Global Eyes
We scan the news in every region and tell you what caught the editors' eyes. This is a premium feature for our paid subscribers, but you're welcome to read it for free for a week.
Americas
Argentina’s ruling coalition hopes to avoid “Death by IMF.” (Paywalled.)
Javier Milei’s Unexpected Rise. A brash libertarian is disrupting Argentina’s political duopoly.
… Argentina’s endless run-ins with multilateral lenders like the International Monetary Fund and its intricate array of capital controls can be solved easily, he says: just abolish the central bank and dollarize the economy. His catchphrase? “Long live liberty, goddammit!” After the killing of a shopkeeper in Buenos Aires during a robbery in November caused a public outcry, the minister of security said that “this happens in many places,” prompting Milei to call him a “son of a bitch” on Twitter …
Despite everything, Bolsonaro could still win.
Returning to Brazil after two long years away, there are things that immediately strike you. The thousand different shades of green. The smiles. The particular way Brazil makes the hard things easy, and the easy things hard. But in April 2022 there is one phenomenon that you can only properly appreciate on the ground: the sense that President Jair Bolsonaro could, despite everything, still find a way to win this October’s election—or at least make things close enough to be messy.
Chile announces unprecedented plan to ration water.
Why Chile’s president moved to a high-crime Santiago neighborhood. The newly elected Gabriel Boric wants to send a message about reviving areas that have fallen prey to crime and poverty. So far, residents are seeing improvements.
Gabriel Boric visited Argentina last week, in his first foreign trip since taking office. He called his Argentine counterpart Alberto Fernández as “an ally in the battle against inequality and for a more dignified world.” The two signed a raft of cooperative agreements.
Chile to reopen land borders with Argentina, Peru, and Bolivia.
Mexican government sues US gun manufacturers:
The lawsuit, filed in a federal courthouse in Massachusetts—where several of the companies are based—argues that the “flood” of illegal guns in Mexico “is the foreseeable result of the defendants’ deliberate actions and business practices.”
Eight killed near Mexico City. Gunmen killed eight people, including four minors, in an attack on Monday on a house near Mexico City, authorities said.
Conflict in Mexico is displacing thousands:
As criminal groups battle for control over Mexican territory, the displaced are becoming increasingly visible, in towns such as Coahuayana and at the US border. An estimated 20,000 people have fled violence in the past year in Michoacán state, roughly the size of West Virginia. Thousands more have abandoned their homes in other states like Zacatecas and Guerrero.
“Why not us?” Latinos stuck at Mexico border as Ukrainians enter US.
A massive US-Mexican effort to welcome Ukrainian refugees.
Mexican truck drivers block major US-Mexico point of entry in protest of Texas border inspections.
Things sound okay, basically, in Uruguay.
Brazil is in discussions with the United States to ask for permission to buy fertilizer from (sanctioned) Iran so that it can reduce its dependency on (sanctioned) Russia. Russia supplies about a third of Brazilian fertilizer imports. (I’d hate to be the State Department official trying to explain this one—Claire.)
At least a dozen injured in Brooklyn subway shooting, undetonated devices found.
Why the past ten years of American life have been uniquely stupid. It’s not just a phase. Paywalled, alas, because it’s good, and synthesizes many points we’ve long made about the effect of social media on democracy. (See, e.g. Social Media and the New Man, Parts I, II, and III; and Is Democracy Doomed? Parts I, II, and III.)
Big crowds turning out for Canada’s Poilievre suggest a different kind of Conservative leadership race.
Africa
Putin’s popularity is at an “outstandingly irrational and possibly dangerous high in Africa.”
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