Next month, Venezuela will hold elections, and despite the dramatic failures of anti-Western leftist president Hugo Chavez, the opposition candidate is campaigning as a more extreme version of Chavez. Venezuelan governor Henrique Capriles will represent an alternative to Chavez. Citing increased violence, poor infrastructure, and a flailing economy, Capriles is making a populist proposition to…
Argentina and Venezuela are in the unenviable position of rounding out the bottom of this year’s Index of Economic Freedom, produced by The Heritage Foundation. Out of 179 nations ranked on a variety of criteria defining economic freedoms, Argentina and Venezuela find themselves in a category labeled “repressed.” Argentina sits at 158 on the list,…
Chile now ranks higher than the United States, and all of Central and South America according to the annual Index of Economic Freedom, produced by The Heritage Foundation, which has tracked economic freedom around the world for over a decade. According to the data compiled for this year’s rankings, Chile moved to number 7 on the…
Mercosur is a full customs union encompassing Argentina, Brasil, Paraguay y Uruguay. On Tuesday, the 31st of July, Venezuela joined that group making it one of the largest economies in the world at an estimated $3.3 trillion dollars. Recently, a similar economic agreement made up of largely western countries (Mexico, Chile, Peru and Colombia) named…
Transparency International (TI) has published their Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) since 1995, which ranks countries “by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.” The higher the number, the better. 2011’s results included 183 countries and territories around the world, including South America. Out of all the countries surveyed throughout…
Since completion in 1914, the Panama canal has been vital for maritime trade between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by cutting through the Isthmus of Panama to eliminate the lengthy and dangerous Cap Horn route looping around the southern tip of South America. As far back as 1825, the newly established Federal Republic of Central…
July 28th commemorates Peru’s independence from the Spanish Empire in Spain in 1821. Libertador José de San Martín was born in what is now Argentina, and would become the primary leader for the southern region of South America during its successful struggle for independence. Having distinguished himself in several battles against Napoleon, he would go…
Chilean airline LAN Airlines S.A. is a national institution, founded March 5, 1929. The airline is one of the most recognizable brands in Chile, and from 1994 to 2010, the majority shareholder was Chile’s sitting president, Sebastián Piñera (he made good on campaign promised to sell his interests to avoid any conflicts of interest while…
On Friday, the Constitutional Court of Colombia approved a proposal from the government to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana, and also included cocaine as a narcotic permissible for personal use. Defense Minister Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro recently submitted a plan to the government a plan to legalize the sale of marijuana in Uruguay through government controlled…
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