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Latest Columns

  • 23 October 2009

    Women have finally caught up to men in the work force -- if only in number. Today, nearly half of all workers on U.S. payrolls are women, marking a 15 percent jump in four decades, and 40 percent of them are the primary wage earners in their households.

  • 16 October 2009

    In 2002, the Canadian mining company Pacific Rim received preliminary permits to explore gold-mining possibilities in northern El Salvador. The company's representatives assured residents of nearby San Isidro that the El Dorado mine project would create much-needed jobs and development.

  • 16 October 2009

    In 2002, the Canadian mining company Pacific Rim received preliminary permits to explore gold-mining possibilities in northern El Salvador. The company's representatives assured residents of nearby San Isidro that the El Dorado mine project would create much-needed jobs and development.

  • 9 October 2009

    L'Atelier du Chocolat is a gourmet chocolate factory in Mexico with $2 million in annual sales and 63 employees. Among the factory's clients is Liverpool, one of Mexico's largest department store chains, but L'Atelier du Chocolat can only supply seven of Liverpool's 130 stores.

    "To be able to serve them all I would have to invest in machinery," says owner Marisol Alfaro. "But I don't have access to financing because I don't have the contract." And Alfaro can't secure the contract until she can prove that she has the means to fulfill it. "It is a vicious circle," she says.

  • 2 October 2009

    If it could, Latin America would pat itself on the back. Analysts from public and private institutions, political and economic experts, all seem to agree: An unusual combination of government interventions and pro-market reforms adopted in Latin America since the mid-1990s have enabled the region to weather the worst global recession in 80 years. Not bad, considering Latin America is widely viewed as the most economically and financially volatile region in the world.

  • 25 September 2009

    The moment deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya walked into the Brazilian embassy in Honduras' capital, Tegucigalpa, on Sept. 21, Brazil was thrust into the center of the Honduran crisis.

    The South American giant has since requested an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council and called for a U.N. investigation of human rights abuses perpetrated by Roberto Micheletti's de facto government in Honduras. At the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva demanded Zelaya's "immediate return to the presidency."

  • 18 September 2009

    Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez's first computer had a hand crank. The Swedish-made Facit calculator, a 13-pound device he used while working for a wholesaler in the 1960s, was heavy, unforgiving, and with its various keys, levers and pointers, not very user-friendly.

    So it's not surprising that Vazquez shows an almost childlike joy in talking about "the jewel" of his administration: his plan to put a laptop computer into the hands of every Uruguayan child.

  • 11 September 2009

    U.S. policy toward Latin America is suffering from a lack of experience at the top. Neither President Obama nor Vice President Biden or anyone in the cabinet could honestly be considered a Latin Americanist. And Arturo Valenzuela, Obama's nominee for assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs -- the top diplomatic post in the region -- remains unconfirmed, the victim of a Republican senator's cheap political maneuvering.

  • 4 September 2009

    In the early 1800s, Ludwig van Beethoven began composing a symphony he intended to dedicate to Napoleon Bonaparte, hero of the French Revolution. But when he learned that Napoleon had crowned himself emperor, Beethoven furiously scratched out the working title, "Sinfonia Bonaparte," and replaced it with "Sinfonia Eroica, composta per festeggiare il sovvenire d'un grand'uomo" -- Heroic Symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man. In the composer's eyes, Napoleon was dead.

  • 28 August 2009

    The leaders of the Americas have failed to resolve the political crisis in Honduras. President Manuel Zelaya is still in exile and the de facto government remains, defiant and unmoved.

  • 21 August 2009

    As a naturalized U.S. citizen of nearly four years, I don't often worry about whether I'm assimilating well -- I usually feel right at home. Aside from wanting to visit family and friends, there is only one reason why I sometimes wish to go back to my home country: for health care.

  • 14 August 2009
    The Real Shame Behind Latest Controversy Over U.S. Role

    One base is closed, a replacement is sought and suddenly South America is up in arms. Presidents of Brazil and Chile, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Michelle Bachelet, are troubled by the idea. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warns about potential war. And South America leaders call an extraordinary summit to demand explanations.

  • 31 July 2009

    Mexican President Felipe Calderon seems to be losing his battle against organized crime. In the last two and half years, mob violence has claimed the lives of 12,000 people, and now even some within Calderon's own party are questioning the president's response to the problem.

  • 24 July 2009

    President Obama wants to tackle Latin America's crisis of inequality from the "bottom up," as his presidential campaign repeatedly put it. To that end he has already requested a 50 percent increase in development assistance -- a total of $533 million to improve agriculture, education and economic opportunities. He has also asked for an additional $448 million for those hit hardest by the global recession and another $100 million for microfinancing.

  • 17 July 2009

    The Honduran delegates that arrived here last weekend to meet with members of Congress and other U.S. officials were clearly dissatisfied with the U.S. response to last month's ousting of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. Insisting they were here to defend democracy -- and not just Zelaya -- the delegates felt the Obama administration wasn't doing all it could.

  • 10 July 2009

    The international community roundly and universally condemned the forced expatriation of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya last month. Zelaya's pathetic attempt to return a week later on a flight from Washington deserves equal scorn from anyone legitimately concerned with Honduras' future.

  • 3 July 2009

    Just seven years ago, the U.S. government would not acknowledge that forcefully removing a democratically elected president at gunpoint constituted a coup. In April 2002, the White House referred to the military-led toppling of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as merely a "change of government" and failed to condemn the act.

  • 26 June 2009

    By late 2008, as the rest of the world was falling into one of the worst recessions in decades, the Chilean government had amassed $42 billion in savings -- the result of fiscal discipline and a 60 percent increase in exports since 2005. Now Chile is a creditor nation and the only country to have its credit rating upgraded by Moody's Investor Services during the global recession. On June 23, President Obama called Chilean President Michelle Bachelet one of the "most compelling leaders that we have, not just in the hemisphere but around the world."

  • 19 June 2009

    In an interview last month with BBC television, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe could not conceal his exasperation. Yet the interviewer had asked a legitimate and seemingly harmless question: "Do you want to be president four more years?"

    "Next question, amigo," Uribe told the Argentine journalist conducting the interview. "Study the history of your country and leave Colombian democracy alone."

  • 12 June 2009

    Five years from now, the United States will need 1.2 million more registered nurses to meet the needs of retiring (and aging) baby boomers. Supply is already short in the United States and around the world, promising that fierce competition will only grow more intense for these essential workers.

To publish Ms. Sanchez’s column, please contact the New York Times Syndicate:

Isabel Amorim Sicherle
in Sao Paulo
55-11-3812-5588
sicheia@nytimes.com

Ana Muñoz
in New York
212-556-5177
munoza@nytimes.com