Latin America

During the 14-year reign of Hugo Chávez, Venezuelans became drearily accustomed to hearing so-called cadenas interrupt the regular programming on their radios and television sets. These are “chained” broadcasts (the word cadena means “chain”) that all stations must carry. They originated long before Chávez took power, mainly to help the Venezuelan government disseminate urgent information about a matter of national importance, such as a natural disaster. Under the so-called Bolivarian revolution, they were transformed into shameless propaganda vehicles.

There are legitimate territorial disputes, and then there is Argentina’s dispute with Great Britain over the Falkland Islands.

According to a leading Spanish newspaper, Hugo Chávez’s doctors have told his family that the cancer-stricken autocrat will not recover from his illness and will not be able to resume the Venezuelan presidency. Perhaps that’s why his return to Venezuela was a relatively subdued affair.

About two years ago, a senior Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official said that a certain Latin American country was becoming a veritable “United Nations” of organized criminal activity, attracting gangsters from such diverse and faraway places as Albania, China, Italy, and Ukraine. He was not talking about Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia, or Brazil. No, Jay Bergman, the DEA’s Andean regional director, was describing Ecuador, a small nation of 15 million people that is tucked between two of the largest cocaine-producing countries on earth. “If I’m an Italian organized drug trafficker and I want to meet with my Colombian counterpart,” Bergman told Reuters, “I would probably prefer to meet in Ecuador than to meet in Colombia.”

In late November and early December, Peruvian business leaders gathered in the industrial city of Arequipa for the 50th Annual Conference of Executives (CADE). When the polling firm Ipsos Apoyo asked CADE attendees whether they approved of the job performance of Peruvian president Ollanta Humala, a remarkable 75 percent said yes.

When Argentine president Cristina Kirchner nationalized the Spanish-owned YPF oil company this past April, Washington Post correspondent Juan Forero proclaimed her “the standard-bearer of populist nationalism in Latin America.”

Yesterday, Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez "won" reelection. Today, the White House is congratulating Venezuela on that outcome. 

From the pool report, which details a gaggle held by White House spokesman Jay Carney:

We are now less than two weeks away from an election that could either save or destroy what remains of Venezuelan democracy.

Last month in London, Mexico’s Olympic soccer team won gold by defeating its Brazilian counterpart, 2-1. The victory gave Mexico its first-ever trophy in a major international soccer tournament (apart from the 1999 Confederations Cup), and it proved that the soccer gap between Latin America’s two largest countries is shrinking, with Mexico catching up on the region’s traditional powerhouse. The Olympic final also became a metaphor for the recent performance of the Mexican and Brazilian economies.

White House spokesman Jay Carney avoided talking about President Obama's comments on Hugo Chavez, saying that he hasn't "read it."

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney responded to President Obama's comments on Hugo Chavez with this statement:  

In an interview with Oscar Haza, a Spanish-speaking Miami journalist, President Obama was asked whether he's "worried with that alliance between Iran and Venezuela--and Hugo Chávez."