Central America
The shadow of the United Fruit Company still reaches across the globe today
About a hundred years ago, the Boston-based banana company, United Fruit, reigned supreme in Central America. It didn’t just own banana plantations, but also railroads and telephone lines. The company even dictated national policies and overthrew governments. For his podcast “Under the Shadow,” about US involvement in Central America, Michael Fox traveled to Guatemala, where he looked at the legacy of United Fruit and its impact on the global fruit industry today.
Workers’ movements advocate for rights on May Day; Saudi activists allege man killed over megacity plans; Doctors wait hours as Venezuela faces fuel shortages
As May Day celebrations and rallies have been curtailed, workers around the world are pushing for their rights. Fuel shortages are making life harder for Venezuelans, especially essential workers. And even as Lebanon teeters on the edge of economic collapse, some Americans are choosing to ride out the pandemic there. Meanwhile, Sweden’s gardeners have become real party poopers.
‘We’re dead here’: Migrants stranded in Panama rainforest amid coronavirus
With borders closed and entire countries on lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic, some 2,000 migrants — many of them children under age 5 — have been detained for months in Panama, near the rainforest separating South and Central America.
In Central America, efforts to slow spread of coronavirus could lead to ‘autocratic tendencies’
While public health and medical workers worldwide agree on the urgency of the pandemic, human rights observers say they are becoming increasingly concerned with how some political leaders in Central America may use their emergency powers.
Rainforests are ‘worth more alive than dead,’ according to science — and economics
Earth’s rainforests are astonishingly biodiverse ecosystems that can drive the climates of faraway continents, but they’re disappearing in the name of the kind of economic development that values rainforests more when logged, mined, or turned into farmland. A new book argues that the world’s rainforests are most valuable when kept intact.
