The Americas

WHEN Colombia’s news channels declared Iván Duque the winner of the presidential election on June 17th, 45 minutes after polls closed, many Colombians were relieved. “I was terrified of Gustavo Petro,”—Mr Duque’s left-wing rival—said a…

THIS football World Cup is barely a week old, but already Latin America has stolen the limelight. There have been memorable performances on the pitch: Mexico’s humbling of Germany, Peru outplaying Denmark but contriving to lose, flashes of…

ON JULY 1st Mexicans are set to elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador as their next president. Since they twice rejected him, in 2006 and 2012, by coalescing behind the opponent with the best chance of winning, that requires some explanation.…

CUBANS had nine days to mourn Fidel Castro, who died in November 2016. After a state funeral, soldiers escorted his ashes from Havana to Santiago, retracing the route taken by the revolutionary army he led. When someone less important dies,…

DOUG FORD, who is due to be sworn in as Ontario’s premier on June 29th, will not dally. The “very first item” on his agenda will be to “cancel the Liberal cap-and-trade carbon tax”, he promised after leading his Progressive Conservative…

AN HOUR’S drive from Brasília, Brazil’s capital, humped zebu cattle take refuge from the heat of the cerrado (tropical savannah) under neat rows of eucalyptus trees. The grove and the cattle belong to the cerrados branch of the Brazilian…

THE result was predictable, but earth-shaking even so. On July 1st Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a charismatic populist, won Mexico’s presidency in the country’s first democratic landslide. His margin of victory suggests that his electoral…