By Carola Binder Eleanor and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. (Photo courtesy of the FDR Presidential Library & Museum.) President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected in October 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression. High unemployment, severely depressed spending, and double-digit deflation plagued the economy. Shortly after his inauguration in March 1933, a dramatic turnaround occurred.... Continue Reading →
By Luis Ferreira Alvarez The Mercusur Building, Montevideo, Uruguay. (Photo by Jimmy Baikovicius) As Brazil and Argentina continue in recession, the Southern Common Market (Mercosur/Mercosul) provides them with a regional mechanism to restore economic growth. However, Mercosur has abandoned its free trade vision, instead becoming a protectionist organization. Reforming Mercosur would provide momentum for economic... Continue Reading →
By Carola Binder The headquarters of the Banco Central do Brasil in Brasília. (Image courtesy of the Banco Central do Brasil.) Brazilians will head to the polls on October 5 to vote in a tight presidential race. President Dilma Rousseff’s leading challenger is Socialist Party candidate Marina Silva. A key component of Silva’s economic platform... Continue Reading →
By Diego Ponce de Leon Just a week ago I sat near Kenya’s Lake Naivasha watching the Brazil vs. Chile game. Chile was the underdog, and after having easily walked over Spain, they were the clear favorites inside the bar. In fact, every Kenyan I met that day was cheering for “red hot Chile.” I... Continue Reading →
By Elizabeth McKenna A flyer that circulated on social media platforms before the planned June 20 anniversary protest. Superimposed on an image of the 300,000-person march on that date one year earlier, the text reads: prepare your breath, no letting up, 2014 will be bigger. The protest was billed as “The Return of the Giant”... Continue Reading →
Pedro Peterson Pedro Peterson (left) with a fan of Chile's La Roja. Eduardo Galeano, the world’s greatest football fan-poet, once said that “football is not guilty of the sins committed in its name.” In Brazil’s World Cup, which is built on sins both shameless and grotesque, and which has been a spectacle of football both... Continue Reading →
By Rebecca Tarlau Rebecca Tarlau with two students who are protesting the closure of rural schools. On Sunday, February 9, 2014, hundreds of buses carrying thousands of peasant farmers from across Brazil arrived in the capital city of Brasília. These farmers travelled to the capital to participate in the Sixth National Congress of the Brazilian... Continue Reading →
by Guillermo Jaimes In Brazil, the problems of the developing world exist side-by-side with the problems of the developed world. The country has a high incidence of both infectious diseases associated with a lack of basic sanitation and so-called “first-world diseases” such as hypertension and heart disease. Collecting rat specimens to test for leptospirosis in... Continue Reading →
