Week in Review - Monday Edition
11/08/10
Latin America and the Caribbean
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Last Tuesday's elections resulted in significant changes to the make-up of the U.S. Congress. Republicans gained a majority in the House of Representatives and the Democrats narrowly maintained a slim majority in the Senate. What does this mean for U.S. policy to Latin America? Many Latin Americanists worked on answering that question throughout the week. Some good reads:
- Adam Isacson explains what a Republican majority in the House means for Latin America, and provides background information on the new House committee chairs;
- New America Foundation's Anya Landau sees little change, positive or negative, on Cuba policy in the new U.S. Congress;
- A dispute over the Costa Rican and Nicaraguan border emerged after Costa Rican officials alleged that Nicaraguan troops crossed into Costa Rican territory. Costa Rica took the dispute to the Organization of American States last week, however, Google also became an unintentional third party after Costa Rica claimed that the border line on Google Maps were incorrect. On Friday, Google changed the border line in Google Maps, granting the disputed territory to Costa Rica, after consulting data supplied from the U.S. Department of State. The blog on the Google Earth and Maps team's "Lat Long Blog" explaining the dispute and the boundary line move gives a brief history lesson, too, explaining that the dispute in the area goes back to at least the mid-19th century.
- Uruguay's Supreme Court ruled that amnesty was unconstitutional in a number of cases involving human rights violations committed during the country's 12-year dictatorship.