Latin America

Ecuador sees the loans it has agreed with China as “good news,” because they are long-term, and all that is required in return is “oil, and not the horrendous adjustments imposed by the IMF (International Monetary Fund),” leftwing Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa told analysts critical of the size and high interest rates of the loans.

“Against the backdrop of the disastrous Fukushima nuclear plant accident, I will speak of the absolute need for Japan to not only work to ban nuclear weapons but also to completely eradicate dependence on nuclear energy,” Matashichi Oishi, 78, a radiation victim from Bikini Atoll told IPS.

During the social and economic collapse of 2002-2003, the Argentine state encouraged the formation of workers’ cooperatives, which helped mitigate the worst effects of the crisis, reduced hard-core unemployment, and now as independent, democratic, worker-controlled organizations are providing services to the public and private sectors.

Jean Ronel Noël, a young Haitian engineer, stood in a centuries-old fort on a small island just off Dakar and looked out at the Atlantic through a portal that once led enslaved Africans to the ships of the Middle Passage.

Environmental groups hope that a mothballed nuclear power plant on Bataan peninsula of the Philippines will become a major tourist attraction and earn green dollars for the country.

The new president of Peru, retired lieutenant colonel Ollanta Humala, promised to make the fight against poverty and marginalization the top priority of his administration. But his inaugural address was short on specifics, according to activists and analysts.

In a significant escalation in the rhetorical battle against Iran, the U.S. Treasury Department Thursday accused Tehran of having forged a “secret deal” with Al-Qaeda to allow it to use Iranian territory to transport money and operatives to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

As he basks in the congratulatory messages coming from countries near and far, Irwin LaRocque knows the next three years will not be easy for him and the Caribbean regional integration movement.