The Homecoming: For Those Migrants Returning To Honduras, Little Has Changed

The Homecoming: For Those Migrants Returning To Honduras, Little Has Changed Honduras Emerson Colindres, 19, and his family fled Honduras and applied unsuccessfully for asylum in the United States in 2014. Since then, they had been in the immigration system, waiting to receive a date to leave the US. Then, agents detained Colindres when he showed up for a routine immigration check this month in Ohio. Colindres, who has no criminal record and just graduated from high school, spent two weeks in the Butler County jail near Cincinnati before he was deported back to Honduras, the Cincinnati Enquirer wrote. “It was kind of more traumatizing because I haven’t been to my birth country in years,” Colindres told WCPO, a local television station. If his mother and sister leave Ohio to join him, as they say they will, they will join other Honduran immigrants who are opting to self-deport from the US under a new program called Project Homecoming, according to CNN. The US government initiative pays those in the US illegally $1,000 to leave the country. A group of 38 Hondurans who opted to self-deport recently landed at Ramón Villeda Morales International Airport in northeastern Honduras. This direction of traffic is a trickle compared with the number of Hondurans who have migrated to the US in recent years. Between 2000 and 2021, the Honduran migrant community in the US grew from 240,000 to 1.1 million, an increase of 374 percent, the Pew Research Center said. There are many reasons why Colindres’ family took him from the Central American country of around 10 million, namely the poverty, the violence, and the corruption in the narco-state. Things haven’t changed in the 11 years since they left. For example, late last year, a scandal erupted in the country over meetings between senior government officials associated with President Xiomara Castro and drug traffickers who donated to her campaign and paid bribes to Castro’s husband, former President Mel Zelaya, who went into exile following a 2009 coup, and Zelaya’s brother, explained the Wilson Center. Castro’s predecessor, ex-President Juan Orlando Hernández, is now serving a 45-year prison sentence in the US for trafficking in guns and drugs. The country lacks the civil society institutions, independent judiciary, and watchdog groups to combat this corruption, analysts say. In the past, American officials might have had more power to help Honduras foster democracy and law, the Christian Science Monitor noted. Now, however, as the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) lamented, the US has taken a more antagonistic stance toward Castro due to her left-wing views, including her ties with China and her support for the authoritarian regimes of Nicaragua and Venezuela. As a result, the US shuns the country: “During his tour of Central America in early February 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not include Honduras on his itinerary, sending a strong message,” WOLA wrote. In November, Hondurans will elect a new president who might change the direction of the country, the Associated Press reported. Candidates from Castro’s leftist LIBRE party and Hernández’s conservative National party will likely dominate the vote, which means little will change, analysts say. As a result, the reasons people like the Colindres family left the country won’t be solved anytime soon. Still, some are hopeful. “While electoral violence is a significant threat, and democratic degradation is indeed a concerning trend in the region, these challenges are by no means insurmountable,” wrote the US Institute of Peace. “Central American neighbor Guatemala rose from its contentious 2023 elections with a citizenry hopeful of a renewed democratic spring capable of strengthening justice while delivering social dividends for its society. Hondurans still have time to make next year’s elections their watershed moment towards building a stronger, more inclusive and responsive democracy.” Share this story

Cuba Is Hanging On ,Barely. As The US Turns The Screws

In the Vice: Cuba Is Hanging On, Barely, As the US Turns the Screws Cuba Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío recently sat down with Democracy Now! to talk about the US government’s toughening stance on the communist-run island 90 miles off the coast of Florida. Re-designating Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, resuming the American economic embargo on Cuba, banning travel from the island to the US, targeting Cuban immigrants for deportation, and sending immigrants detained in the US to the American military base in Guantánamo Bay were narrow-minded policies that were “not relevant to the interests of most Americans,” said Fernández de Cossío. As Cossío spoke, students at the Caribbean country’s universities were taking to the streets to protest the 800-percent increases in Internet fees, reported United Press International, adding that the hikes had undercut academic work, research, and public health services. The two developments reflect how Cuba faces threats, old and new, even as it reaches breaking point. Young Cubans who have lived with frequent power outages, water shortages, transportation failures, and skyrocketing food prices said that pricey wi-fi was the last straw. Cuba’s state-owned communications company, ETECSA, which enjoys a monopoly as the country’s Internet provider, unilaterally raised the price, saying it was short of foreign currency. However, the new prices, based on average use, are double the monthly base salary of government employees. Still, students said the real outrage was also that Cuba’s communist government is increasing its reliance on the US dollar. In recent months, state supermarkets have opened across Cuba that only accept hard currencies. Gasoline stations are switching away from the peso. Many believe electricity is next. Already, numerous companies offer foreign packages that encourage Cubans to ask their relatives abroad to pay. “(The anger) reflects a growing sense on the island that the government is moving away from its socialist principles, while not liberalizing the economy enough to allow people to earn the money now needed to live,” the Guardian wrote. Regardless, the price spikes for the Internet are one of many examples of the economy’s problems. Outlets that track the island, like CiberCuba, wrote that inflation is up and food scarcity is widespread. Poor seniors, for example, are consuming coffee and banana peels to stave off hunger. Products like milk are uncommon now. When families are lucky enough to find food, they cook over charcoal due to natural gas shortages. The US has arguably contributed to these troubles, analysts say. Restrictions on remissions to islanders from immigrant Cubans and Cuban Americans in the US have dramatically reduced income, for instance, as the state-owned Cuban News Agency described. Also, doing business with a Cuban entity is illegal and subject to sanctions. Citing the Cuban government’s abysmal human rights record and resistance to American power projection in the region, the chief of mission in the US Embassy in Cuba, Mike Hammer, said the US was already planning to impose a new round of sanctions on the country. “This administration is determined to sanction repressors,” Hammer told Reuters and other reporters recently in Miami. “There will be consequences for their actions.” The Cuban economy – and thus the communist government – are on the brink of collapse amid these pressures, argued Gerold Schmidt, an expert at the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, a German think tank. “The socialist country is currently facing what is likely the worst economic crisis since the 1959 revolution,” he wrote. “It will be difficult for Cuba’s political leadership to find a way out of the crisis in the foreseeable future. On the one hand, it does not want to give up the gains made by the revolution… But the country lacks the necessary funds for investing in vital sectors and cannot obtain further loans due to US sanctions and its already high levels of foreign debt. In the short term, the focus will have to be on how the country’s economy can survive without overstretching the population’s patience.” Share this story

Chilean Right Buoyed By Rise In Crime and Scandals On The Left

Chilean Right Buoyed by Rise in Crime, Scandals on Left Chile Outgoing Chilean President Gabriel Boric is lobbying hard in the capital of Santiago for progressive legislation that would expand abortion rights and permit euthanasia. The bills are vital to Boric’s legacy because he has failed to fulfill other left-wing pledges he made when he assumed office three years ago, including liberal tax reforms that never passed, pension reforms that did not eliminate private pension fund administrators as promised, and a proposed liberal constitution that voters rejected in a 2022 referendum, according to Reuters. The abortion bill would decriminalize the procedures for as long as 14 weeks after conception. The euthanasia bill would permit euthanasia and assisted suicide for citizens older than 18, the Associated Press reported. Boric’s urgency highlights his tough political position. Unable to run for a consecutive, four-year term under the Chilean constitution, Boric won’t be on the ballot in the upcoming election in November. Now, unless he shows that he can deliver on his campaign promises, Boric’s successors are likely to be conservatives who try to erase any influence he has had on the South American country. Boric’s approval ratings stand at around 22 percent, United Press International wrote, despite enacting some leftist policies like limiting the workweek to 40 hours and increasing the minimum wage. Still, Chileans are far more worried about spiking levels of crime and political scandals involving his administration, analysts said. Frontrunners in the presidential race, meanwhile, are all on the right. Leading the pack is conservative economist Evelyn Matthei, 71, the daughter of a general who served under dictator Augusto Pinochet, who ruled the country for 17 years, World Politics Review explained. She had campaigned to allow Pinochet to remain in power and to defeat efforts to bring perpetrators of crimes against humanity during his regime to justice. She has pledged to crack down on immigration but also supports gay marriage and abortion. She compares herself to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a noted pragmatist. A close contender is far-right candidate, José Antonio Kast, 59, the son of a Nazi émigré to Chile and who lost to Boric in the last election. A long-serving congressman for the south side of Santiago, his late brother served as a minister under Pinochet, whose regime Kast has defended. He is rising in the polls. Another candidate is Axel Kaiser, 43, a libertarian who styles himself after Argentine President Javier Milei, who has slashed government programs and criticized left-wing policies. Kast and Kaiser have pledged to crack down on immigration, too. “I worked as a laborer, as a waiter, as a bond salesman, I’ve done a thousand different things,” Kaiser told America Quarterly. “(Boric) was a student activist, entered Congress, and became president. He’s never worked a day in his life.” All three want to put an end to Boric’s policies, added the American Conservative, and the public is receptive: “Boric, once the shining star of the young Latin American left, is now an exhausted political figure, as the region’s youth turn rightwards in concert with much of the world.”

Bolsinaro Goes On Trial

Down and Out in Brazil: Former Brazilian Leader Goes On Trial For Attempted Coup Brazil Former Brazilian Infrastructure Minister Tarcísio de Freitas recently testified on behalf of his one-time boss, Jair Bolsonaro, the ex-president of Brazil, who is currently on trial for allegedly organizing an attempted coup to remain in office and plotting to murder the current president and a supreme court justice. “During the period I was with the president during the final stretch (of his term)…he never touched on that subject, never mentioned any attempt at constitutional disruption,” said Freitas, who is the current governor of the state of São Paulo. A conservative and populist, Bolsonaro faces 40 years in prison if he’s found guilty of seeking to seize control of the government after he lost his reelection bid to current Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, a leftist, in late 2022, reported Agence France-Presse. He would also be banned permanently from holding office. Soon after the election, his supporters stormed the Brazilian Congress, the Supreme Court, and the presidential palace in the capital of Brasília, the Buenos Aires Herald explained. Bolsonaro claims the prosecution is politically motivated and aims to prevent him from running for office again in 2026, the BBC noted. The case against him, meanwhile, appears strong, analysts add, pointing to a mountain of evidence, including testimony by some of his own supporters. In mid-May, Gen. Marco Antônio Freire Gomes, a former army commander under Bolsonaro, took the stand in a pre-trial hearing and told the court that he met with Bolsonaro ahead of the inauguration of Lula in early 2023 to discuss a “state of siege” as a possible way to overturn Bolsonaro’s election defeat, according to Agence France-Presse. Another military official under Bolsonaro, Carlos de Almeida Baptista Júnior, told the court he also took part in meetings in which Bolsonaro discussed “the hypothetical possibility of using legal instruments” to overturn the election results and justify military intervention. Both Gomes and Júnior said they refused to comply. Gomes said that he warned Bolsonaro of the judicial implications of declaring a state of siege and even threatened to have him arrested if he followed through with the plan. More than 80 witnesses, including senior military officers, former government ministers, and officials from the police and intelligence services, are testifying in this preliminary trial phase. Among them is Bolsonaro’s former personal assistant, Lt. Col. Mauro Cid, who has made a plea deal. Still, British-Canadian writer Gwynne Dyer saw holes in the prosecution’s case. Writing in the Bangkok Post, he argued that the civilians who vandalized government buildings were incompetent and half-hearted in their attempt at regime change. Soldiers never left their barracks. And Bolsonaro was “on vacation” in Florida. Meanwhile, it’s not clear a judge would imprison the former president if he is found guilty. Bolsonaro, 70, is recovering from his sixth operation for intestinal damage related to a 2018 assassination attempt. Pain and discomfort have impeded his campaign efforts for his party in next year’s presidential election, the Associated Press wrote. Bolsonaro’s downfall represents an especially remarkable reversal of fortunes in contrast to the comeback of his arch-nemesis, Lula. Lula left office in 2010 after serving two terms as a popular president. His handpicked successor, former President Dilma Rousseff, was impeached and ousted in 2016. Then, a year later, prosecutors convicted Lula in a bribery and corruption scandal, imprisoning him for almost two years. In 2021, the country’s Supreme Court annulled his conviction, letting him run for office again. Holding on to power is a long game in Brazilian politics, analysts say. Bolsonaro is already banned from holding office until 2030 for abuse of power and for making unfounded claims that Brazil’s electronic voting system was vulnerable to fraud. Despite the ban, he said he plans to run again in the 2026 presidential election. After all, Lula became president again in spite of his conviction, observers add. “One of the strange paradoxes in politics is that populists gain from anger at the political system no matter how much they contributed to the system’s failures,” wrote World Politics Review. “Brazil’s prosecution (of) Bolsonaro for the attempted coup he plotted is salutary. But that does not guarantee the country won’t fall into this same trap.” Share this story

Brasil Is On Track To Become The #1 Cattle Producer in the World!

he Americas | Cash cows Brazilian supercows are taking over the world What a bovine beauty pageant says about the future of the world’s beef supply A stockman watches over the Nelore cow known as Viatina-19 at a farm in Uberaba, Minas Gerais state, Brazil. Dear Dairy, today I had my pedicurePhotograph: AP May 14th 2025|Uberaba Save Share Give Listen to this story The master of ceremonies at ExpoZebu, a cow gala in the state of Minas Gerais in south-east Brazil, could see the dilemma. One animal had “elliptical eyes” and an “excellent mammary apparatus”. The other had a delicate neck and a curvaceous rump. The judges faced “a difficult decision”. When he finally announced the winner of the contest (they plumped for the rump), cowhands shed tears of joy and the crowd erupted with a riotous “yeehaw”. ExpoZebu is the world’s largest fair of zebu, an Indian strain of cattle whose distinguishing features are a humped back and sagging dewlaps. Brought to Brazil in the 19th century, it proved more resistant to heat and parasites than European breeds. Today zebus make up 80% of Brazil’s 239m-strong herd of cattle. Their proliferation has helped to transform Brazil from a country where hunger was common to the world’s largest net exporter of food. Brazil’s agricultural revolution began in the 1970s, when a series of military governments poured money into rural credit and created Embrapa, the state-owned agricultural-research firm. Its scientists developed crops well adapted to tropical weather, in particular a tall, drought-resistant grass from Africa called brachiaria. This opened the country’s vast interior up to farming and cattle ranching (at the cost of massive deforestation). Breeding programmes then began beefing the zebus up. The average weight of a slaughtered cow in Brazil has gone up by 16% since 1997. In a country of tropical supercows, crowning bovine beauty queens is a big deal. Buyers flock to ExpoZebu from as far afield as Angola and India to see the finest creatures. They then bid in auctions to buy elite genes from champion cows and bulls. The wealthiest ranchers compete for shares in the cows themselves. This year’s fair attracted 400,000 visitors. Its auctions raised $35m. The ultimate prize is a cow like Viatina-19 (pictured below), a zebu that fetched $4m in 2023 to become the most expensive ruminant ever sold at auction. She weighs 1,100kg (2,400 pounds), more than twice the average of less distinguished counterparts. In an auction in November her crown was stolen by Carina, another Brazilian beauty. Each animal has three owners, each with the right to harvest eggs from their cow for four months of the year, for sale to keen breeders. The cows have been cloned to insure their genes. Famous country singers and powerful politicians roam ExpoZebu, but the cows are the stars (with names like “Genghis Khan” and “Lady Gaga”). Champions seem aware of their celebrity. When photographed, Viatina appears to straighten her legs, lift her head and peer thoughtfully into the distance. Picture taken, she returns to munching her feed. Lorrany Martins, a vet whose family co-owns Viatina, says the cow is given daily baths with a clarifying shampoo to keep her hair gleaming white. Her horns are moisturised with sunflower oil and she receives regular pedicures. She is watched over by surveillance cameras and travels in her own lorry while her brethren cram into pickup trucks. The improvements that Viatina embodies have allowed Brazil to account for almost a quarter of the world’s beef exports. That share is set to expand. The World Organisation for Animal Health, based in Paris, is expected soon to declare Brazil free of foot-and-mouth disease. The move “will totally change Brazil’s image”, says Luiz Josakhian of the Brazilian Association of Zebu Breeders. Protectionist countries may find it harder to refuse cheap Brazilian beef imports on sanitary grounds. Indeed, exports to the United States are soaring despite President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Beside the road out of Uberaba, an advertisement featuring muscular cows boldly declares Brazil’s mission: “Better cows for a better world.” ■ Sign up to El Boletín, our subscriber-only newsletter on Latin America, to understand the forces shaping a fascinating and complex region. Explore more World The Americas Agriculture Brazil

Nazi War Criminals Allegedly Paid $200 Million In Bribes To THe Peron Government in Argentina

Nazi criminals allegedly paid $200M in bribes to Perón government By Macarena Hermosilla, 6 hours ago ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay, May 23 (UPI) -- Recently declassified files suggest that Nazi criminals may have paid $200 million in gold bribes to Argentine authorities to secure refuge in the country after World War II. Then U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon speaks near a portrait of former Argentinean President Juan Domingo Peron and his wife Eva Duarte de Peron, during a visit to the Bicentenary Museum at the Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2011. File photo by Leo La Valle/EPA-EFE The files indicate German submarines transported the gold to Argentina's southern coast, where it was delivered to Eva Duarte, wife of then-President Juan Domingo Perón. The money was reportedly later handled by German bankers Richard von Frente, Ricardo Stauch and Rodolf Freude. The released material includes 1,850 documents compiled into seven files dating from 1950 to 1980. The records confirm that Third Reich fugitives arrived in Argentina beginning in 1945 with the protection of Perón, and that their arrival was not isolated but part of a larger effort. Nazi ideology had gained notable support in Argentina as early as the 1930s. On April 10, 1938, nearly 10,000 people attended a rally organized by the German embassy at Luna Park stadium in Buenos Aires. Perón was reportedly an admirer of fascist aspects of Nazi Germany. "The German government encouraged that sympathy by promising major trade concessions after the war. Argentina was full of Nazi spies. Argentine officers and diplomats held important posts in Axis Europe," said Christopher Minster, a Latin American history and literature expert, in an interview with ThoughtCo. Among the most prominent Nazis who found refuge in Argentina were Josef Mengele, known as the "Angel of Death," Adolf Eichmann, one of the main architects of the Holocaust and leader of the so-called "Final Solution," and Josef Schwammberger, who commanded the Krakow concentration camp from 1942 to 1944. Mengele evaded capture for years, living under a false identity in Argentina and Paraguay. He drowned off a Brazilian beach in 1979 and was buried under the name Wolfgang Gerhard. Eichmann was captured by Mossad in a covert operation and brought to Israel, where he was tried and executed by hanging on June 1, 1962. He had entered Argentina under the alias Ricardo Klement. Schwammberger was arrested in 1987 and extradited to Germany, where he was sentenced to life in prison.

Argentina: Protests For Higher Pensions Escalate As Pensions Hike Fails

Protests for Higher Pensions Escalate as Pensions Hike Fails Argentina Dozens of people were injured in clashes with police this week in Buenos Aires after protests broke out in front of Argentina’s Congress following a failure by lawmakers to approve higher pensions, the Associated Press reported. Earlier this week, Argentine lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on various bills, including pension increases and other benefits for the retired. The administration of President Javier Milei, which has been focused on rescuing the economy and tackling high inflation while cutting public spending, opposed the proposals. Protests for pension increases have become common in Argentina after Milei implemented austerity measures over the past year. During these demonstrations, retirees are often joined by other groups, such as unions or soccer fans. The government says that austerity measures are necessary to bring down inflation, and promote investment and economic growth. Economists and business folks say the tough medicine of Milei, the self-declared “anarcho-capitalist” who rode to power in 2023 promising to “blow up” the central bank, punish elites, axe a bloated government, and defeat sky-high inflation, is working. And he is being rewarded for these moves, too. Milei’s right-wing party, La Libertad Avanza (LLA), in an election upset, took first place with more than 30 percent of the vote in local elections in Buenos Aires on Sunday, traditionally considered the stronghold of the center-right Propuesta Republicana (PRO), which placed third, according to Euronews. The party also beat the left-leaning Peronist party, which governed Argentina for most of the past 20 years and came in second in the elections.