Cautious appears to be the best way to describe sentiment among Mexico City’s executives and bureaucrats at present, or at least that was the feeling Risk Watchdog came away with after spending a week on the ground there. This is not surprising, given the severity of the blow to Mexico’s economy from the recent downturn…. [Read more]
Latin America will soon have a new currency, the Sistema Único de Compensación Regional, or Sucre, for short. It’s no coincidence that the currency’s acronym is also the name of 19th century regional independence leader, Antonio José de Sucre, close friend and ally of Simón Bolívar, in whose name the currency’s proponents (members of the… [Read more]
With the spectre of US military bases in Colombia causing another bout of breast-thumping by some regional heads of state, I’ve decided to take a closer look at the age-old debate about whether foreign interest in Latin America is a good or bad thing for the region. First things first, while US bases appear to… [Read more]
Personally I thought it would be some time before President Obama was next forced to put his diplomacy skills to the test, but just a few days after condemning the Iranian authorities’ crackdown on protestors, another political crisis is dumped on his doorstep. At first glance, Honduran politics seems like a relative backwater when compared… [Read more]
On February 15 the Venezuelan electorate voted in favour of the constitutional amendment that allows the indefinite re-election of all elected government officials. Crucially, the vote enables President Hugo Chávez to run in the 2012 presidential election, and beyond, providing him with a mandate to accelerate his socialist revolution, which he believes will take until… [Read more]
RiskWatchdog’s discovery that Caribbean tourism endured something of a slump in 2008 is hardly worthy of front page news. After all, with credit in thin supply, jobless numbers on the rise and confidence at record lows, the last thing on the minds of most consumers last year was the need to top up tans and… [Read more]