If someone were to rank the most embattled Jewish communities in the world today, the Jewish community of Venezuela would certainly be high on that list. Over the past decade the community has shrunk by half its size. “Ten years ago we had about 18,000 members,” said Salomon Cohen. “Now we have about 9,500.” Cohen, head of the Confederacion de Asociaciones Israelitas de Venezuela (CAIV), an umbrella group representing the South American country’s Jewish...

Here’s a puzzler. Latin America has never been more democratic: of 34 nations in Central and South America and the Caribbean, all except one (Cuba) are constitutional democracies, with laws guaranteeing open elections, independent courts, legislatures, and freedom of expression. So why do so many governments still trample on citizens’ rights, bully journalists, harass private business, and generally lord over hearth and home? Incidents in just the last few weeks range from the...

Now that Colombia’s crackdown on the FARC has significantly weakened the group, there are signs that it is setting up in neighboring Venezuela and preparing for a rebirth of sorts, Samuel Logan writes for ISN Security Watch. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) made an unusual appeal on 23 August to UNASUR, South America's multilateral security forum, to explain its political and strategic goals in Colombia. Within 24 hours, Colombian Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera, part...

We are publishing this article to warn our readers of the dire consequences of having Hezbollah stay accepted and active in South America. This article gives some background on the formation of Hezbollah. E.g., it was modeled by Iran in the 1970s after the 1920s model of the communist parties founded in many countries around the world. If the latest reports are correct, within the next few weeks the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague will reveal the names of nine members of the...

Editor's Note: No one knows exactly why journalist Armando Rodriguez was gunned down at his home in Ciudad Juarez last November. But his colleagues believe it was a warning to the rest of the local media that writing about drug cartels is a dangerous business. Six months later, journalists are still scared about talking about their experiences reporting. NAM contributor José Luis Sierra interviewed reporters in Ciudad Juarez who spoke on condition of anonymity. Being a journalist in...

In recent weeks, schools, synagogues and cemeteries in the Chilean cities of Santiago, Concepcion and Temuco have been vandalized and desecrated. While law enforcement has not yet determined who is behind the attacks, some say there are indications that the perpetrators are neo-Nazis. On Tuesday The American Jewish Committee called on Chilean President Pinera to step up his government's efforts to respond to the recent surge in assaults on the country's Jewish community. "The...

A complaint brought against Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez at the International Criminal Court and another complaint against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has legal effects, as opposed to what some experts purport. This is what Asdrúbal Aguiar, former judge at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, thinks. Everything depends on the contents of the materials submitted to the Commission and the Court. "I reckon...

The long-running feud between Venezuela and Colombia escalated into outright hostility this week, as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez abruptly severed diplomatic relations between the two South American neighbors. Chávez closed his country's embassy in Bogotá, expelled Colombian diplomats, and accused rival President Alvaro Uribe of attempting to provoke a war. Could it really come to that? Here's a brief guide: (Watch a report about the conflict ) What is this dispute...

There is a rise in anti-Semitic incidents in Latin America in the aftermath of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza -- and the most troublesome part of it is that it's often fueled by racist propaganda in state-sponsored media. Granted, there have long been isolated incidents of anti-Semitism in Latin America, much like in other parts of the world. But now, after Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's self-proclaimed "strategic alliance" with Iran's openly anti-Jewish...

After 40 years of fighting to keep its revolutionary war alive in the jungles of Colombia, the world's oldest armed rebel group could finally be brought down by its increasing dependence on technology. In an unprecedented computer-assisted analysis of FARC data from more than 50 guerrilla computers and electronic equipment seized by Colombian soldiers and police, Semana magazine gave a rare inside look at Colombia's largest and oldest rebel group that, in "their own words,"...