I am in Brazil this week, and met today with people from the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA). In Brazil this means they are active energy players, as over half of the crop in Brazil is used for ethanol. In recent years they have become an effective lobbying force not just in Brazil, but also in Washington (and in Brussels). Read more »

Last Wednesday, Ecuador’s Supreme Court upheld sentences handed down in July 2011 for four members of the El Universo newspaper’s staff in the latest chapter of a lengthy and controversial trial. Three of the newspaper’s directors, Carlos, César, and Nícolas Perez, and an editorialist, Emilio Palacio, face three years in jail and $40 million in fines. All have fled the country or sought asylum abroad, and many expect that the fines (if collected) will bankrupt the 90-year-old periodical. Read more »

This is a guest post by Natalie Kitroeff, a research associate here at the Council on Foreign Relations who works with me in the Latin America program. She received her BA from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Read more »

Things are heating up in the two presidential races facing Latin America this year. On the heels of Josefina Vázquez Mota’s victory in the PAN party primary last week, on Sunday Venezuela hosted yet another historic vote. For the first time since Chávez won the presidency 1999, the opposition united, giving Venezuelans the chance to choose a single candidate to run in the general election this October against Chávez. And vote they did. Nearly 3 million ballots were cast in a massive turnout,  which is particularly impressive given that many (particularly those with public sector jobs) fear even being seen in line to vote, as it would paint them as opposition sympathizers, perhaps costing them their jobs. Read more »

I wrote a piece on Vázquez Mota and what it means for the Mexican election for Foreign Affairs entitled “Vázquez Mota and the 2012 Mexican Election”. In it I argue that she has the potential to upend the presidential race, but only if she can raise her profile and generate enthusiasm in the all important female vote (over half of the electorate). Here is an excerpt: Read more »

There has been a lot of talk about the shifting geopolitical weight from the east to the west due to the growth of energy resources in Latin America. Ever growing oil discoveries off the coast of Brazil, hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of shale gas in Argentina, and booming energy markets in Colombia and Peru have led many to bet on Latin America as the next energy frontier. Tempering the enthusiasm is the stagnation or even decline in output in other places — Bolivia, Mexico and Venezuela — despite the buried potential riches. Read more »