South America Archive

Shale gas is revolutionizing the world’s energy landscape. Seemingly overnight, supplies have increased dramatically due to technological advances, including hydraulic fracturing—known as fracking—and horizontal drilling. A world accustomed to energy scarcity and declining supplies is rapidly readjusting to abundance, at just the time when concerns about global climate change and the desire to identify cleaner, relatively inexpensive fuel sources intensify. These conditions and the impressive size of proven reserves within the Western Hemisphere in particular provide the Americas with an enviable opportunity for leadership in global shale gas. The United States, Argentina, Canada, Mexico and Brazil all rank within the […]

The life story of Brazil’s Marina Silva is so unlikely that she explains key moments as the result of divine intervention. Among the most dramatic and potentially life-changing of all the unlikely turns came last week, when a private plane in which she was supposed to be traveling crashed, killing Socialist Party presidential candidate Eduardo Campos and suddenly turning her into a formidable contender for the presidency of Brazil. Silva, a charismatic environmental activist and former environment minister with an ideology that does not fit neatly into any single current, was Campos’ running mate on the Socialist Party ticket for […]

Eyebrows arched in Chile at the end of July when President Michelle Bachelet canceled her participation in a summit of MERCOSUR leaders in Caracas, Venezuela, to focus on her domestic agenda. Critics suggested this was because her signature education reforms are in trouble. The Chilean president was elected for a second time at the end of 2013 and inaugurated in March with a mandate for overhauling the country’s education system, and she has moved quickly to introduce the first phase of a process that will ultimately lead to universal free higher education by 2020. Students have been a well-organized and […]

As U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry bustles around the world attempting to staunch conflict after conflict, one question arises with increasing frequency: Why bother? Kerry has certainly had a rough year. Major peace initiatives he had personally pursued, ranging from January’s Syrian peace conference in Geneva to the Israeli-Palestinian talks, have collapsed. His early efforts to defuse the Ukrainian crisis through direct talks with Russia also failed, while Israeli officials have poured scorn on his recent push for a cease-fire in Gaza. At a time when a majority of U.S. voters favor less engagement with foreign problems, Kerry’s ill-fated […]