Explore Business Standard
Associate Sponsors
Almost immediately after US forces deposed Venezuela's president, officials from Washington to Lima, Peru, began encouraging some of the 8 million Venezuelans who have scattered themselves across the Americas over more than a decade to go home. But that idea had not even crossed the mind of Yanelis Torres. The 22-year-old graphic designer was too busy printing T-shirts with images of captured former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro overlaid with phrases like Game Over. Her clients in Lima's largest textile market were snatching them up within hours of the news of Maduro's downfall. Settled or undocumented, many of the millions of Venezuelans spread across Latin America received news of Maduro's capture with joy, but also caution, especially after hearing US President Donald Trump say that he would work with Maduro's vice president, now interim President Delcy Rodriguez, rather than the opposition. Despite leaders in Peru and Chile echoing US suggestions to return to Venezuela, th
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday that the US military is deploying an aircraft carrier to the waters off South America, in the latest escalation and buildup of military forces in the region. The US military has conducted its 10th strike on a suspected drug-running boat, Hegseth said earlier Friday, blaming the Tren de Aragua gang for operating the vessel and leaving six people dead in the Caribbean Sea. In a social media post, Hegseth said the strike occurred overnight, and it marks the second time the Trump administration has tied one of its operations to the gang that originated in a Venezuelan prison. The pace of the strikes has quickened in recent days from one every few weeks when they first began to three this week, killing a total of at least 43 people since September. Two of the most recent strikes were carried out in the eastern Pacific Ocean, expanding the area where the military has launched attacks and shifting to where much of the cocaine from the world'
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum celebrated her government's handling of its tumultuous relations with the Trump administration, progressive gains and controversial judicial reforms in her first state of the nation address Monday. Sheinbaum, who is nearing the end of her first year in office, notably left out some of the major problems still simmering in Mexico, including ongoing cartel violence plaguing much of the country and democratic concerns over wider concentration of executive power. Mexico's first female president took office in October and has led the Latin American nation of 131 million at a time of radical global shifts. Despite that, the 63-year-old progressive leader has enjoyed soaring approval rates between 70% and 80% in Mexican polls. Things are going well, and they're only going to get better, she promised. Here are some of the top takeaways from Sheinbaum's State of the Nation address. Navigating the Trump era Chief among Sheinbaum's challenges has been ...
The faithful in Pope Francis' hometown lit candles in the church where he found God as a teenager, packed the cathedral where he spoke as archbishop and prayed Monday in the neighbourhoods where he earned fame as the slum bishop." For millions of Argentines, Francis who died Monday at 88 was a source of controversy and a spiritual north star whose remarkable life traced their country's turbulent history. Conservative detractors criticised the only Latin American pope's support for social justice as an affinity for leftist leaders. They pointed to his warm meetings with former President Cristina Fernndez de Kirchner, a highly divisive left-leaning populist figure whose policies many Argentines blame for the nation's economic ruin. They compared their enthusiastic encounters to his curt meeting with centre-right former President Mauricio Macri, captured in an unusually stern-faced photo in 2016. Like every Argentine, I think he was a rebel, said 23-year-old Catalina Favaro, who had
Venezuelan migrants handed over to Mexico like it's a US immigration detention facility. Families from Central Asia flown to Panama and Costa Rica to await voluntary repatriation to their countries. Venezuelans from Guantanamo Bay handed off on a Honduran tarmac and returned to Caracas. It all sends the unmistakable message that trying to get to the US border is no longer worth it. US President Donald Trump's administration has laid the groundwork to reverse the region's migration flow. And while the numbers remain modest, an outline of how the US hopes to overcome limited detention space as it gears up its deportation machine is emerging. Making deals across Latin America In its first month, the Trump administration has reached deals with Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama to act as stopovers or destinations for migrants expelled from the U.S. It has brokered deals with Venezuela to pick up its people in Texas, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Honduras. But no
Growing up in Miami among Cuban exiles who fled Fidel Castro's revolution, Sen. Marco Rubio developed a deep hatred of communism. Now as President-elect Donald Trump's choice for America's top diplomat, he's set to bring that same ideological ammunition to reshaping US policy in Latin America. As the first Latino secretary of state, Rubio is expected to devote considerable attention to what has long been disparagingly referred to as Washington's backyard. The top Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a longtime member of the Foreign Relations Committee, he's leveraged his knowledge and unmatched personal relationships to drive US policy in the region for years. For decades since the end of the Cold War, Latin America has faded from the US foreign policy agenda even as US adversaries like Russia, Iran and especially China have made deep inroads. If confirmed, the Florida Republican is likely to end the neglect. But Rubio's reputation as a national security ha
Bolivia's embattled president on Monday announced the discovery of vast natural gas reserves, describing it as the biggest find in nearly two decades that could help the cash-strapped country reverse its falling production. President Luis Arce called the trove just north of the capital a mega field," saying it has some 1.7 trillion cubic metres of gas at a likely market value of $6.8 billion. He said the field named Mayaya X-1 is way to revive the gas industry. That was the engine of robust growth in the early 2000s, a period of booming exports and declining poverty that experts have termed Bolivia's economic miracle. This marks the beginning of a new chapter for the northern sub-Andean region, offering hope of maintaining our country as an important gas exporter, said Arce, who is the alleged target of a military coup attempt last month and the main focus of anger among Bolivians over shortages of fuel and foreign currency. "It's the most important discovery since 2005. In more