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News from across Latin America

Hundreds shot and beaten as Chile takes to the streets

Doctors say they don’t have supplies to treat wounded and accuse authorities of under-reporting injuries

Jonathan Franklin in Santiago
Sun 27 Oct 2019 05.00 GMT

 
Why is every country south of Texas so screwed up? Latin America was colonized by Europeans, same as Canada and USA, yet it seems every nation in LATAM has struggles with corruption, political instability, crime, income disparity and economic crisis far worse than even in the USA, let alone Canada.
 
Why is every country south of Texas so screwed up? Latin America was colonized by Europeans, same as Canada and USA, yet it seems every nation in LATAM has struggles with corruption, political instability, crime, income disparity and economic crisis far worse than even in the USA, let alone Canada.

To be fair, the U.S. is becoming more like Latin America, not less.

Its certainly got a much broader and richer middle class; but that same group in the U.S. has been shrinking for almost 2 decades.

What the U.S. has is dominance, a head start, and in the past, enough enlightened self-interest in the elite {post-civil war anyway) to keep the country moving forward.

While I wouldn't describe the U.S.. situation in an overly alarmist way, they aren't at the precipice of disaster............yet.

Its also not so far off that it isn't foreseeable without a change in direction.

Latin America's elites have always been much slower to share the wealth and privilege broadly; to the detriment of their nations and likely their personal fortunes too.

One can't sit here in Canada and be smug. A growing housing crisis in Toronto and Vancouver in particular shows no real sign of abating.

Outside of the National Child Benefit there hasn't been a single major social program advance since the late 1960s.

Further, like the U.S. our private-economy is very debt-fueled. Due to low-interest rates the effects have been moderate to date.

While there is no near-term indication of a broad interest rate rise; its unreasonable to believe the current situation is sustainable.

There's no reason this also has to end up in the type of situation Chile is seeing.

But on the other hand; we need to get ahead of the curve rather that waiting for the acute effects of economic dislocation to affect us.
 
Chile: Protests and looting erupt despite president's new Cabinet

Protesters in Chile are angry over high inequality, low wages and a thin social safety net. According to a recent poll, some 80% of Chileans did not consider President Pinera's new proposals to be adequate.

 
How Pinochet's economic model led to the current crisis engulfing Chile

President Sebastián Piñera has chance to lay foundation of a real welfare state as protests reflect country’s discontent with inequalities

Kirsten Sehnbruch
Wed 30 Oct 2019 09.00 GMT

 
Chilean president cancels Apec and climate summits amid wave of unrest

Sebastián Piñera confirms he will not hold summits in November and December, as government struggles with massive protests

Staff and agencies in Santiago
Wed 30 Oct 2019 16.05 GMT

 
Chile protesters: 'We are subjugated by the rich. It's time for that to end'

Chile’s worst unrest in decades has transformed into a nationwide uprising for change. Here seven protesters explain what they’re fighting for

By Jonathan Franklin in Santiago with pictures by Marcela Bruna

Wed 30 Oct 2019 17.04 GMT

 
'Living a daily tragedy': Venezuelans struggle to survive in Colombia

Driven from their homeland by economic chaos, tens of thousands of people are living a precarious existence on the dangerous streets of Maicao in northern Colombia

Steven Grattan in Maicao
Fri 1 Nov 2019 07.00 GMT

 
Mexico in the drug war: 'A cemetery of bodies with no story, and stories with no body'

A group of 43 disappeared students, whose exact fate remains unknown, are the most troubling symbol of violence that has scourged Mexico since the war on drugs began

Jorge Volpi
Mon 4 Nov 2019 09.02 GMT


Bloody Tijuana: a week in the life of Mexico's murderous border city

In a country with nearly 100 murders a day President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has vowed to tackle the social roots of crime but change is slow to come

By Tom Phillips in Tijuana

 
Cowed and outgunned: why Mexico’s police 'don't stand a chance' against drug cartels

Jo Tuckman in El Aguaje
Tue 5 Nov 2019 09.00 GMT

The 14 October massacre that left 13 state police dead was just one extreme episode of violence in a recent litany of horrors

 
Money and maps: is this how to save the Amazon's 400bn trees?

Clare Longrigg in Cutivireni, Peru
Wed 6 Nov 2019 08.00 GMT

Alarmed by the impact of logging, indigenous Peruvians are using satellite mapping to manage their land

 
Chile: Protesters burn university, loot church

Tens of thousands have taken to the streets in Santiago in a fresh day of anti-government protests. The local university was set ablaze and a church was looted, with religious iconography burned in the street.

 

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