U.S. presidential candidates square off this week over the future of Washington's Cuba policy. Meanwhile, Raúl Castro's government has passed limited reforms since taking office. 

In an AS/COA Online interview, OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza describes the role of the agency in negotiating recent border tensions between Ecuador and Colombia, autonomy and recall votes in Bolivia, and U.S.-Cuba relations. "[T]he OAS has to prove itself as the main forum for political dialogue in the Americas," said Insulza.

President Leonel Fernández Reyna, credited with turning his country's economy around, is expected to win a May 16 reelection bid. Fernández's administration would face a set of challenges in a new term, ranging from food price inflation to a remittance slowdown to persistent social inequality.

AS/COA hosted Steve Reifenberg, author of a new memoir Santiago's Children covering his time working at a Chilean orphanage in the 1980s, at a panel discussion about the political and economic scenario in Chile from the early 1980s through a period of political reconciliation.

At the Miami launch of the latest issue of Americas Quarterly, a panel moderated by Miami Herald columnist Andrés Oppenheimer examined Latin American social mobility and hemispheric trade policy, as well as Cuba’s economic outlook following Raúl Castro’s accession.

Concerns about violence and Bolivian unity mount as the eastern, energy-rich province of Santa Cruz prepares to hold a referendum on whether to become autonomous. Three other provinces plan similar votes. 

In an op-ed for the Washington Times, Shankar Singham—a partner with global law firm and COA member Squire Sanders & Dempsey, L.L.P. —warns against anti-free trade rhetoric utilized in current U.S. presidential campaigns. "Those political candidates who have hidden behind trade as the primary reason for economic anxiety are hiding voters from the truth of the new global economy," writes Singham.