Women’s empowerment and political participation are not only crucial for women: they are essential for effective democratic governance, one which promotes human rights and equity. The same can be said about the importance of boosting youth political participation. The U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) invited three young women parliamentarians from Latin America and the Caribbean to join a recent discussion in Salamanca, Spain, on young women’s political participation in the...

In a run- off election on December 15thpresidential candidate Michelle Bachelet, who was Chile’s president from 2006 to 2010, was again voted into office. The victory was overwhelming as Bachelet took more than 60% of the vote against her opponent Evelyn Mathei of the conservative Independent Democratic Union party, who is also a childhood friend of Bachelet. Bachelet ran on a platform that responded directly to the student protests and other strikes that the country experienced in the...

Latin America and the Caribbean will celebrate at least . This is good news. It reflects a region that has by-and-large consolidated democracy, and where an entire generation has now grown up with the expectation that elections are the only legitimate way to select national leaders. However, this cycle of elections in Latin America is taking place at very different juncture than the ones that took place during the first decade of the 21st century, with important consequences for the...

Early this year the Argentine prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, disclosed a 500-page document of evidence of Iran’s terrorist networks in Latin America. It included a number of countries, among which were Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guyana, Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, and Uruguay. Iran’s activities in some of these countries are carried out with the direct or indirect support from the local government. For example, in my , I described the role played by the...

Iran is quietly seeking to expand its ties with Latin America in what U.S. officials and regional experts say is an effort to circumvent economic sanctions and gain access to much-needed markets and raw materials. The new diplomatic offensive, which comes amid rising tensions with Washington and European powers, includes a four-nation swing through South and Central America this month by . His government has vowed to increase its economic, political and military influence in the United...

Inertia is deceptive. While the Israeli-Palestinian peace proces is stalled, thanks to Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas refusing to return to direct talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on parallel tracks P.A. leaders are lining up countries publicly supporting a Palestinian state before it is actually created. The P.A. is focused on Latin America, which it is determined to add to the guaranteed Arab and Muslim state votes that ensure a U.N. General Assembly majority....

The conference that drew Latin American leaders from all walks of life to a college campus in California was billed as a celebration of 200 years of independence for the region. However, the focus at the Institute of the Americas was not on past triumphs, but on the difficulties that many countries face today in strengthening democracy and the rule of law. As Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez said, “The transition to democracy has been a success story for all of Latin...

AT DAWN on September 16th 1810 Miguel Hidalgo, the parish priest of Dolores, a small town in central Mexico, rang the bells of his church to raise the cry of rebellion against the Spanish crown. Mexico, Spain’s richest American colony, thus joined a struggle for independence which had already seen the colonial authorities ousted and rebel juntas installed in Caracas, Buenos Aires and other South American cities. Two years earlier, following Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of the...

Latin America Specific Recommendations: As is the case with Native Americans in the United States, for the 40 million indigenous citizens of Mexico and Central and South America the possession of commonly held ancestral land goes beyond mere economic survival-although it also serves tens of millions for that purpose as well. The ability to govern themselves, to establish and maintain group rights and territorial control of lands that form part of their cultural inheritance, to empower...

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the start of Latin America’s struggle for political independence against the Spanish crown. Outsiders might be forgiven for concluding that there is not much to celebrate. In Mexico, which marks its bicentennial next week, drug gangs have met a government crackdown with mayhem on a scale not seen since the country’s revolution of a century ago. The recent discovery of the corpses of 72 would-be migrants, some from as far south as Brazil, in...