As anti-American feelings are being cultivated in large parts of Latin America, not much attention is being paid to the potential consequences that this may eventually have. Propaganda is easy to dismiss as non-sense. But propaganda can unfortunately work. It is sometimes easy for those who are better informed to disregard propaganda as being the work of fanatics whose discourse is so ridiculous that nobody in his right mind would take it seriously. Yet, the effects of propaganda are...

International organizations have a surprising ability to perpetuate themselves, even when they have lost their raison d'être. This phenomenon may explain the sustained survival of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Founded during the Cold War with the alleged objective of establishing a body that positioned itself somewhere between Western countries and the Communist bloc, the NAM survived the East-West confrontation, becoming an umbrella under which emerging powers like India joined forces...

Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa granted Wikileaker Julian Assange political asylum Thursday in a bid to whitewash his own image as an oppressor of free speech. The theatrical Correa called for a gathering of Latin America's leftist cadre to confront any backlash, declaring, " No one is going to terrorize us! " In June, Assange jumped bail in London after exhausting all appeals in British courts in his effort to evade extradition to Sweden, where he faces several separate rape...

Following a two-year investigation, federal prosecutors have submitted a mindboggling 30,000 pages of documentation and 2,000 recorded phone calls that paint an extensive picture of how one of Mexico's most powerful drug-trafficking organizations raises, moves and eventually washes its illicit funds. The indictment, issued by the Northern District of Texas, charges fifteen people with laundering millions of dollars in drug profits on a sleepy Oklahoma ranch on behalf of the Los Zetas cartel,...

LA MACANILLA, Venezuela - The Venezuelan government has trumpeted one major blow after another against drug traffickers, showing off barrels of liquid cocaine seized, drug planes recovered, cocaine labs raided and airstrips destroyed. But a visit this month to a remote region of Venezuela's vast western plains, which a Colombian guerrilla group has turned into one of the world's busiest transit hubs for the movement of cocaine to the United States, has shown that the government's triumphant...

A police report reveals the meeting of a Brazilian drug lord and the Bolivian government’s second-in-command. Bolivia’s President Evo Morales is proud to encourage the cultivation of coca, the raw material for more than half of the cocaine and crack consumed in Brazil, arguing that its leaves are used to produce tea and traditional medicines. However, the United Nations (UN) estimates that only one-third of the coca planted in the country is necessary to meet this demand. The...

Known as El Chapo for his short, stocky frame, Guzmán is 55, which in narco-years is about 150. He is a quasi-mythical figure in Mexico, the subject of countless ballads, who has outlived enemies and accomplices alike, defying the implicit bargain of a life in the drug trade: that careers are glittering but brief and always terminate in prison or the grave. When Pablo Escobar was Chapo’s age, he had been dead for more than a decade. In fact, according to the Drug Enforcement...

In the past six months, Iran has been making an offensive on all fronts - on the commercial, military, diplomatic and information fronts - with Latin America as the scene, and without minding the cost. Tehran considers the region as one of the points of principal support, in order to overcome their growing international isolation which it is experiencing as a consequence of its nuclear program, and it has decided to act on all levels, multiplying its presence in a region of the world which...

On Wednesday, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad touched down in Brazil for his first state visit to the South American nation since 2009. The ostensible reason is to attend the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, a high-profile gathering of more than 100 heads of state taking place in Rio de Janeiro. But high on Ahmadinejad’s priority list is an important bit of diplomacy: reinvigorating the once-robust ties between Tehran and Brasilia. For Iran, Brazil is a potential...

The 42nd General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) took place in Cochabamba, Bolivia on June 4, 2012. Again the coming together of all the nations of the Western Hemisphere was effectively used by the Bolivarian countries to weaken the OAS Democratic Charter and reduce the influence of the United States. As during the Summit of the Americas this past April, Venezuela and its allies in the Bolivarian alliance insisted on the inclusion of Cuba. One after another ALBA country...