The US government changed the rules governing how people can seek asylum at the US-Mexico border last week, as a pandemic-era policy called Title 42 expired. Although it may become more difficult, thousands of people are still making their way from South America to the US border, including migrants from all over the world. Some are making their way through the Darien Gap, a dangerous jungle that separates Colombia and Panama.
Latin America and the Caribbean now register a million new COVID-19 infections about every six days. With the vaccine rollout lagging and lives and livelihoods hanging in the balance, what is next for the region? As part of The World's series of conversations on the pandemic with Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health, reporter Elana Gordon moderated a discussion with demographer Marcia Castro.
Hurricane Iota made landfall Monday in Nicaragua as a Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph. President Donald Trump reportedly asked his advisers last week for options to attack Iran’s main nuclear site but then decided not to take any action. And, the SpaceX Dragon capsule docked with the International Space Station (ISS) after a 27-hour completely automated journey.
Many Latin American countries have joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative, including Panama. As Mexico considers whether to join, some countries in the region face pressure from the Trump administration not to get too close to China.
With borders closed and entire countries on lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic, some 2,000 migrants — many of them children under age 5 — have been detained for months in Panama, near the rainforest separating South and Central America.
The president previously decried the influence of foreign lobbyists.
Owners of the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower in Panama City are trying to get rid of the Trump name on their property, according to a report by the Associated Press.
Sarah Chayes, a senior associate in the Democracy and Rule of Law Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says politicians from both sides of the aisle are not taking seriously enough their duty to ensure they're not turning their government role into an opportunity to make a buck.
Manuel Noriega was propped up and later toppled by the United States.
Panama says it's setting up an independent commission to review regulations governing financial and legal services, in the wake of a massive leak exposing the murky world of offshore finance. The Panamanian company at the heart of the crisis, Mossack Fonseca, says it's done nothing wrong.
The issues surrounding offshore tax havens are political, not technical.