The author of the book, Oscar Martinez, is a journalist from El Salvador. He runs Sala Negra, a crime investigations unit for El Faro, the investigative Central American online magazine based in El Salvador.   He has given a graphic and moving account of the violence in Central America based on his direct interaction with criminal gangs, assassins, security forces, prison authorities, judges, prosecutors, police detectives, informants, government functionaries, political leaders, priests and the victims. He has taken enormous personal risk in visiting the areas controlled by gangs in ..read more

Hernan Diaz, the Argentine writer settled in New York, was an invitee at the 2024 Jaipur Literature Festival held last month. He spoke about creativity and writing. I was impressed by his brilliant ideas, profound intellect, subversive thoughts and powerful articulation. After listening to him I read his novel “Trust”. The book has exceeded my expectations. ‘Trust’ is not a simple story for passive pleasure of reading. It is a complex and unconventional novel provoking the readers to think, detect, imagine and question. Within the book, there are four different books written by different fi ..read more

 "Where there was fire" is the first Costa Rican novel I have read. It is also the first novel written by John Manuel Arias, the Costa Rican author, published in 2023. The novel brings out the life and situation in Costa Rica during the time of domination of American banana companies in the sixties. The companies exploit the workers and the country. Their use of chemicals to spray on the banana plants cause sterility among men. To hide this, the company's Gringo doctor falsifies medical records to show that the men were already sterile. He is foolish and arrogant enough to tell one o ..read more

Latin America’s GDP growth in 2024 is projected at 1.8%, down from 2.1% in 2023, according to the annual December report of ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and Caribbean).    This lowering of growth is due to the general slow down of global growth and in particular the decline in Chinese growth and the fall in commodity prices exported by the region. The modest 4.2% of Chinese GDP growth in 2024 will impact particularly Chile, Panama, Peru, Brazil and Uruguay. China absorbs 39% of Chile’s goods exports, 32% of those of both Panama and Peru, and 27% of those of Brazil and ..read more

In a referendum held yesterday, 56 percent of the Chilean voters defeated a draft centre-right constitution.   Last year, the voters defeated a leftist constitution, which was drafted by the constitutional assembly which was dominated by social activists and idealists.    The Chileans decided in a referendum held in 2019 to go in for a new constitution to replace the existing constitution imposed by the military dictatorship of Pinochet. Although this has been amended many times, still it perpetuates inequality and social injustice. The students and masses had risen in violent p ..read more

Panama’s economy doing fine without a Central Bank in the last hundred years.   Javier Milei, the President-elect of Argentina, has promised to close the central bank and dollarize the economy to get the country out of its crisis. Many people consider this as yet another crazy proposal of the Mad Milei.    But there is a Latin American country whose economy is doing well without a Central Bank. It is Panama. It does not have a Central Bank since its independence in 1903. Panama is the only country in Latin America that has not experienced a financial collapse, high inflatio ..read more

 Argentine voters have made smart choices in the elections of 21 October   Before the elections on 21 October, there was a hype by the anti-left western media that Argentina was going have its own Bolsonaro/Trump by electing Javier Milei, the far right radical anti-establishment candidate as President. But the Argentine voters proved to be smarter. They shocked Javier Milei and his choreographers by humbling him into the second position with 30% votes. Sergio Massa, the leftist candidate of the ruling coalition came first with 37% votes. The centre-right candidate Patricia Bullr ..read more

  Ecuador elected Daniel Noboa as President in the elections held on Sunday.  At 35, he is the youngest to become the President of the country.   His wife Lavinia Valbonesi, age 25, will be the youngest First Lady. She is a Social Media Influencer with interests and investment in health food, fitness and fashion. The dashing young, athletic-looking, entrepreneurial and successful couple have attracted the votes of the youth. Noboa has an MBA from Kellogg School, Masters in Public Administration from Harvard and another Masters in Political Communication and Str ..read more

Mexico has two leading candidates for the presidential elections to be held in June 2024. Both are women.  Claudia Sheinbaum is from the ruling Morena party and Xochitl Galvez is from the opposition coalition.   Sheinbaum is a scientist. She has a PhD in energy engineering and is the author of two books and over one hundred articles on the subjects of energy, environment and sustainable development. She is from a family of scientists. Her father is a chemical engineer, mother a biologist and brother a physicist. She has proved her competence in governance as mayor of Mexico city ..read more

In the elections held on Sunday, the Guatemalan voters elected Bernardo Arevalo as president with 58% of the votes. This is significant for three fundamental reasons in the context of the Guatemalan and regional political history.   Firstly, this clear and decisive election of an anti-establishment outsider is a victory for democracy. The current ruling establishment of President Giammattei had tried a lot of dirty tricks and prevented some candidates from contesting in the elections. They even went after the Movimiento Semilla (Seed Movement) party of Arevalo with accusations of irre ..read more