HELSINKI, Finland -- Like many other foreign journalists, I made the obligatory pilgrimage to Finland to learn how this country has climbed to the top spots in key international rankings measuring economic, political and social success. The answer, I was told, is amazingly simple.
THE OPPENHEIMER REPORT
MEXICO CITY -- Many Mexicans reacted with shock and dismay when it was announced recently that nearly 70 percent of teachers had flunked a new nationwide test to measure whether they had the basic skills to be educators. I, for one, celebrated the news.
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MEXICO CITY -- Hundreds of thousands of angry Mexicans are planning to take to the streets Aug. 30 to protest a rise in violent kidnappings that is shaking this country, and that is driving growing numbers of well-to-do Mexicans to move to Miami, San Antonio and other U.S. cities.
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Get this: Latin America's rich are getting richer than their counterparts in all other regions of the world, and have already amassed $6.2 trillion in financial assets -- not counting their homes and art collections.
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After more than 10 years of watching Venezuela's authoritarian President Hugo Chávez, it's hard not to notice how predictable he has become: He always moves one step backward after a political setback, then two steps forward the minute the world looks away.
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The official view in U.S. and Latin American government circles is that there is no arms race going on in South America, and that most countries are just modernizing their armed forces. Hmmm, I wonder.
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What a joke! The United Nations' brand new Human Rights Council Advisory Committee held its first session this week in Geneva and -- as unbelievable as it looks -- elected a Cuban official to chair the 18-country group.
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Judging from the latest headlines, you might think that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's radical-leftist populism is gaining ground in Latin America, and that it will expand its influence in the region over the next few years. But, actually, the opposite may happen.
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It's official: Latin Americans pay fewer taxes than people in almost any other region of the world. Two new studies by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) say that Latin American governments' tax collection is not only way below that of the world's 30 most industrialized countries, but also lower than that of Southeast Asia and Africa.
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For years, I have thought that Mexico and most Caribbean countries want Cuba to remain a dictatorship subject to U.S. travel sanctions for as long as possible, because an eventual opening of U.S. travel to Cuba would badly hurt their own tourism industries.
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An old Latin American curse that many thought had been defeated for good -- inflation -- is making a comeback in several countries, and it may soon translate into greater poverty, and more economic and political instability.
DEMOCRATS
There is a fierce behind-the-scenes battle for influence over presumptive Democratic candidate Barack Obama's Hispanic and Latin American agenda, and some Democratic strategists say that its outcome could determine the result of the November elections.
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Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's recent comment that Americans should get their children to study Spanish or another second language has drawn an avalanche of criticism from English-only advocates and cable television anti-immigration zealots.
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MEXICO CITY -- For several years, this column has championed the idea that Mexico -- and Latin America in general -- could become a huge medical tourism destination for millions of Americans seeking more affordable healthcare, or simply wanting more personalized medical attention.
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Don't be fooled by the legal shenanigans surrounding Ecuador's populist President Rafael Correa's seizure of 195 companies from a Miami-based family involved in a major banking scandal in the 1990s.
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The biggest loser of last week's Hollywood-styled Colombian army rescue of 15 hostages in the hands of the FARC guerrillas, in addition to the rebels themselves, was Venezuela's narcissist-Leninist President Hugo Chávez.
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MEXICO CITY -- When I asked Mexican President Felipe Calderón about Democratic presumptive presidential candidate Barack Obama's pledge to renegotiate the U.S. free trade agreement with Mexico, I expected him to say that such a move would be catastrophic for Mexico.
