By TODD GORDON and JEFFERY R. WEBBER - March 19-21, 2010

[Canada’s Minister of State for the Americas Peter] Kent’s visit to Honduras...was...intended to strengthen the new government’s claim to legitimacy...Acting as if everything is once again well and good in Honduras also makes it easier for Canada to deepen its economic ties with the country. Canada is the largest mining investor in Honduras...and its interests will increase significantly should...the right get their way and pass a new mining law that increases the rights of foreign capital.

By Mark Weisbrot - February 26, 2010

Latin America took another historic step forward this week with the creation of a new regional organization of 32 Latin American and Caribbean countries. The United States and Canada were excluded.

By Mark Weisbrot - February 01, 2010

Why [does the US] care so much about who runs these poor countries? As any good chess player knows, pawns matter. The loss of a couple of pawns at the beginning of the game can often make a difference between a win or a loss. They are looking at these countries mostly in straight power terms. Governments that are in agreement with maximising US power in the world, they like. Those who have other goals...they don't like.

By Ramzy Baroud - January 23, 2010

Western media is...rife with all sorts of unfounded accusations, baseless speculations and superfluous insinuations. They evoke in the reader and viewer a dread and fear, based in this case on the doomsday scenario whereby fanatical Latin Americans and radical Muslims gang up on America, and ultimately Israel.

By NIKOLAS KOZLOFF - January 19, 2010

For those who believe that South America is in the grip of some kind of left revolutionary fervor, this week’s election in Chile may have come as a surprise...[I]t appears that conservative billionaire Sebastian Piñera has ousted the ruling center left Concertación...It is a stunning upset in light of the fact that the right has not won an election in Chile for fifty years.

By Mark Weisbrot - January 09, 2010

...[A]s is generally the case when private media monopolies are challenged by progressive governments, the view presented by these powerful corporations and their allies in the United States is one-sided and over-simplified...[Democratic left governments are] facing the same challenge faced by all of the left-of-center governments in the region: the private media is dominated by heavily monopolized, often politically partisan, right-wing forces opposed to the progressive economic and social reforms that the electorate voted for.

By Eva Gollinger - January 06, 2010

A high-level [U.S. Agency for International Development] official confirmed two weeks ago that the CIA uses USAID's name to issue contracts and funding to third parties in order to provide cover for clandestine operations...Development Alternatives, Inc. is one of the largest U.S. government contractors in the world. The company...presently has a $50 million contract with USAID for operations in Afghanistan. In Latin America, [it] has operations and field offices in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

By Eva Golinger - Thursday, Nov 5, 2009

An official document from the Department of the US Air Force reveals that the military base in Palanquero, Colombia will provide the Pentagon with “…an opportunity for conducting full spectrum operations throughout South America…” This information contradicts the explanations offered by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and the US State Department regarding the military agreement signed between the two nations this past October 30th.

By Ben Dangl - September 11, 2009

...[W]hat many of the region's presidents already know is that increased US militarization is unlikely to curb violence in Colombia because the biggest perpetrators of violence in the country are already allies of the US, largely through the multi-billion dollar Plan Colombia...US soldiers in Colombia...reportedly committed 37 acts of sexual abuse from 2006 to 2007.

By Jamal Juma - 20-26 August 2009

As Israel turns to South America to save its non-existent economy, the people of that subcontinent have a chance to reject racism and oppression and strike a victory for the global south...For Israel, a colonial state built on the expulsion and ongoing repression of the indigenous population, the rise of anti-colonial and emancipatory forces anywhere in the world constitutes a potential threat to the very paradigm it is built on.

By Miguel Tinker-Salas

...[E]vents in Honduras are not isolated, but rather part of a right wing counterattack taking shape in Latin America...[T]he right is rebuilding in Latin America...and building ties with allies in the United States. This is not the lunatic right fringe, but rather the mainstream right with powerful allies in the middle class that used to consider themselves center, but have been frightened by recent left electoral victories and the rise of social movements.

By Rick Rozoff - July 27, 2009

...[J]ust as in the final months of the Bush presidency and the first seven months of the current one military operations in Afghanistan, for five years given secondary importance in relation to Iraq, have escalated into the world's major war front, so plans for direct US military aggression in Latin America, dormant since the invasion of Panama in 1989, may be slated for revival.

By Johann Hari - June 29, 2009

There is something thrilling about the fight in the Amazon, yet also something shaming. These people had nothing, but they stood up to the oil companies. We have everything, yet too many of us sit limp and passive, filling up our tanks with stolen oil without a thought for tomorrow. The people of the Amazon have shown they are up for the fight to save our ecosystem. Are we?