WorldcrunchBorn in Tehran, educated in Britain and France, I have been a freelance translator since the late 1990s.
CHRISTOPHERSEN — Argentina’s Adecoagro, an industrial farming multinational has turned one of its dairy farms into a surprising source of power. A new technique for generating energy from cow dung has now proven to supply enough electricity from cowpat to power a town of 5,000 residents. Its biodigester system with a 1.4 MW capacity, began […]
Delving into the meaning of the decline of Aracataca, the birthplace of Colombian master and Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, and setting for One Hundred Years Of Solitude.
The legalistic formula the Bolivian leader has found to perpetuate his presidency is despotic and shameful.
The online retail giant now has its eyes set on Argentina, putting it on a collision course with regional market leader MercadoLibre.
Colombia’s best known painter, Fernando Botero, was in France to open a joint exhibition of his works alongside those of Picasso. It is bound to be a reckoning.
Cuba is restoring its colonial architecture in Havana and beyond, and promoting the national heritage among young Cubans, ahead of the 500th anniversary of Havana’s foundation.
Women have intrinsic qualities that can help them in the fluid, digitalized labor markets of the future. But first they must have equal access to technical education.
The recent disappearance of a navy submarine reveals some persistent traits from Argentina’s dictatorial past: lessons from the ocean’s victims and Jungian wisdom.
There is one land crossing out of Gaza, Rafah on Egypt’s border, and it is usually shut, confounding the life and travel plans of thousands of Palestinians.
Vintage wallpaper and other Old World touches meld into chic Buenos Aires surroundings to push Home Hotel to be named the region’s top boutique address.
Businesses in Colombia have been invited to display gay-friendly signs as a traditionalist society, slowly, grows more tolerant.
Building underground rail systems is a major investment, but increasingly it is one that is justified economically — and otherwise.
Mugabe and Maduro share much in common, starting with the rare ability to gut the resources of a promising national economy and disregard the will of the people. But there is an important difference that may explain who survives another day.
A key message at this week’s COP 23 climate conference: the fight against global warming requires protecting the natives who’ve known the rainforests for centuries.
BOGOTÁ — The dragon fruit, or pitaya — that exotic fruit resembling a yellow or red flame and touted for its many health benefits — might just be the great new hope of Colombia’s economy. Though the worldwide market for pitaya has long been growing for several years in such countries as China, the United […]
The nations of South America’s MERCOSUR trade bloc are well positioned to cash in on increasing global demand for food. But they’d also do well to start planning a common approach.
-OpEd- As the old saying goes, no situation is so bad that it can’t get worse. The cruel irony of Venezuela’s going from bad to worse is how the government of President Nicolás Maduro is incompetent at everything save keeping power. It is a power play designed to spread suffering further every day, while keeping […]
-Analysis- MADRID — Virtually everyone now uses the Internet before, during and after they travel, whether its downloading an app to become familiar with a particular destination or sharing your holiday photos on Facebook or Instagram. The information revolution has indeed revolutionized both the way we prepare trips, and how we experience them. As such, […]
The Macri government’s sober discourse and steady reformist hand suggest the political and economic dramas of the last century in Argentina may be ending.
Health and medicine were constant themes of the famed Colombian novelist. He also spent his life trying to understand how the human brain works, and why the memory breaks down…until he himself was afflicted by Alzheimer’s.
A family in El Salto in western Mexico is fighting local factories in its bid to show how pollution has ‘murdered’ one of the country’s emblematic waterways, the Santiago river.
The grandest museums increasingly share their most prestigious exhibitions across borders for both aesthetic and economic reasons.
In spite of dynamic consumer figures, Latin America lags when it comes to investment in research and development, those crucial agents of social and economic development.
Plans to build highways through the Amazon rainforest are clear violations of pledges made in Paris to end deforestation by 2020. But the situation on the ground is not a one-way street.
The Marxist leader killed in an ambush in 1967 achieved icon status as a warrior for the revolution. But it’s his proposals about the economy that have lasting value.
The devastating earthquake in 1985 upended politics in Mexico. Could last month’s deadly disasters do the same?
MADRID — For Mariano Rajoy, it’s as if October 1 never happened. The Spanish Prime Minister insisted that his government was simply implementing Spain’s democratic constitution in sending gendarmes to stop an illegal, separatist referendum organized by the Catalan regional authority on Sunday. But October 1 may go down as a turning point in Spanish, […]
The surge in worldwide refugee numbers may be alarming, but for Argentina it should be seen as an opportunity to boost its economy. Much like in the past.
Did adverse conditions force such Latin American strongmen Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro to clamp down, or did they hide their authoritarian designs from the start?
The Getty Center launches a festival of Latin American art that also considers its influence on American culture and identity. In the age of Donald J. Trump, this has become doubly significant.
-OpEd- BOGOTÁ — In August 1894, while traveling to Venezuela, the Colombian poet José Asunción Silva spent time in Cartagena de Indias, the colonial port on Colombia“s Caribbean coast. He wrote about his impressions of the city to his mother and sister. He had taken a liking to the locals, who were cheerful and informal, […]
-Essay- SANTIAGO — Nowadays, it’s virtually impossible to surprise anyone. This is a big challenge, especially in the entertainment industry where you need to make a considerable effort to stage memorable events that have an impact. When you consider that most consumers now are millennials, you have to ask, how do you make them pay […]
In places like Venezuela, electronic interactions may be a more reliable source of information than the government.
-Essay- BOGOTÁ — I always had mixed feelings about the Netflix series Narcos. The first two seasons were based on the life and times of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, and the show has just released a third season. Initially, I did not want to watch a series depicting what I had watched on the […]
People born in the 1980s and 1990s — also dubbed Generation Y— are quickly rising the corporate ladder. Why the new boss is not quite the same as the old boss.
BUENOS AIRES — It’s been dubbed: Manspreading, the habit of too many men to sit with their legs wide open in public spaces that irritates the rest of the world around them. It is a typically male, and for many a sexist posture that often means invading your neighbor’s space on the bus or subway. […]
-Essay- BOGOTA — “Despacito,” the title of this summer’s hit song by Luis Fonsi, means “slowly” in Spanish. Listening to it is like drinking an unsavory broth. Slowly. It’s my own silly fault really for being exposed to it, namely by opening a Spotify account and asking my children, aged 9 and 6, to create […]
-OpEd- BUENOS AIRES — In Latin America today, what is the future of populism? In Ecuador, socialists in power are discussing among themselves how to abandon populism. President Lenin Moreno seems determined to ditch populist policies. The economy’s figures are in red due to overspending and foreign debt. The viability of its redistributive system has […]
-Analysis- BUENOS AIRES — Argentines are surprised when they hear Europeans are worried the dollar is becoming cheaper. But there’s reason for it. Cheaper dollars mean that foreign products will flood the old continent, which, of course, is good for importers. In Argentina, most people believe that a strong peso is better than a weak […]
-OpEd- CARACAS — The Venezuelan regime has established, slowly but surely, a full-blown dictatorship. How did we get here? In 2005, the opposition boycotted parliamentary elections to protest bias by the National Electoral Council (CNE). This withdrawal gave the government total control of parliament for five years. The opposition only decided to return to the […]