WTF is Going on in Latin America & The Caribbean

Todays’ episode: Biden’s Summit Fizzles-out Co-Host & Guest: Leonardo Flores , CODEPINK Latin America Policy Expert A series of events has been unraveling since early May in advance of US President Joe Biden’s Summit of the America’s schedule to take place in Los Angeles June 6-10 A few of those events include:  The publication of Trump’s Secretary of Defense, Mark T. Esper, book A Sacred Oath...

Episode Title: AMLO announces he will not attend Biden’s Summit of the Americas On the morning of May 10 from Mexico City in his daily press briefing , Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador , in response to a question from the media, stated he would not be attending Biden’s Summit of the Americas : “If they are not all there, I will not be there.” This on the heels of a successful tou...

Today’s episode: Nicaragua Expels the Organization of American States.. How will this impact Nicaragua and the integration of the Americas via institutions such as CELAC (La Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños)? On Sunday, April 24, 2022, Nicaragua said it had closed the local office of the Organization of American States (OAS), a US-based group that claims to promote solidarity and...

Today’s episode: Political Prisoners, Indigenous Land Rights and the Fight against Neoliberalism in Guatemala. It’s been a while since we have brought to you news from Guatemala, a country that to this day suffers the consequences of neocolonialism and Reagan’s Dirty Wars in Central America during the 1980s. Despite the MSM narrative currently emphasizing the struggles of Ukraine and the EU, let’s...

Episode Title: Maestros Voluntarios: Celebrating 61 Years of Cuba’s National Literacy Program. On Friday, April 22 Cuba celebrated the 61st anniversary of the very first youth brigades sent to the Cuba countryside to teach reading and writing to the predominantly illiterate rural population. This is a highly successful post-revolution project that has been emulated across the world. Joining us to...

Episode Title: Challenging the US Narrative against Mexico On Sunday, April 10 Mexicans went to the polls to determine whether sitting President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador should or should not remain in office to finish the remaining 3 years of his 6 year term. Of the approximately 16M citizens that participated, over 90% voted yes, AMLO should continue his presidency. Several of the energy refor...

Episode Title: Food Sovereignty: Nicaragua’s No Hunger Program The crisis in Ukraine has created conditions for loss of farming production and global food distribution.  Already there exists a shortage of fertilizer and an increase in energy costs that will affect production, transportation and distribution.  Today is the second of an informal series of conversations we will have about the importa...

Episode Title: Food Sovereignty-Venezuela’s Che Guevara Commune The crisis in Ukraine has created conditions for loss of farming production and global food distribution. Already there exists a shortage of fertilizer and an increase in energy costs that will affect production, transportation and distribution. Today is the first of an informal series of conversations we will have about the importanc...

Episode Title: Is the Crisis in Ukraine Forcing a New US Approach Towards Venezuela?  In this episode, I am joined by co-host Leonardo Flores , CODEPINK Latin America policy specialist. Our story was inspired by news from Saturday, March 5 , when a group of senior U.S. officials flew to Venezuela for a meeting with President Nicolás Maduro’s government to discuss the possibility of easing sanction...

On Sunday, March 13 Colombians voted for a new congress and also cast ballots in presidential primaries to choose party candidates for the May presidential contest. As opinion polls had indicated, leftist Senator. Gustavo Petro emerged as the current leader in the race for the presidency. With nearly all votes counted, he won the primary for the Historical Pact , a coalition of left-wing parties,...

Episode Title: Nicaragua-Renewable Energy Preserves National Sovereignty & Economic Development Today, we have the privilege of conversing with the Executive President of the Nicaragua Electrical Energy Company (ENEL) , Ernesto Martinez Tiffer. Nicaragua is the leader in the Hemisphere of the Americas on renewable energy and has been for almost a decade. In this episode, we talk about the cont...

Episode Title: Justice for Berta & Victory for the Guapinol 8 Guest: Karen Spring host of the podcast Honduras Now . She is also the in-country coordinator for the Honduras Solidarity Network .   Berta Caceres was a Honduran ( Lenca ) environmental activist, indigenous leader, [3] and co-founder and coordinator of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH). [4] [5...

Episode Title: The War Against Puerto Rico Continues Guest: Monisha Rios, a Puerto Rican psychologist and social worker, joins us live from Puerto Rico Political and economic tensions within the U.S.-occupied Latin American & Caribbean nation of Puerto Rico have resulted in another major uprising, led this time by teachers and other workers in the public sector. A national strike is scheduled...

Episode Title: Costa Rican Presidential Election heads to a Runoff Guest: Matt Kirkegaard of Progressive International who was on the ground in Costa Rica as an international election observer. On Sunday, February 6 Costa Ricans took to the polls to elect a new President. According to the latest results reported from Costa Rica’s Supreme Election Tribunal (TSE) there will be a second and final rou...

Episode Title: Honduras Elects a New Future Part II Guest: Lucy Pagoada-Quesada who is a teacher, Coordinator of D19-Libre, US-Canada and a co-host of Voices of Resistance broadcasting on WBAI NYC Sundays at 1pm ET. Hondurans saw Xiomara Castro sworn in as their country’s first female president Thursday, January 27  amid a sea of waving flags in the national stadium. Castro blasted the departing a...

Today's episode features a return visit to IALA (Instituto Agroecologico Latinoamericano) Ixim Ulew located in San Tomas, Chontales, Nicaragua. Guests: Erica Takeo, Friends of the ATC Solidarity Coordinator Carlos Rodriquez Valera, Founder and Coordinator of IALA Ixim Ulew Erica, Carlos and I reunite to discuss the progress made at IALA Ixim Ulew since first meeting in April 2021 as part of th...

This episode was broadcast live from Managua, Nicaragua three days after the inauguration of President Daniel Ortega and Vice-President Rosario Murillo. It is a conversation with journalists Camila Escalante of Kawsachun News and Fiorella Mayorca and Jonathan Mayorca of The Convo Couch all of whom attended the inauguration on January 10. We discuss events leading up to the re-election of the Nicar...

The War on Cuba is an award-winning documentary series executive-produced by Oliver Stone and Danny Glover that takes an in-depth look at the economic war waged by the Trump administration on the Cuban people. Released on YouTube in October 2020 and viewed half-a-million times, the series shows the devastating impact of U.S. sanctions and examines the political and electoral interests driving U.S....

On December 19, a left of center millennial who rose to prominence during anti-government protests in 2019 was elected Chile’s next president after a bruising campaign against a free-market firebrand likened to Donald Trump. With 56% of the votes, Gabriel Boric handily defeated, by more than 10 points, lawmaker José Antonio Kast, who tried unsuccessfully to scare voters that his inexperienced oppo...

On November 30th, just two days after historic presidential elections in Honduras, conservative ruling party candidate Nasry Asfura conceded defeat in the Presidential Election paving the way for his Libre Party rival Xiomara Castro to become the first female leader of the Central American country. With over 52 percent of the votes tallied by the evening of November 30, Castro had 53.4 percent sup...

On November 30, 2021 in an overnight ceremony in the capital, Bridgetown, Dame Sandra Mason was sworn in as president. The new era for Barbados ends Britain's centuries of influence, including more than 200 years when the island was a hub for the transatlantic slave trade. Dame Sandra Mason, 72, the island's governor-general since 2018, was named as president-elect of the nation following...

Today I am joined in conversation with my friend and CODEPINK team mate Leonardo Flores. Leo holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Maryland and he dropped out of a master’s program at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy to work as an analyst of U.S.-Venezuela relations. Leonardo was born in Venezuela and maintains close ties to social movements that have tra...

This episode was recorded live in Managua, Nicaragua on November 10, 2021, three days after President Daniel Ortega and Vice-President Rosario Murillo won re-election. The November 7 Presidential elections in Nicaragua were the first in a series of elections throughout Latin America and the Caribbean over the course of the month. Joining the conversation are delegates who traveled to Nicaragua in...

The month of November 2021 is filled with elections across much of Central America beckoning many of us to say that the hemisphere will look very different economically and politically at the end of the month versus how it is comprised today.   This month we will witness elections on: November 7: Presidential Elections Nicaragua November 14: Legislative Elections in Argentina November 21: Presiden...

Guest: La Jornada journalist Angel Guerra Cabrera This episode is bi-lingual: Spanish and English On October 18-19  in Qingdao, Cuba was introduced as a new member of the Belt and Road Energy Initiative Partnership during the partnership’s second ministerial conference. Cuba joins Bolivia, Venezuela and Suriname as the fourth Latin American country to become a member of the energy partnership. In...