Lula ccurrently leads Bolsonaro by a margin of 15 percent. While many observers consider the election already decided, others are expecting surprises. The question remains whether Bolsonaro will accept defeat at the ballot box. Expectations that Bolsonaro would attempt a coup during a rally on Brazil’s Independence Day on September 7 turned out to be unfounded.

On the first day of the United Nations General Assembly, Colombian President Gustavo Petro made his first address to the body. The speech sharply deviated from those of his conservative predecessors. Petro did not shy away from calling out global North countries for their role in the destruction of the environment and in the perpetuation of the War on Drugs.

The progressive Colombian government of Gustavo Petro is drafting legislation that, if enacted, will require mining companies to obtain environmental licenses for mineral exploration. Currently, Colombia only requires environmental licenses for the extraction and production phases of mining. Petro won the Colombian presidential election in a runoff on June 19.

Despite recently electing Chile’s most progressive president in the shape of former student protest leader Gabriel Boric, voters in the country have now rejected his most important reform. A plebiscite held on September 4 to replace the constitution imposed during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet with a progressive new one led to a solid no vote. This has effectively halted Boric’s agenda for reform.

The 2022 national protests in Ecuador were a powerful statement in opposition to the socioeconomic status quo that is favoured by Ecuador’s conservative elite and the Canadian state. While the protestors achieved some important gains, Lasso’s continued embrace of foreign mining investment at the expense of Indigenous peoples may be doomed to incite another uprising.

Across Latin America, the state of Israel’s best friends are, almost without fail, the most reactionary right-wing elements of the ruling classes. This seems to contradict the tolerant brand that Israel has been attempting to cultivate as of late, which seeks to elevate Israel to the status of an enlightened and democratic outlier amidst an archipelago of authoritarians.

Colombia and Venezuela are two countries with unbreakable geographical, historical, and cultural ties, however striking political conflicts have manifested in catastrophic ways on both sides of the shared 2,000-mile border over the past few decades. Fortunately, Colombia’s new progressive President Gustavo Petro has signalled his willingness to reset relations with Venezuela.

President of Mexico Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) is currently embroiled in an international dispute that has pitted his government against two of its largest trading partners, the United States and Canada. At the centre of this dispute is energy—always a fraught geopolitical domain, but even moreso in today’s worldwide energy crisis.

It is incumbent upon Canadians to learn from Cuba’s sustainable and democratic agricultural transition and implement its principles however they can, be it through organizing or lobbying campaigns or direct agroecological action. Only then can we begin to recuperate Canadian agriculture for the people who reside in these borders.

Despite being a key member of a supposedly pro-democracy alliance that claims to be challenging regional authoritarianism, evidence has shown that upwards of 60 percent of Panamanians support the Panama Worth More Without Mining Movement’s aims. And yet, the government is continuing with the development of Cobre Panamá, a clear infringement on the popular will and the rights of the Indigenous people.