The recently launched “Americas Barometer,” by Vanderbilt University’s Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), includes important insights about day-to-day corruption burdening citizens in every country in the Western Hemisphere, including the U.S. and Canada. According to a LAPOP poll, one in five people report that they had to pay at …
The streets of Port-au-Prince erupted in jubilation on Monday, April 4, when the Haitian Provisional Electoral Council declared Michel Martelly to be the preliminary winner of the presidential runoff election. Martelly sailed to victory following the March 20 runoff vote, riding a wave of voter discontent with the performance of …
After hitting some minor speed bumps, the Haitian runoff election ran more smoothly than anticipated on Sunday, March 20. The run-off candidates, Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly and former first lady Mirlande Manigat, are still neck and neck in the race to become Haiti’s next president. For a while, the dramatic …
Food prices are on the rise across the globe, fueling much of the political unrest that continues to rage in parts of the Middle East. Unexpectedly severe weather and soaring demand have pushed food prices to “dangerous levels and threaten tens of millions of poor people,” said World Bank President Robert …
Democracy, stability, and moderation are in the balance not just in Egypt but closer to home in Haiti. On Thursday, Haiti’s electoral board decided that the presidential run-off on March 20 will pit Mirlande Manigat, a former first lady and law professor, against Michel Martelly, known as “Sweet Micky,” a …
France’s tricolor, Britain’s Union Jack and even Croatia’s coat of arms have been lifted above those nation’s installations in Haiti. But in the United States camp, “whose contributions dwarf the rest of the world’s,” no flag is allowed to fly. Why? The Obama administration has forbidden it. USA Today reports: …
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is attempting to do what couldn’t be done at the international climate change conference in Copenhagen last December: Transfer large sums of wealth from developed countries to developing ones in the name of climate change. From BusinessWeek: Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, …
Haiti marks on February 12, the first month after the horrific January 12 earthquake, with a day of national mourning. According to Haitian officials the death toll stands at between 217,000 and 230,000, a staggering figure equaling that of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. It is an occasion to reflect …
In publicizing the President’s State of the Union address, Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett announced that one of the achievements of which the administration was most proud in its first year in office was its action to repair “badly frayed global alliances” and “to restore America’s leadership in the world.” That …
