Last month, police in Peru destroyed $20 million worth of mining equipment as part of a wider crackdown on illegal mining in the country. In an email interview, Miguel Santillana, an expert on the mining industry at Instituto del Peru, discussed the Peruvian government’s response to illegal mining. WPR: What is the relative importance of the mining sector in Peru’s economy, and what has been the scale of damage to the sector caused by illegal mining? Miguel Santillana: The extractive industry accounted for 11 percent of Peru’s GDP in 2011, up from 5 percent in 2006, according to the IMF, [...]
China and Russia have launched a global campaign to regulate content on the Internet that, if successful, would slowly destroy cyberspace as a means of self-expression, freedom and unregulated speech. While they are still far from achieving their goals, Moscow and Beijing sense an opportunity in the outraged reaction to former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden’s leaks to change the global conversation and continue nudging stakeholders in the direction of censorship as the universal default norm. The Russian and Chinese governments already heavily regulate the Internet at home, but they are increasingly seeking to use international forums, organizations and [...]
In mid-April, unions across Argentina called a general strike in protest of high inflation and taxes, bringing the country to a standstill for 24 hours. In an email interview, Maria Victoria Murillo, a political science professor at Columbia University who has researched labor politics in Latin America, explained the role of labor unions in Argentine politics. WPR: What has been the recent trajectory of labor unions’ role in Argentina’s politics? Maria Victoria Murillo: Labor unions have always been crucial actors of Argentine politics since the emergence of Peronism—the vaguely defined populist ideology of former Argentine President Juan Domingo Peron—in the [...]
