Latin America & the Caribbean
ROME, May 16 2016 (IPS) - When, in March 2015, delegates from the Middle East met in Amman for their regional consultations round in preparation for the May 23-24 World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, most likely what they had in mind is the fact that their region was –and still is– the dramatic set of “the mother of all humanitarian crises.”
Daylesford, Australia, May 12 2016 (IPS) - A previously little-known law firm called Mossack Fonseca, based in Panama, has recently been exposed as one of the world’s major creators of ‘shell companies’, that is, corporate structures that can be used to hide the ownership of assets. This can be done legally but shell companies of this nature are widely used for illegal purposes such as tax evasion and money laundering of proceeds from criminal activity.
UN, New York, Apr 27 2016 (IPS) - We have arrived at the point of no return. At this very moment the world is witnessing the highest level of humanitarian needs since World War Two. We are experiencing a human catastrophe on a titanic scale: 125 million in dire need of assistance, over 60 million people forcibly displaced, and 218 million people affected by disasters each year for the past two decades.
In this column Joaquín Roy, Jean Monnet professor and director of the European Union Centre of the University of Miami, analyses the complex scenario behind the forthcoming visit to Cuba by U.S. President Barack Obama. According to the author, this diplomatic step will be part of the legacy of the transition, whatever shape it takes.
By Joaquín Roy
MIAMI, Feb 24 2016 (IPS)
At this stage of the process that began in December 2014 with the surprise announcement of the opening of relations between the United States and Cuba, hardly anything counts as spectacular news. The detail in the decision by Washington and Havana that made news in the traditional sense (man bites dog) was that the plan to sit down and talk implied that Cuba gave up its prior demand that the embargo be lifted. The United States, for its part, accepted that Cuba did not undertake to make any special changes to its own political system.
Joaquín Roy
U.S. President Barack Obama and his Cuban counterpart Raúl Castro will go down in history as two statesmen who managed to overcome more than half a century of hostility to bring back together two neighbouring countries with too many shared interests to remain at loggerheads. When Obama visits Havana on Mar. 21-22, it will be […]
While the normalisation of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba is moving ahead, and the U.S. and Cuban flags have been proudly waving in Havana and Washington, respectively, since last July, the year gone by since the thaw has left many unanswered questions. “You shouldn’t ask me, because in my view, nothing has […]
This is the first of three articles written by Robert F. Kennedy – son of late U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy – which address relations between the United States and Cuba during the 60-year period of the U.S. embargo against the island nation. The second article – “JFK’s Secret Negotiations with Fidel” – will run on January 5, 2015 and the third – “Sabotaging U.S.-Cuba Détente in the Kennedy Era” – on January 6, 2015.
With the decision to reestablish diplomatic ties, Cuba and the United States, polar opposites that have long inspired or fomented extremism of different kinds in the Americas, have now become factors of moderation and pragmatism. The continued isolation of Cuba 25 years after the end of the Cold War was so widely rejected that the […]
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