Andres Oppenheimer

Newly re-elected Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’ proposal to prohibit successive presidential re-elections is the best political initiative I have seen in South America in recent years.

At a recent meeting of prominent economic and political analysts from across Latin America, I was surprised to hear Brazilian economist Paulo Rabello de Castro make a bold forecast: that Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff won’t win this year’s elections.

Colombia’s opposition candidate who polls show is tied with President Juan Manuel Santos in the June 15 run-off, says one of his first foreign policy priorities, if elected, would be to demand enforcement of a regional treaty to restore democracy and fundamental freedoms in Venezuela.

Cuba’s first major independent newspaper in more than five decades — a digital daily called 14ymedio — was quickly blocked within the island last week, but the big question is for how long the country’s regime will be able to maintain its monopoly on the news media.

The landslide election of pro-business candidate Narendra Modi as India’s new prime minister is likely to shake up that country’s politics and jump-start its economy, but it could also have a big impact on the world economy and emerging markets.

SANTIAGO, Chile — Foreign Minister Heraldo Muñoz vehemently denies that Chile’s new left-of-centre government will distance itself from — and in effect weaken — the Alliance of the Pacific, the bloc of pro-free market countries made up of Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile that many see as Latin America’s best antidote to the region’s populist craze.

A new report on press freedoms worldwide contains a chilling figure: Only 2 percent of Latin Americans live in countries with a free press.

When I read the document about the “crisis of capitalism” issued by Venezuela’s ruling party last week, I couldn’t help wondering whether its writers live on this planet, or have been watching the news in recent years.

Now that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has finished his first year in power, it’s time to take a dispassionate look at what has happened in oil-rich Venezuela since he took office on April 19, 2013, and what lies ahead.

What’s most interesting about the World Bank and International Monetary Fund economic projections released last week was not that they forecast a slower-than-expected growth in Latin America for 2014 — we already knew that — but that they foresee a rebound in 2015 and 2016.

A former professor of late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez has just published a report on Venezuela’s political crisis, and his conclusions are disquieting — he says the most likely scenario in that country is a military coup.

If you think that Latin America is doomed to remain behind in science, technology and innovation — as one could conclude from the latest international rankings of patents of new inventions — you should meet Luis Von Ahn.

When Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said three weeks ago that Moscow is seeking to establish a military presence in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, many of us dismissed it as a private comment by a top official who may have had one vodka too many.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro won a diplomatic victory by defeating a US-backed proposal at the 34-country Organization of American States that would have suggested an outside mediation to end that country’s political crisis, which has already left more than 25 dead and hundreds of wounded.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s disastrous government is in much bigger trouble than most people think, not because of the student protests that have already resulted in at least 19 deaths, but by a 56 per cent annual inflation rate — the world’s highest — that may soon turn his country ungovernable.

Dear President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, Since I have repeatedly requested an interview with you, but have never received an answer, I respectfully submit 10 questions to you in hopes that you would be so kind as to respond to them in writing, if that’s your preference.

Chilean President Sebastian Piñera will leave office March 11 with high popularity and one of the best economic records in Latin America.

When I interviewed the head of the Inter-national Monetary Fund’s Western Hemisphere division last week, he didn’t mince words about the possibility of Venezuela descending into even greater economic chaos.

A joke making the rounds on the Internet says that if Argentina were a celebrity, it would be Justin Bieber — a rich, spoiled, irresponsible teenager, who always repeats the same mistakes, and always blames others for them.

President Barack Obama’s remarks about immigration during his State of the Union address — and the ovation they drew from most Democratic and many Republican legislators — are fuelling high hopes that Congress will finally reach an agreement this year to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants.