The Americas Archive

If Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos is successful in reaching an elusive peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), maintaining peace in the rural outposts of Colombia where the guerillas operate as a de-facto shadow government will prove exceedingly difficult. James Bargent explores this “other Colombia” in his World Politics Review feature this week. In the latest Global Dispatches podcast, Bargent, speaking from Medellin, and host Mark Goldberg discuss the challenges of implementing a potential peace deal in the remote areas of Colombia where the FARC has long held control and the Colombian government has a minimal […]

Billboards in New York’s Times Square advertise it as “Egypt’s gift to the world.” An expansion of the Suez Canal, completed in just a year—at President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s request—is set to formally open Thursday, with a party estimated to cost $30 million and full of foreign dignitaries. Those ads in Times Square, which have also appeared in London and, curiously, in a special cover wrap of some editions of The Economist, claim that “Egypt boosts the world economy.” How? By allowing two-way shipping traffic that, the Suez Canal Authority says, will cut transit time by seven hours. But plenty […]

Editor’s note: Guest columnist Neil Bhatiya is filling in for Michael Cohen, who will return next week. On Monday, President Barack Obama unveiled the final version of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) rules. The new regulations, a tweak to initial rules that had been released in June 2014, are meant to provide the framework for individual U.S. states in meeting emissions-reduction goals in their electricity sectors. In forecasting a 32 percent reduction in emissions by 2030 from 2005 levels, the plan relies on incentivizing the adoption of low-carbon energy sources nationwide, especially solar and wind power. As […]

Colombia’s conflict has always looked different from the vantage point of the jungles, mountains and plains of the country’s most forgotten corners. This is “the other Colombia”: a country of extreme poverty, underdevelopment and state neglect, where Marxist guerrillas have fought the military to a stalemate in over half a century of conflict—and where the peace agreement those rebels are currently negotiating will face its toughest tests. “The country still has these ‘black holes,’ where the state has no monopoly on arms, where there is no institutional presence, no authorities, not even a military presence,” said Orlando de Jesus Avila […]

Editor’s note: This will be Richard Weitz’s final “Global Insights” column at World Politics Review. We’d like to take this opportunity to express our deep gratitude for all the support he has shown for WPR since its inception, and we look forward to working with him regularly in the future. One of the main goals of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s latest Middle East trip is to reassure U.S. partners there that the recent Iran nuclear deal will not jeopardize their security. The Obama administration is using several instruments to achieve this goal, including helping the Persian Gulf states […]

On Aug. 9, Haitians will begin a lengthy and long overdue electoral process by voting in the first round of parliamentary elections. On Oct. 25, they’ll vote again in the legislative runoff, as well as in municipal and local elections and the first round of the presidential poll. And finally, if a second round of the presidential election is necessary, as it probably will be, Haitians will go back to the polls on Dec. 27. Over the upcoming election season, Haitians will be choosing 1,280 local representatives, 140 mayors, 20 Senators, 118 deputies and President Michel Martelly’s successor. The road […]

It is turning into a summer of big diplomatic deals at the United Nations. Two weeks ago, the Security Council endorsed the Iranian nuclear deal. This weekend, diplomats signed off on an arguably even more complex bargain: the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This is a sprawling set of 169 targets that the world is meant to achieve by 2030, ranging from eradicating poverty to fostering peaceful societies. Skeptical commentators worry that this amalgam of good intentions is too unwieldy to gain traction, in contrast to the crisper Millennium Development Goals articulated in 2000. But it is still impressive that […]

In May, Costa Rica’s National System of Conservation Areas tested the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to monitor collect evidence of illegal fishing and poaching. In an email interview, Marco Quesada Alpízar, the director of Conservation International’s Costa Rica program, discussed Costa Rica’s fishing industry and fisheries policy. WPR: What is the current state of Costa Rica’s fishing industry? Marco Quesada Alpízar: Over 90 percent of Costa Rica’s fishing industry operates on the Pacific coast. The main fishing fleet comprises small-scale operations, composed of thousands of fishermen—4,000 to 6,000 in the Gulf of Nicoya alone—30 to 50 percent of which […]