In The News

A Modern Tale of Meatpacking and Immigrants

Kate Linthicum February 2, 2010
For many years, Grand Island in Nebraska has hosted many immigrants passing through in search of work. But migration has come in distinctive waves: refugees from the Vietnam War in the 1970s, refugees from Eastern Europe in the 1990s, Mexican and Latino immigrants in the last couple of decades, and now a new wave of African refugees, including Somalis and Sudanese. Many of the new immigrants are...

The US: A Worried Obama Should Worry The World

Edward Luce January 28, 2010
A year after his inauguration, US president Obama has already seen his star sink. Slipping in the opinion polls and with his Democratic party losing its supermajority in the Senate, Obama appears weaker and threatened. What he does next is likely to have a profound effect on the rest of the world. His recent State of the Union Address provided some insight on those subsequent actions, especially...

US Opinion Turns Against the Globalism of its President

Bruce Stokes December 10, 2009
All of President Obama’s internationalist and multi-lateral policies may come to naught if he cannot convince Americans that such a strategy is in their best interest. Moreover, if American public opinion cannot be reversed, an insular country could erode US international standing and weaken its ability to obtain a consensus on a wide range of issues, according to columnist Bruce Stokes....

U.S. Faces Rising Resistance to Its Latin American Policy

Jose de Cordoba, David Luhnow December 4, 2009
Recent developments in Latin America − Brazil’s rising power, China’s growing influence, and Venezuela’s anti-American bloc − are undercutting American influence in a region where the US has long maintained a preeminent position. The Obama administration is finding more resistance to its plans and decisions. This was seen most recently in the failure of an American plan to resolve the political...

Mexico Tightens Security at U.S. Border Crossings

Richard Marosi December 3, 2009
The United States has always imposed stringent checks at its Mexican border, but now Mexico is responding with increased oversight of its own, especially at the heavily-trafficked crossing at Tijuana. Mexican president Felipe Calderon says the move is necessary, given the drug violence in northern Mexico thought to be committed with guns purchased in the United States. But business and local...

Brazil: Dances with Dragon

Alexandre de Freitas Barbosa December 1, 2009
The Confucius Institute in São Paulo, Brazil, one of the few cosmopolitan cities that does not feature a Chinatown, recently celebrated its first anniversary. The presence of the Institute is not only a sign of China’s rising soft power, but also the many ways in which China and Brazil have become intertwined, according to professor Alexandre de Freitas Barbosa. The most important, of course, is...

Ayatollahs in the Backyard

December 1, 2009
At a time when he is under pressure domestically and around the world, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent visit to Latin America – highlighted by a stop in Brazil – provided him an important boost. Iran has been involved with some ideologically-sympathetic countries in the region like Ecuador, providing loans for infrastructure. On the other hand, other countries, such as Mexico or...