, when deforestation...

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April 14, 2023

On the Precipice

NEED TO KNOW On the Precipice SURINAME [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c997c02f-c706-4078-b30b-520ec1649e07.png"] Suriname’s gross domestic product (GDP) plunged by 16 percent during the coronavirus pandemic – the second worst dip in South America after the economic basket case of Venezuela. The country defaulted on its debt three times, leading the International Monetary...

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April 07, 2023

Taking Out the Trash

NEED TO KNOW Taking Out the Trash NICARAGUA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b1f74445-4296-4463-949d-e92d66c3e3b1.png"] Nicaraguan officials recently aired a prison interview with Catholic Bishop Rolando Álvarez, who in February was sentenced to more than 36 years in prison on charges of treason. Critics said the interview was staged to deflate criticism of the...

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March 28, 2023

The Forever Search

NEED TO KNOW The Forever Search MEXICO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/fcd100e2-d1bb-4cd7-b9f4-53a07a70e41c.png"] In what the BBC called a “twisted moral code,” Mexican mobsters affiliated with the Scorpions Group, a faction of the drug-running Gulf Cartel crime syndicate, recently forced five of their members to turn themselves in to police for murdering two...

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March 23, 2023

Voting With Feet

NEED TO KNOW Voting With Feet CUBA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/934b8716-56c1-487d-ba72-11a855fa10c6.png"] Almost 23 years ago, heavily armed federal agents wearing body armor seized five-year-old Elián González from his relatives’ home in Miami and returned him to his father, ultimately to be taken back to Cuba. The photo of the incident was a...

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March 09, 2023

S.O.S.

NEED TO KNOW S.O.S. HAITI [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/49e3c059-ec02-49d2-b8d4-2a7e10c83ff3.png"] The United Nations has appointed Ecuadoran diplomat Maria Isabel Salvador to help Haiti rebuild after a devastating earthquake in 2010, the dissolution of parliament in 2020, the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, and the subsequent explosion in crime, gang violence...

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March 02, 2023

A Dragon in the Shadows

NEED TO KNOW A Dragon in the Shadows PARAGUAY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ee550bff-ea25-4704-9d3e-337485aa4528.png"] When voters in Paraguay go to the polls on April 30, they will vote for every high office in the land – president, vice president, all 80 lawmakers in the Chamber of Deputies and all 45 senators, as...

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February 13, 2023

Revolt of the Incas

NEED TO KNOW Revolt of the Incas PERU [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7d13971f-19d8-4bc2-ac9e-119d2f349be4.png"] The Peruvian city of Juliaca recently felt like a warzone. “Burning pyres of rubbish and bullet-pocked walls … troops holed up in the airport with AK-47s and riot shields, waiting for a truce that has no date to come …...

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February 09, 2023

Rumbles in the Household

NEED TO KNOW Rumbles in the Household CANADA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c7ee49a6-d768-4bd1-93d6-b44b086c3c21.png"] French-speaking Canadians concentrated in the province of Quebec have long sought more autonomy from the central government in Ottawa and the rest of the mainly English-speaking North American country – to the point of wanting to secede from the...

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February 02, 2023

Murder, and Other Disasters

NEED TO KNOW Murder, and Other Disasters ECUADOR [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7dbfcec9-d17b-43ce-97b7-0ce48bb12d1f.png"] Under the conservative government of President Guillermo Lasso, Ecuador’s economy grew 3.2 percent last year, inflation today is relatively low compared with the region, employers have hired 500,000 people and 750,000 fewer Ecuadorians now live in poverty. In an interview...

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January 17, 2023

The Exile and the Mob

NEED TO KNOW The Exile and the Mob BRAZIL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b4df2610-e790-44f6-bec1-f859c705ae8b.png"] The former president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, might finally be planning to return to his native country after decamping for Florida in late December, shortly before his successor, the now incumbent Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,...

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January 11, 2023

Breathing Politics

NEED TO KNOW Breathing Politics BRAZIL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b4df2610-e790-44f6-bec1-f859c705ae8b.png"] On Jan. 1, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was sworn in as the new president of Brazil. A week later, supporters of his opponent, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, stormed Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Presidential Palace to try to...

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January 04, 2023

Cry For Me

NEED TO KNOW Cry For Me ARGENTINA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/76e4f41e-d963-4fc8-b435-ba5bf19812a5.png"] The throngs that crowded Buenos Aires and other Argentine cities after the South American country’s World Cup victory testified to a vibrant country that can field world-class athletic teams, as a photo essay in the Atlantic portrayed. But the unorganized...

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December 29, 2022

When Dullness Is a Virtue

READERS’ CHOICE When Dullness Is a Virtue URUGUAY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ca7fb39c-8156-49ef-9ea8-c114f0eb8b34.png"] Most Uruguayans bristle at the notion of patriotism. Leave that to Argentina, Uruguay’s southern neighbor, they say, or to Brazil, the behemoth to the north. Uruguay – with the possible exception of when its national soccer team is in action...

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December 27, 2022

A Doll’s Tale

READERS’ CHOICE A Doll’s Tale DOMINICAN REPUBLIC [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ae32d602-c1f9-4efc-a9cc-527c8df8f863.png"] There’s a doll found everywhere in the Dominican Republic, a celebrated local handicraft known as the Muñecas Limé, usually sporting a braid, a dress and a hat, and carrying a basket of fruit or flowers. The colors vary, but the...

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December 20, 2022

Rule By Chaos

NEED TO KNOW Rule By Chaos PERU [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7d13971f-19d8-4bc2-ac9e-119d2f349be4.png"] Foreign tourists were recently stranded at Machu Picchu, the 15th-century Incan citadel and UNESCO World Heritage Site, CNN wrote, amid a major political crisis in Peru. Officials declared a state of emergency, reported the Associated Press, shutting public transportation amid...

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