Newsweek

Latin America has seen independent candidates run for office before. They have won in countries like Peru, with Alberto Fujimori and then Alejandro Toledo, and Colombia, with Álvaro Uribe. Caudillos like Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Ecuador's Rafael Correa have bucked entrenched but sclerotic party systems. And leaders of broad movements have brought an end to decades-long single-party rule, as Fernando Lugo did with his victory in Paraguay over the Colorado Party. But something unusual is happening in Chile. In its upcoming presidential election,

... a form of defense—as a shield for policies they don't like," says Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CFRB), ...

Arguing against the motion were Steve Coll, CEO of the New America Foundation; retired US armylt. Col. John Nagl, president of the Center for a New American ...

... and what we are supposed to be doing," Steven Clemons, director of the nonpartisan think tank American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. ...

There is little question that in the field of foreign policy, Latin America is far from being a priority for the Obama administration. Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are more pressing. The problem is that the situation in Latin America is getting complicated, and it is intersecting with crises in other parts of the world that are far more important right now for the United States. Two key issues, which by themselves could be minor, are demanding Washington's attention because they are part of a broader picture that… more

... giant that acts like a diplomatic dwarf," former Mexican foreign minister and frequent NEWSWEEK contributor Jorge Castañeda told a Brazilian newspaper. ...

Rarely has there been such a show of unanimity in Latin America. Last week, in response to a new agreement between Washington and Bogotá that grants U.S. access to seven military bases in Colombia, almost every member of UNASUR--the South American group that some would like to replace the Organization of American States (perhaps because it excludes the U.S., Mexico, and Canada)--used a summit meeting to lambaste U.S. President Barack Obama and Colombian President Álvaro Uribe.

"What people in Congress need right now is courage," says Len Nichols, a health-care economist with the New America Foundation, "because it's hard to go out ...

In 1962, at a special meeting of the Organization of American States, the Uruguayan resort of Punta del Este became famous for something more than just luxury condos, restaurants and hotels, and catering to the Argentine aristocracy during the holiday season. At that meeting, Cuba was suspended from the regional body, with the Cold War pretext that its espousal of "Marxism-Leninism" and an alliance with the Soviet Union were incompatible with membership in the hemispheric club and its organizations.