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As headlines about the frosty relationship between China and the United States are dominated by spy balloons, Taiwan and botched attempts at diplomacy, commanders in the Pentagon are increasingly worried by a more insidious threat: Beijing's growing stronghold on Latin America. From tens of billions of dollars in funding for key infrastructure projects across the region to its own secretive, military-run space station in Argentina that could target American satellites, China's presence has grown. Some 21 countries in Latin America are signed up to Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative - a defining policy introduced by President Xi Jinping in 2013...

SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele announced Saturday the deployment of 10,000 security forces to a suburb of San Salvador known to be a stronghold for gangs. The move is the latest escalation in a crusade against gang violence that began in March, which human rights groups say has been marred by unjustified detentions. "Soyapango is totally surrounded," the president wrote on Twitter early Saturday, referring to the municipality in the eastern part of the capital region known to be a stronghold of the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 gangs. "8,500 soldiers and 1,500 agents have surrounded...

(Translation) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke to a Latin American audience for the first time and asked regional leaders to cease trade with Russia as part of the economic sanctions due to the war in Ukraine. Zelenskyy had spoken through videoconferencing to international audiences, mainly in Europe and the United States, but this was Latin America's turn. He began his speech by telling about the situation in Ukraine in terms of economic losses and loss of life and then answered questions. The videoconference was organized by the Catholic University of Chile, with over 300 universities in the world connected to...

(Translation) MIAMI — Since the beginning of the most recent monkeypox outbreak in May, about 20 countries in the Americas have reported over 5,000 cases, but mass vaccination is not recommended for now since the risk of infection among the general population is very low, the Pan American Health Organization [PAHO] said in a press conference today. Most cases have been detected in the United States, Canada, and Brazil among men who have sex with men and are between 25 and 45 years of age, PAHO said. However, it clarified that, for now, no deaths have been reported in the...

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — For more than two centuries, Colombia was considered a conservative stalwart in Latin America. Even as leftist governments came and went across the region, a center-right political establishment remained in control — a continuity that cemented the country’s role as a key U.S. ally. On Sunday night, everything changed. Gustavo Petro, a senator and former guerrilla, was elected the country’s first leftist president, galvanizing millions of poor, young, struggling Colombians desperate for someone different. His victory, unthinkable just a generation ago, was the most stunning example yet of how the pandemic has transformed the politics of Latin...

When the United States said last year it would host the 2022 Summit of the Americas, officials had high hopes the event would help repair Trump-era damage to relations and reassert U.S. primacy over China's growing clout in Latin America. But on the cusp of the coming week's gathering in Los Angeles, U.S. President Joe Biden faces a struggle to make a success of a summit plagued by problems before it even began. Ideological discord over who to invite, skepticism about U.S. commitment to Latin America, and low expectations for major accords on issues such as migration and economic cooperation...

China is expanding its influence in South America to counter the U.S. dominance in the Western hemisphere, according to security expert Joseph J. Humire. “They’ve been building it gradually, systematically, over many, many years—over decades,” Humire recently told EpochTV’s “China Insider” program.Trade and investment in the region have been integral to Beijing’s efforts in this regard. But this trade comes with conditions, he said. “Those conditions are often the loss of your sovereignty, the loss in some cases of your territory … and in some cases, China is able to hoodwink you into bringing them into their geopolitical orbit,” Humire,...

The Decline of Catholicism in Latin America A recent Wall Street Journal report shines a light on it.Catholicism is rapidly losing ground to Protestants in Latin America, according to the Wall Street Journal. “Seven countries in the region — Uruguay, the Dominican Republic and five in Central America — had a majority of non-Catholics in 2018, according to a survey by Latinobarómetro, a Chilean-based pollster,” it reports. “In a symbolic milestone, Brazil, which has the most Catholics of any country in the world, is expected to become minority-Catholic as soon as this year, according to estimates by academics that track...

China has inked a new deal with leaders in Latin America and the Caribbean to deepen ties across almost all areas of society in what one analyst likened to a plot to 'take over' the region. As part of the deal, Beijing has committed to supplying the region with 'civilian' nuclear technology, helping to develop 'peaceful' space programmes, building 5G networks of the kind Washington warns will be used to spy on people, and to pumping in cheap loans and financing for 'elaborate development plans.' China has even pledged to build schools and fund classes teaching Chinese language and 'culture',...

On the face of it, America has little to fear from China's new deal to upgrade Cuba's power grid. The countries are already firm allies via their Communist leaders, Havana is under a diplomatic and economic embargo from Washington, and all efforts to mend ties between the two ended when Obama left office. But scratch the surface and what emerges is a picture of Chinese economic dominance in America's backyard that would be enough give any president sleepless nights. In fact, the deal with Cuba - signed this week as part of China's trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative - is...

The Arab League’s Propaganda Campaign in the U.S. Against the Establishment of a Jewish State (1944-1947) Rickenbacher Daniel. Israel Studies. Volume 25, Issue 1. Spring 2020. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.25.1.01 https://www.academia.edu/41113347/The_Arab_Leagues_Propaganda_Campaign_in_the_US_Against_the_Establishment_of_a_Jewish_State_1944_1947_ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337759153_The_Arab_League's_Propaganda_Campaign_in_the_US_Against_the_Establishment_of_a_Jewish_State_1944-1947 https://searchworks.stanford.edu/articles/edsgcc__edsgcl.619402503/pdf/fulltext Introduction In 1944, the Arab League started planning a propaganda offensive in Western countries to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. The League’s focus of attention was the United States, where, members believed, Palestine’s future would eventually be decided and where they deemed it imperative to counter the Zionist campaign. In 1945 and 1946, it opened offices in Washington, D.C. and New York. The efficiency of these...

Cigar diplomacy is back—and once again it is clouding the landscape for an American president. As the Cold War raged in 1962, a trade embargo against Fidel Castro’s communist government in Cuba was an easy political call for John F. Kennedy. The president had a personal conflict-of-interest, however: JFK loved a good smoke. So he quietly secured 1,000 of his soon-to-be-contraband favorite, H. Upmann Petit Coronas, for his personal humidor before taking “necessary actions to promote national and hemispheric security.” As a nonsmoker, President Biden has a clear conscience as the feds prepare to take on the tobacco industry of...

Peru’s new president Pedro Castillo, 51, deserves credit for vowing to focus his government on improving the lives of the country’s poverty-stricken indigenous population. But his first steps in office raise fears that he will scare away investors, generate capital flight and — after a short-lived populist fiesta — create more poverty. Castillo, a leftist former elementary school teacher who had never before held public office, assumed the presidency on July 28 after winning the runoff elections with a razor-thin 0.3 percent of the vote. He controls only 37 seats in the 130-member Congress. Some hoped that Castillo’s minority in...

While the US and Europe celebrate a return to near-normal, the reopening of tourist routes and even put an expiration date on the use of masks, in Latin America it all seems like science fiction. Despite the illusion generated by the extension of vaccination, the pandemic continues to ravage the region with painful figures reported daily. When the eyes of the world were on India, its dramatic mass cremations and its collapsed hospitals in its urban centers, in Paraguay, Suriname, Argentine, Uraguay, Columbia, Brazil, Peru and Chile - a silent catastrophe was brewing whose current figures are eight times more...

More than 1 million people have died from COVID-19 in Latin America and the Caribbean as the pandemic worsens in the region, which now has the world’s highest per capita death rate. Along with India, South America is the only area of the world where new infections are very much on the rise, Reuters reported Saturday. During the the past month, 31 percent of the COVID-19 deaths in the world have been in Latin America and the Caribbean, which includes less than 10 percent of the world’s population.

Expert says global leaders must not ignore Brazil, which is ‘brewing variants left, right and centre’ As a coronavirus variant traced to the Brazilian Amazon marauded through Peru’s coastal capital last month, Rommel Heredia raced to his local hospital to seek help for his brother, mother and father. “I said goodbye and promised I’d come back to take them home,” said the 47-year-old PE teacher, his voice muffled by two black masks pulled tightly over his face. Heredia was unable to fulfil his pledge. Three days later, his 52-year-old brother, Juan Carlos, died as he waited for a bed in...

Ecuador moves to the right and the ultra-left passes to the second round in Peru EFE International Edition 12 Apr. 2021https://www.efe.com/efe/espana/mundo/ecuador-gira-a-la-derecha-y-ultraizquierda-pasa-segunda-vuelta-en-peru/10001-4509419 Ecuador’s Guillermo Lasso Wins Presidential Election Conservative banker defeats protégé of leftist ex-president Rafael Correa, setting the country on pro-business path Ecuador’s Guillermo Lasso waved to supporters as he celebrated his victory on Sunday. By Ryan Dube Updated April 11, 2021 11:15 pm ET Ecuador on Sunday elected a conservative former banker and supporter of free-market policies as president over his populist opponent, setting the country on a pro-business path. Guillermo Lasso, 65 years old, received over 52% of...

Abdala Rada Ramel has close ties to Salman Raouf Salman, who has been also accused of an important role in the AMIA bombing attack The "clans" consist of groups of Lebanese origin who exert control over given territories in South America - and enable Hezbollah All three clans are strategically positioned close to the most important ports of Venezuela, from which they doubtless oversee the trade and handling of goods that in turn allows Hezbollah to profit Assad Ahmad Barakat is accused of having been involved in the AMIA bomb attack and operating call centers and shell companies on behalf...

In a March 24 blog, Gallup CEO and Chairman Jim Clifton reported that 42 million adults in Latin America and the Caribbean said they would like to immigrate to the United States. "There are 33 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Roughly 450 million adults live in the region. Gallup asked them if they would like to move to another country permanently if they could," wrote Clifton. Twenty-seven percent of those adults said "yes." That equals roughly 120 million who want to migrate somewhere. From that group, Gallup asked them "where they would like to move." "Of those who...

MIAMI - It seemed like a match made in finance heaven. In 2010, China, its economy roaring and state companies looking to expand globally, set its eyes on Latin America, a region starved of capital but rich in natural resources the Asian giant lacked. The result: a record $35 billion in state-to-state loans that year. Fast forward a decade and the once-torrid relationship is starting to mature in ways that suggest China may be growing wary of its once do-no-wrong partner. For the first time in 15 years, China’s two biggest policy banks — the China Development Bank (CDB) and...