Americas

Chinese navy hospital ship sails into Havana

October 22, 2011

Via Reuters: Military experts and China watchers say the ship is one of the ways in which the Asian giant is increasing its use of “soft power” to burnish its image and achieve other policy goals such as increased trade and access to raw materials. The Peace Ark was launched four years ago but is [...]

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Congressional report omits Cuba in drug trafficking

August 17, 2011

The U.S. Congressional Research Service’s 41-page report, “Latin America and the Caribbean: Illicit Drug Trafficking and U.S. Counterdrug Programs,” was released in mid-May of this year. Glaringly omitted from this report is the Cuban government’s complicity in drug trafficking. Cuban intelligence assists traffickers with drug routes. Per the report: Drug trafficking is viewed as a primary threat [...]

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Revolution and Subversion in Latin America

August 4, 2011

The National Intelligence Council released this gem in late 2010: The 23 declassified National Intelligence Estimates and related documents in this volume on Subversion and Revolution in Latin America span the years 1947 to 1987. The documents in this collection of estimative products fall into three groups. The first three, written between April 1947 and December 1952, [...]

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Who’s running the show

September 17, 2010

Carlos Alberto Montaner (author and columnist) addressed the current political situation in Cuba earlier this week on the last day of the Americas conference hosted by the Miami Herald. During the Q & A session, Montaner said that Alejandro Castro Espín (Raul Castro’s son and a Colonel in the Ministry of Interior) and his assistant, Senen [...]

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Calm before the storm

June 22, 2010

Jorge Castañeda’s (former Mexican foreign minister and NYU professor) piece on geopolitics in Latin America and the two competing regional blocs: “Americas-1″—nations neutral to the conflict between the United States and Venezuela/Cuba or are openly opposed to the “Bolivariano” governments of Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela; and “Americas-2″—radical left nations moderately retreating but able [...]

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