Latin America & the Caribbean

Photo credit: Rafael Murillo, Courtesy Congress SEE

Costa Rica Set to Achieve Carbon Neutrality by 2021

By Fabiola Ortiz

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (IDN) – It has been twenty two years since Costa Rica embarked on its national program of payment for environmental services (PES), the first in the world to start a nationwide scheme for compensating landowners for keeping the forests standing for people and the planet.

Now that the world struggles to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit the global temperature rise by the end of the century, this Central American nation of five million people has served as an example of public policies addressing the taxation of fossil fuels in favour of the protection of nature. The country pledges to become carbon neutral by 2021.

: Fabiola Ortiz; THE WORLD; Latin America & the Caribbean; 03 October 2018

Brazil at Another Major Turning Point

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – From the time of its beginning as a nation state "Brazil has been a paradise for some, an endless hell for others, and for the rest, a kind of purgatory on earth." So write two Brazilian historians, Lilla Schwarcz and Heloisa Starling, in their massive, newly published, volume on Brazil.

They continue: "Brazil's development was born of ambivalence and contrast. On the one hand it is a country with a high degree of social inequality and low rates of literacy, whereas on the other its electoral system is one of the most sophisticated and reliable in the world. Brazil has the second number of Facebook users in the globe. At the same time vast geographical regions lie abandoned, particularly in the north, where the chief means of transport is by rudimentary sailboats.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 02 October 2018

Photo: India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj hosted the G4 Foreign Ministers Meeting of Japan, Germany and Brazil to discuss progress on early reform of the Council, including the expansion of both permanent and non-permanent categories of membership. Credit: Twitter MEA India

India Hosts G4 Meeting Pressing For Security Council Reform

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Brazil, Germany, India and Japan – also known as the G4 – have reiterated the compelling need for a protracted reform of the United Nations Security Council and restated their support for Africa's appropriate representation in a reformed and expanded Council, which under the UN Charter bears primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.

A Joint Press Statement, issued after a meeting on the first day of the General Assembly's high-level General Debate on September 25, 2018, said: "The G4 [Foreign] Ministers reaffirmed the need for an early reform of the Council including the expansion of both permanent and non-permanent categories of membership to enhance its legitimacy, effectiveness and representativeness."

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 26 September 2018

Photo: 6 out of 10 young people in the region work in the informal sector, with lower wages, and less or no benefits or social protection. Such work in Latin America and the Caribbean is often related to domestic work, street vending, illegal mining and farming. (ILO) ©IFAD/Pablo Corral Vega

Helping Rural Latin America Beat the Economic Downturn

By Kwame Buist

ROME (IDN) – Over the last three decades, the countries of Latin American and the Caribbean have experienced a profound transformation which has extended to rural areas. All countries in the region, except for Haiti, are now considered middle-income.

This economic and rural transformation has resulted in many benefits, especially between 2004 and 2013, when millions of people left poverty behind. However, despite this success, over one-quarter of the region’s population continues to live in poverty. Now, the economic downturn of most of Latin America’s economies over the last few years threatens to send millions more back under the poverty line.

: Phil Harris; THE WORLD; Latin America & the Caribbean; 24 September 2018

Photo: Recovery and restoration of a watershed in Brazil’s Caatinga biome, as part of the URAD initiative. Source: UNCCD

Brazil Sets Up an Innovative Model to Reverse Land Degradation

Viewpoint by Prof. Dr. Valdemar Rodrigues

The writer is Director of Sustainable Rural Development of the Ministry of Environment of Brazil, National Director of the UNDP / GEF / MMA Program and National Director of the FAO / GEF / MMA Program. Prior to joining the Ministry, he was he was a Professor at the Federal University of Piauí. He is a specialist on desertification. This article first appeared in UNCCD Science to Policy Weblog on 13 September 2018. – The Editor

BRASILIA (IDN) – Brazil is synonymous with the Amazon for most people. But Brazil’s vast rainforest and wide rivers have not just captured the imagination of ordinary people. It has also captured donor finances due to the invaluable ecosystem services they provide, ranging from influencing global rainfall patterns, to stabilizing the global climate system to preserving a tremendous and unique biological diversity.

: Jaya Ramachandran; THE WORLD; Latin America & the Caribbean; 22 September 2018

Photo: Equatorial Guinea President's son and Vice-President Teodoro Nguema Obiang cropped while addressing the general debate of the UN General Assembly’s seventieth session on 30 September 2015. Credit: UN Photo/Amanda Voisard

When a Vice President is Nabbed With Million Dollar Watches

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) - What does a suitcase full of million dollar watches look like?

Well, it’s blinding for one and it caught the eye of police at the Sao Paulo Viracopos airport in Brazil who confiscated the gem-encrusted time pieces found in the luggage of the son of the long-time ruler of Equatorial Guinea.

In a second bag belonging to Teodorin Nguema Obiang Mangue, vice president and son of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, $1.5 million in cash was found, allegedly for medical treatment far from home.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 20 September 2018

Images: Dahomey Royal Sandals (top) and Candomblé Doll from 1940s Bahiat (bottom). Courtesy of the National Museum of Brazil.

Rare African Antiquities Lost in Brazil Museum Fire

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – A fast-moving fire that swept Brazil's National Museum on September 2 incinerated priceless objects and reduced hundreds of African antiquities to ash, museum official are now saying.

The museum's permanent African exhibit was named Kumbukumbu – a Swahili word for the memory of people, objects and experiences. A throne from the Kingdom of Dahomey (current-day Benin) and ritual objects of Afro-Brazilian religion (Candomblé) were some of the museum's most prized possessions.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 12 September 2018

Photo: Memorial to the victims of the Río Negro massacres in Guatemala. CC BY 2.0

The Forgotten Saga of Mass Murders in Guatemala

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

Over the years, as a foreign affairs columnist of the International Herald Tribune, the author has made four visits to Guatemala.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – In 1981 on the editorial page of the New York Times I wrote a column showing that the mass atrocities against the Indian population of Guatemala were carried out under the direct orders of the then president, Fernando Lucas Garcia. His former vice-president, Francisco Villagran Kramer, had given me information that was incontrovertible evidence of the murders.

I also showed how close was the relationship, financially and militarily, between the Guatemalan government and U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s government.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 11 September 2018

Photo: Mass rally in Cuba marked ‘Che’ Guevara’s 50th death anniversary on October 9, 2017. Credit: CubaSi

Guevara and Marx: Critical Remake of an Old Film – 9

By Roberto Massari*

This is the ninth of a nine-part series. Read Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.

BOLSENA, Italy (IDN) – FADE-OUT … Scene 9[ Vallegrande, October 9, 2017]

The scene is composite, polychrome and multi-sound. On the large clearing for what in the past was to become the Vallegrande airport in Bolivia, some thousands of people convened by the government of President Evo Morales are gathered to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Che’s fall in combat.

There are many multi-coloured flags, but mostly red with the silhouette of Korda’s famous photo, Andean and Caribbean music, and the banners of political, trade union and cultural associations of various Latin American origins. In the days that proceeded, scholars of Guevarism from various parts of the world had spoken: the author came from Italy but, incredibly, was the only one from Europe.

: Phil Harris; THE WORLD; Latin America & the Caribbean; 27 August 2018

Image: Countries Che Guevara visited (red) and those in which he participated in armed revolution (green). Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Guevara and Marx: Critical Remake of an Old Film – 8

By Roberto Massari*

This is the eighth of a nine-part series. Read Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.

BOLSENA, Italy (IDN) – MARXIST STORY: Scene 8 [Prague, 1966]

At this point we must devote attention to this polemic, trying first of all to imagine the scene: after the lengthy confinement in the Cuban ambassador’s house in Dar es Salaam, there is a drastic change of continent – from Africa to the heart of old Europe; a large villa on the outskirts of Prague; the semi-clandestine coexistence (Cuban-Czechoslovak “Operation Manuel”) with some of the closest companions (“Pombo” [b. 1940] and “Tuma” [1940-1967]); chess games; study and writing.