The society that Pope Benedict XVI will find when he lands in Cuba next week will be a destitute one, prostrate in every way. The once proud and comparatively wealthy Cubans are now among the poorest in the hemisphere, definitely the least informed and, consequently, the least free. For outsiders, …
This week, the White House dispatched its peripatetic Vice President Joe Biden south to Mexico and Honduras. Biden rightly sees criminal violence and insecurity as the gravest security threat in the region, but he was too quick to dismiss the potential threat posed by Iran. “People talk about Hezbollah. They …
Challenges to U.S. international broadcasting and public diplomacy continue to mount. Iran, joining China and Russia, also nourishes ambitions as a global power and is moving forward with soft-power advances in Latin America. (Not that there is anything “soft” about Iranian soft power.) Part of the explanation is that Iran …
On February 21, President Hugo Chavez told the Venezuelan people he will soon undergo another round of surgery. The breaking story was characteristically brief and uninformative. Chavez said doctors had detected a new lesion in the area of previous cancer surgery. He claimed the lesion is small. Following the removal …
Within 48 hours of the impressive victory in Venezuela’s first-ever presidential primary, the winner Henrique Capriles Radonski, who favors an end to polarization and national reconciliation, faced a barrage of vituperative, mendacious, and scandalous attacks by supporters of the Chavez regime. A chorus of baying hounds swiftly sought to discredit …
As we have been reporting, Iran is increasingly expanding its presence in Latin America, as evidenced in Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent tour to Ecuador, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. More troubling, of course, are reports uncovered by the Univision News Network that Iran is using Latin America as a base …
Friends of improved relations with Cuba argue that citizen contact, people-to-people interaction, and lifting current impediments to travel and trade will pave the way for an improved U.S.–Cuba relationship and greater mutual understanding. Yet if the climate for change is as favorable as they suggest, in a moment of heightened …
Today, the 2012 Index of Economic Freedom launches. For 17 years, The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal have reported on the status of economic freedom around the world, measuring 184 nations across the globe according to rule of law, limited government, regulatory efficiency, and open markets. Globally, the …
Daniel Ortega—sporting pink campaign colors rather than the combative red and black of the Sandinista Front (FSLN) and dressed in a business suit, or guaybera, rather than olive drab fatigues—ushers in a modified and somewhat softer era of tyranny as he begins a second consecutive and unconstitutional term as president …
