After the events of 9/11 there was a rise in contemporary cases of Islamophobia in the United States. However, what is often left out of the media is the rise in Islamophobia that has been occuring in South America as well.
On Tuesday, December 6, news broke that the government of Panama had awarded a $1.4 billion contract to a Chinese consortium to initiate a new infrastructure project on the Panama Canal. The new contract will allow the Chinese consortium to begin construction of a massive bridge over the Panama Canal connecting Panama City to its western suburbs. This deal comes directly after Chinese president Xi Jinping paid a visit to Panama—the first Chinese leader ever to do so—during a 4-part tour to Spain, Argentina, Panama and Portugal. President Xi’s tour overlapped with the occurrence of this year’s G20 Summit in Buenos Aires.
As the value of its currency continues to fall and its economy edges nearer to collapse, Argentina’s government is scrambling to establish new measures to protect its currency and to save the country from a long-term recession. The government recently proposed a new plan for the 2019 budget which now includes various initiatives to cut government spending.
Argentina has drawn widespread attention in the past couple of weeks as the Argentinian Congress took it’s first step towards legalizing abortion for women up to 14 weeks. On June 14th, the bill officially passed the House by 129 to 125 votes after a 23-hour strenuous debate (Politi and Ellis). If the Senate approves the abortion bill in the next hurdle for women’s rights, then President Macri has agreed to sign the law into effect.
In Argentina in 1983, ownership and management of a large domestic defense industry afforded the military power, autonomy, and a claim to economic rents. Between 1983-89, Argentina succeeded in its efforts to transfer management of the military defense industry to civilians, but not in its efforts to transfer ownership to civilians of that same sector—why? This work argued that this peculiar outcome had to do with the combined presence of high levels of military coalitional strength, and civilian institutional strength.
As a majority Catholic country, abortion in Argentina has always been a sensitive topic. Illegal except for in a few cases, the Human Rights Watch estimates that nearly 500,000 abortions occur in Argentina annually, constituting about 40 percent of all pregnancies. It is also the leading cause of maternal mortality in the country (Human Rights Watch, 2018).
Several months ago, on August 1, 2017, Indigenous rights protester Santiago Maldonado went missing. His disappearance did not escape the public eye as it led to massive protests in Argentina demanding the government provide answers for what happened to Maldonado.
On Sunday, October 22, 2017, President Mauricio Macri’s ‘Cambiemos’ (‘Let’s Change’) coalition declared victory in Argentina’s legislative midterm elections over its main opposition, former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s ‘Unidad Ciudadana’ (‘Citizen Unity’) coalition.
