The country’s best and brightest teachers celebrate what they’re able to achieve under less-than-ideal conditions. Here, the government is the enemy.
Source: AMERICA ECONOMIA
America Economia is Latin America’s leading business magazine, founded in 1986 by Elias Selman and Nils Strandberg. Headquartered in Santiago, Chile, it features a region-wide monthly edition and regularly updated articles online, as well as country-specific editions in Chile, Brazil, Ecuador and Mexico.
Chile is the only country in South America where abortion is completely banned, even in cases of rape and when a mother’s life is in danger. It’s time to change that.
The arrest of a notorious Mexican mobster belonging to the Zetas cartel is a significant accomplishment for President Pena Nieto, but it won’t tame the bloodshed.
–OpEd– SANTIAGO – After four long years in court, the 10 Chilean pharmaceutical executives prosecuted for colluding to raise the prices of 222 medicines can breathe easy. These business leaders from the companies Salco-Brand, Ahumada and Cruz Verde were in fact convicted, but the sentence amounted to a meager fine — the equivalent of $445,000 […]
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Chile’s Reforestation Efforts Paying Off
SANTIAGO – Between reforestation and afforestation, 100,000 hectares are planted in Chile on average every year – 160 million new trees. Reforestation is the restocking of forests that have been depleted, while afforestation is the establishment of new forests. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Chile and Uruguay are the only South […]
–OpEd– There are many similarities between the protests around Gezi Park in Turkey and those of the Free Pass Movement in Brazil. In both cases, initial demonstrations were small with specific objectives: to save the park and to obtain free public transport, respectively. And discontent in both countries reached a critical mass amid widespread perception […]
Protests with similar roots continue in Brazil and Chile, two nations that might seem from the outside to be primed to enjoy their respective economic and democratic expansions.
President Santos’ decision to try to negotiate an end to a decades-long civil war is the only path for a nation that has suffered too much already.
CARACAS – The ongoing shortage of basic products – including food, personal hygiene products and medicine – is having a huge effect on Venezuela. President Nicolas Maduro and his government have made several announcements to fight the shortage and have accused the opposition of fanning the flames. Meanwhile, people continue to struggle to find the […]
Brazil is just the latest, though largest, recent example of a Latin American country that has seen grassroots movements catch fire from below.
RIO DE JANEIRO – They want to be heard. They want injustices reversed. They want attention. They probably didn’t think they would achieve this – but they did, to the point where the whole region is now looking at them. They are Brazilian. And since last week, hundreds of thousands of them have taken to […]
Inside the demographics and economics of an aging planet.
-Editorial- SANTIAGO – If we based our knowledge of Latin America on Amnesty International’s latest global human rights report, we would believe that there is no real justice in the region, violence is on the rise, police regular torture citizens, that there are multiple attempts to exterminate indigenous groups, and organized crime is gaining ground. […]
Argentine President Cristina Kirchner has it in for top Buenos Aires daily Clarin. But it’s part of much grander plans to extend her power well past the line of legitimate democracy.
-Op-Ed- LIMA – Last January, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced that he and Venezuelan parliament president Diosdado Cabello were both the target of an assassination plan – without unveiling the conspirators’ identity. In March, he said the Pentagon and the CIA were hatching a plan to murder opposition leader Henrique Capriles and frame him for […]
The sweet (and unhealthy) underbelly of the region’s economic growth.
And why I won’t be coming back…
Roberto Azevedo comes from an emerging BRICS economy, where there has been more focus on bilateral commerce deals than wider trade agreements favored by the US and Europe.
Brazil has overtaken Canada as the top foreign source of both tourists and property buyers in the Florida city, which has been suffering through the real estate and financial crises.
-Editorial- SANTIAGO – The month of April brought some very good news for supporters of gay marriage, and one piece of bad news. The best news in Latin America came from Uruguay, where the Chamber of Deputies gave same-sex couples the right to marry by the overwhelming majority of 71 to 21, topped off by […]
SANTIAGO – Last year in London, engineers from Airbus presented their vision for the future: An airplane featuring a transparent roof that allows passengers to see the stars, with an air system that pumps antioxidants into the cabin air. If this audacious concept becomes reality in 2050 and the airline market remains more or less […]
CIUDAD JUAREZ – A maquiladora, or maquila, is an offshoring factory or manufacturing plant operated under U.S.-Mexico free trade agreements to encourage the development of industry in Mexico. Mexico allows materials used in maquilas to enter duty-free, provided the finished product is then immediately exported out of Mexico. The U.S. in turn charges these products […]
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Nicolas Maduro, Now The Hard Part
In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez’s handpicked heir will find securing his narrow victory was nothing compared to actually serving as president of a country with deep structural ills.
MIAMI – Throughout the history of the United States, the main divisions have traditionally been between the North and the South, an economic and political rivalry that we know also produced a civil war. But there is also an important rivalry between the West Coast and the East Coast, a battle for cultural, academic and […]
-Editorial- SANTIAGO – The soldiers killed and beheaded an old woman, recounted one of the witnesses in the trial of Efrain Rios Montt, retired army general and ex-President of Guatemala. Then the soldiers used her had as a soccer ball in an impromptu game. That might have been the most shocking testimony in the genocide […]
SANTIAGO – Venezuelan television network Globovision has announced it had accepted a purchase offer, and its sale would be finalized shortly after the presidential election on April 14. Globovision’s board of directors explained that they were selling the station because its operation had become both legally and financially impossible due to harassment from the government […]
Mexico’s New President Peña Nieto’s has pushed through a sweeping reform of the telecoms and TV sector, which could undo the monopoly that turned Carlos Slim into the world’s richest man.
SANTIAGO – On January 16th a Boeing 787 Dreamliner from All Nippon Airlines (ANA) was forced to perform an emergency landing in a regional airport after smoke was detected in the electric compartment. This was the fourth incident in less than a month for one of the world’s most state-of-the-art aircrafts. Dreamliner had represented a […]
-Editorial- MEXICO CITY – There are many possible interpretations of the sudden and public imprisonment of the extravagant Elba Esther Gordillo, who until a couple of days ago was the president of the Mexican teachers’ union, and who is accused of having embezzled $160 million from the union. Gordillo is known throughout Mexico as “The […]
The death of Hugo Chavez, who propped up Venezuela with oil profits, is another reminder that Latin America needs to look for economic development beyond natural resources.
MEXICO CITY – My neighborhood dealer was a low-class guy. We went to the same public school, but he was few years younger than me. He was never very bright nor did he excel in anything; he spent his afternoons standing outside his house or at the street corner, without bothering anyone, and with no […]
SANTIAGO – José came to Santiago, from Cali, Colombia five months ago. Some acquaintances in his hometown had put him in contact with Carlos, another Colombian who has been working in a cell phone store in the Chilean capital for the past year. Now José has joined Carlos as a salesperson in the store, where […]
Some Mexican leaders say immigration reform is simply a domestic matter to be left for Washington to resolve. But the stakes for Mexico are simply too big.
Not many years ago, the concept of “neuromarketing” was presented as a revolutionary discipline. Introduced as the newest buzz word along such topics as neuroscience, emotions, sensory, unconscious, subliminal, neuromarketing was presented as the key to understanding consumer behavior. Those most passionate about the subject promised companies that it could even help them read their […]
-Analysis- SANTIAGO – While Argentina and Venezuela have had to devalue their currency as a result of rampant spending and foreign exchange shortages, the rest of Latin America faces exactly the opposite problem. Local currencies have appreciated against the dollar, which has had three negative effects. It is bad for exports; economies have become less […]
SANTIAGO – The recent decision of the U.S. Justice department to block the acquisition of Mexican beer giant Grupo Modelo by the Belgian Anheuser-Busch InBev came as a surprise. The $20 billion acquisition was announced last June, and what’s surprising is that neither company involved is technically an American company. Belgium-based multinational AB InBev is […]
As many as one billion people may not have access to clean drinking water by 2050. Changes are needed, which may also create investment opportunities.
-Opinion- CARACAS – The Venezuelan opposition is at a crossroads after two electoral defeats and in front of imminent political change for the country. Instead of weakening him, President Hugo Chavez’s cancer has reinforced his power and pushed his opposition ever deeper into a corner. The opposition did not instigate the political change – they […]
This growing phenomenon is showing up across the region, a potential sign of entrenched unemployment and even deeper social malaise.