How can Bolivia industrialize its Lithium reserves?

The combination of a weak state and strong criminal forces has led to a near-doubling of homicides each year in Ecuador since 2020 and the nation's murder rate for 2023 was around 40 per 100,000 people, making it the highest in Ecuador's history and therefore one of the most violent in Latin America. 

In this episode of The LatinNews Podcast, we ask Ivan Briscoe, Program Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at Crisis Group and Glaeldys Gonzalez Calanche, a Fellow at Crisis Group, are President Noboa's new measures working for Ecuador? 

We cover details leading up to the crisis in Ecuador, the main players behind the violence, President Noboa's actions and the issue of forthcoming presidential elections. 

On The LatinNews Podcast this week, we ask Dr Jacqueline Jimenez Polanco, Associate Professor of Sociology at the Bronx Community College of the City University of New York, to what can we attribute the success of the anti-corruption and anti-impunity politics in the Dominican Republic? 

With elections on the horizon for May 2024, will the victor continue in the same vein of combating official corruption, addressing tensions with Haiti and protecting the country's all-important tourism revenue? We explore these topics and the historical background to current politics in the Dominican Republic. 

Dr Jimenez Polanco is the author of numerous books and articles including, "Dominican Politics in the 21st Century: Continuity and Change," "Divagaciones II, An Anthology by Dominican Lesbian, Bisexual and Queer Women," and the forthcoming, "Dominican American Politics: Immigrants, Activists and Politicians." 

On The LatinNews Podcast this week, we speak to Martin Weinstein, Emeritus Professor of Political Science at William Paterson University in New Jersey and author of dozens of books on Uruguay, his opinions on the upcoming presidential elections in Uruguay in October 2024. 

Uruguay is unlikely to lose its reputation as the "Switzerland of Latin America," however there are challenges ahead for the successful candidate in the elections, be they from the leftist Frente Amplio or right-of-centre Partido Nacional. These include the issues of security and narco-trafficking, continued tensions with Mercosur and an urgent need to reform the primary and secondary education systems. 

Tune in for this far-reaching conversation on the LatinNews podcast. 

On this episode of The LatinNews Podcast, we ask Rosemary Joyce, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, how governable is Honduras considering the challenges facing the country and President Xiomara Castro? 

In reality, Hondurans can point to the 2009 coup against President Zelaya (current President Xiomara Castro's husband) as a pivotal moment of seismic proportions and consequences in Honduras' political landscape. After that moment, the country endured 12 years or three presidential terms of mismanagement under President Porfirio Lobo (now charged by the US with having taken bribes from narco-trafficking organizations) and President Juan Orlando Hernández, who has been extradited to the US on corruption charges. 

How can President Castro govern a country and address the three main issues affecting the Central American nation? 1. Corruption, 2. Improving the Economy, 3. Safety and Security. We look at these issues and address the current state of Honduras. 

On the first LatinNews podcast episode for 2024, we welcome back Jon Farmer, Editor in Chief of Latin News to provide us with an in-depth look at Argentina's President Javier Milei, his election, his domestic policies, plans for the troubled economy, foreign policies and the relationship with the IMF. 

Milei was voted in as an indictment of the political class in Argentina, but can he pull off the economic miracle required to turn the country around, for how long can the people survive his austerity measures and finally is there a possibility that he may not see out his term? 

On the final episode of The LatinNews Podcast for 2023, we ask Ronald Alfaro-Redondo, a researcher in Political Science at the University of Costa Rica and at the State of the Nation Program, how Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves can build on popular discontent with the country's long-established political elites? 

Alfaro-Redondo leads us through a complex weave of issues facing President Chaves, not least regarding the political class in Costa Rica but also, the rise of populism in the region, his approval ratings, press attacks, the future of the welfare state and the presence of drugs gangs in Costa Rica affecting the nation's security. 

The illicit drug business continues to be profitable, violent and deeply embedded in the economies and political systems in Latin America and so, on the LatinNews podcast this week, we discuss the eight main headlines as explained in a new report written by Andrew Thompson, a journalist and political risk analyst covering the region. 

Thompson describes new factors in the drugs trade, including the evolution of the opioids market in the United States, the Chinese and Mexican role in the fentanyl supply chain, potential signs of weakness in the Colombian cocaine market, the importance of the triple frontier region between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay and the crisis in the region's prison systems. 

The post-war era of growth has been replaced by a much more uncertain, nationalistic and dangerous world and nowhere is this more evident when it comes to the current trend of repositioning in the global supply chain network which therefore directly affects Panama and the Panama Canal. 

On The LatinNews Podcast this week, we ask Andrew Thomas PhD, Professor of International Business at the College of Business at the University of Akron and author of "The Canal of Panama and Globalization: Growth and Challenges in the 21st Century," can Panama effectively respond to issues such as climate change and extended drought, supply chain security, population growth and global events such as the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East?

On The LatinNews Podcast this week, we look at the regime of President Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and discuss his likely successor and how the country arrived at this aggravated stage of repression. 

Dr Manuel Orozco, a Nicaraguan political scientist at the Inter American Dialogue, joins us to discuss how the regime has further dismantled democratic institutions and pursued a policy of systemic repression in behaviour akin to that of a "Tropical Taliban." 

In recent years more than 12 per cent of Nicaragua's population has left the country, nine out of ten citizens are in opposition to the regime, yet the culture of fear pervades. We ask for how long Ortega can hold on to power, how he manages to do so and who is the likely successor? 

Weaponizing social media with his own brand of populist authoritarianism, promoting cryptocurrency and imprisoning 70 thousand of his countrymen in order to pacify El Salvador's gang warfare, we ask, who is the real Nayib Bukele? 

Manuel Melendez-Sanchez, a PhD candidate in political science at Harvard University, joins us on the LatinNews podcast to discuss, not only Bukele's security policy - admired by some and abhorred by others - , but also his economic policy and concentration of power in El Salvador. 

Is El Salvador really the safest country in Latin America as President Bukele often claims?