Ecuador virus cases plunged 37% in August, the most in South America after Brazil (40%), according to the WHO.… Read More Flattening the Curve: Ecuador and Brazil Pull Ahead in August
Indigenous elites stood at the intersection of political subjugation and cultural survival in Spanish and Portuguese America.… Read More Survival and Subjugation in Colonial Latin America
Thomas Rogers’ The Deepest Wounds argues that Pernambuco sugar planters “saw no distinction between land and labor” (8). Enslaved and free workers on cane plantations were demoted in elites’ eyes to a level equal with the animals and the earth – merely another natural resource to be commanded by the planters (72-73). This monograph shows… Read More The Deepest Wounds: Thomas Rogers
By Nathan Gill Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) — Dell Inc., the world’s second-biggest maker of personal computers, sees “huge” prospects for growth in Latin America, where the company is looking to provide technology to Brazil’s oil industry. “Growth potential is huge in Latin America and Brazil,” Raymundo Peixoto, Dell’s manager for Brazil, said today in an… Read More Dell’s Peixoto Sees ‘Huge’ Growth Potential in Latin America
By Nathan Gill Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) — A unit of Empresas Copec SA, Chile’s biggest pulp producer, agreed to buy Brazilian wood-panel maker Tafisa Brasil SA for about $165.2 million. Placas do Parana SA, a unit of Copec’s forestry subsidiary Celulosa Arauco y Constitucion SA, will buy 100 percent of the Brazilian company from Sonae… Read More Chile’s Copec to Buy Tafisa Brasil for $165.2 Million
By Nathan Gill May 14 (Bloomberg) — Paulo de Sousa Oliveira Jr., chief business development officer of BM&FBovespa SA, Latin America’s largest exchange, comments on plans to integrate with Chile’s stock exchanges. Oliveira spoke in Spanish to reporters in Santiago today. On plans to integrate with Chile’s exchanges: “The idea we… Read More BM&FBovespa Proceeding With Chile Trading Plans, Oliveira Says
By Nathan Gill Sept. 10, 2008 (Bloomberg) — Embotelladora Andina SA, which distributes Coca-Cola products in Chile, Brazil and Argentina, gained the most in two months in Santiago trading on prospects of increased sales of its soft drinks, after Brazil said its economy is expanding faster than economists estimated. Andina rose 3.5 percent… Read More Andina Rises as Brazil Growth Signals Increased Sales
June 9, 2008 (Southern Affairs) — Peru’s Transportation and Communications Minister Verónica Zavala announced May 27th that Unasur’s highest profile project, an inter-oceanic highway connecting the Brazilian Atlantic with the Peruvian Pacific, was being investigated after discovering that it did not have a budget or engineering plans. The minister told a Congressional Committee that while… Read More Peru’s Halts Jungle Highway Construction After Investigation Shows Design Wasn’t Done
What is Brazil’s current foreign policy? “Brazil is not a small country. It does not, and it cannot, have the foreign policy of a small country.”[1] These words, from the current Minister of External Relations express the essence of Brazil’s foreign policy. It is a country in pursuit of major power status and, as such,… Read More Brazilian Foreign Policy: 2008
What are the historic conditions of Brazil’s foreign policy? Like Argentina, we will divide the historic conditions of Brazil’s foreign policy into three groups; strategic, political and economic. Strategically, Brazil (and Portugal during colonial times) has sought to expand its influence in South America and the South Atlantic. At times this involved aggressive policies with… Read More Brazilian Foreign Policy: Traditions
In this next section we will discuss Brazil’s foreign policy. As we mentioned earlier, Brazil is unique among its neighbors, representing roughly half of the continent physically, economically, and in population, it is also the only nation in South America who is a major world player outside the region.[1] This fact is in large part… Read More Brazilian Foreign Policy: Actors and Institutions
(Apr. 14, 2008) Here are some of the big issues to follow this week around Latin America. The EU begins a visit to Bolivia Monday to help mediate in the conflict over the new national constitution; the lower eastern half of the country has threatened secession over the current draft. Ecuador and Colombia renewed the… Read More Latin America News Review
(Mar. 31, 2008) The last explanation we will analyze here is what we are referring to as the “Brazilian hegemonic” explanation. This position holds that Brazil, given the much larger size of its population, economy, and territory relative to the rest of the region, is the natural hegemon in South American regional affairs.[1] This position… Read More Historiography: Brazilian Hegemony in South America
(Dec. 12, 2007) The signing of the “founding act” of the new Banco del Sur raises so many questions that it is difficult to know where to begin. Set against the backdrop of the assumption of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the meeting highlighted the continued difficulties South America faces as it… Read More Banco Del Sur – A Reality Check On The State Of South American Relations
(Nov. 24, 2007) Argentina’s President Elect Cristina Kirchner distanced herself from the political agenda of Venezuela President Chávez on Monday by proposing a Mercosur-Israel free trade agreement (FTA) during her visit to Brazil. The proposal is a diplomatic counter punch to Venezuela’s open support for Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the OPEC meeting in Saudi… Read More Argentina Breaks With Venezuela Over Free Trade And Middle East
This week Brazil announced it is seeking approval to explore for new oil and gas reserves near the Jurua River in the Amazonian state of Acre. The government will set aside US$35.5 million for the National Petroleum Agency (ANP) to begin exploration, while the Acre State Industrial Federation has promised to raise US$15 million. Officials… Read More BRAZIL ANNOUNCES NEW OIL EXPLORATION IN AMAZON
Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa is full of good ideas this week. On his visit to Italy this week he is reported to have proposed that the UN publish a list of environmental terrorists whose reckless actions are putting the world in danger. He also agreed to let the US maintain its military base in Manta,… Read More ENVIRONMENTAL TERRORISTS AT LARGE IN DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva proposed the creation of a trilateral free trade agreement (FTA) between India, South Africa, and the nations of Mercosur at a reunion in Pretoria, South Africa on Wednesday Oct.17th. The proposed treaty would create the world’s largest free trade area and has been billed as a way to… Read More BRAZIL PROPOSES FREE TRADE AGREEMENT WITH INDIA AND SOUTH AFRICA
By N. H. Gill (Oct. 10, 2007) – The human and environmental costs of increased infrastructure integration in South America was the topic of debate at the First Latin American Congress of National Parks and Other Protected Areas this week in Bariloche, Argentina. Scientists from around the world met to discuss the effects of the… Read More Scientists Worry About Human and Environmental Costs of Integration
Brazil and Ecuador gave a combined press conference today announcing their intentions of joining the Banco del Sur, a new regional financial institution created by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Feb. 21, 2007 to replace institutions like the IMF and World Bank. The announcements come one week before a Brazilian sponsored summit in Rio de… Read More South America Announces New Banco del Sur
On Oct.4 Brazil’s Foreign Minister Celso Amorim arrived in Ecuador to discuss potential areas of mutual interest with President Rafael Correa. The visit followed last Sunday’s national assembly elections that gave President Correa sweeping powers move forward his new socialist platform designed to reduce economic inequality and exploitation in Ecuador. The visit was also a… Read More UNASUR MAKING VERY SMALL WAVES
Warren Dean’s With Broadax and Firebrand is a history of the destructive impact of human activity on the Atlantic forests of Brazil. Chronicling social attitudes towards nature and the impact of those attitudes on the forests from pre-Columbian times to the present, he highlights the ultimately unproductive exploitation of Brazilian natural resources, which left the… Read More With Broadax and Firebrand: Warren Dean
Asunción Lavrin’s edited volume, Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America, presents a series of perspectives on what Lavrin calls the “conquest of the mind,” the means through which the Spanish state and Catholic Church sought to maintain control over colonial society. The authors challenge received understandings of the region’s early history by showing the… Read More Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America: Asunción Lavrin
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