Ecuador ramped up its fight against tax dodging on September 21 as the South American country proposed a plan on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York aimed at tackling offshore tax havens with stiffer regulation.
The push comes in the wake of the Panama Papers leaks that exposed just the tip of the proverbial iceberg of global tax evasion and its impact on the global South.
On being sworn into power on January 15, 2007, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said: “Latin America is not living through an era of change, it is living through a genuine change of eras.”
His enthusiasm was shared by many, and with good reason: after years of intense social struggles against right-wing neoliberal governments, new left forces were winning elections across the region.
A United States federal appeals court ruled on August 8 in favour of the oil giant Chevron in a case that dates back more than 20 years. The ruling blocks an Ecuadorean indigenous community from collecting a judgement of nearly US$8.6 billion for environmental damage to the Amazon rainforest.
Bolivia has approved a new law that allows transgender people to change their name, sex and gender on birth certificates and other official records. LGBTI rights activists in Bolivia see the law as a groundbreaking sign of growing tolerance in Latin America.
Forty people began the process to change their personal information on identity documents and bank accounts, and alter their professional titles on the day the law passed.
Anti-coup rally in Brazil.
Since the start of the 21st century, the left has won elections in most Latin American countries in a powerful wave of popular rejection of the disastrous neoliberal policies of the previous regimes.
One must however distinguish between two quite different sorts of left governments:
