For the last couple of years, we scholars of Latin America have sat around crying in our Mexican beer. “Latin America isn’t going anywhere anymore,” one would complain, followed by the woeful: “Why did we give our lives to such an ungrateful part of the world?” It would go on until we all got depressed enough and went home to sulk.
And indeed, if you look at the news from Latin America, it has not been good. Rich, talented Argentina has all but fallen into little pieces. Leftists took eight of the recent elections in the hemisphere. The Sandinistas are about to take over in Nicaragua; Brazil has the greatest and most frozen disparity of wealth between the rich and the poor; Mexico’s avant-garde
Vicente Fox has been all but a failure; and a wildish man named Hugo Chavez in Venezuela is teaming up with a still healthy and ideologically hep
Fidel Castro in Cuba to make life hell for the “americanos” into the foreseeable future.
Oh my!
The reaction of most of us who gave our hearts to Latin America as foreign correspondents many years ago and are serious about vows, has been disappointment, dyspepsia and, occasionally, despair.
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Kenyan tourism marketers have predicted a 17 percent increase in tourism revenue this year following a surge in the number of visitors from the United States and Canada.
According to a statement available here Friday, the Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) said it is seeking a radical shift from the over-reliance on visitors from the traditional markets of Germany and Britain, and breaking new grounds in China, Russia, eastern Europe and the Middle East.
"The US and Canadian markets have seen tremendous growth in the first quarter of 2005," the KTB said in a report covering the past three months.
The Board's
Haruki Murakami is Japan’s most widely read contemporary author, though much of his material is written elsewhere; the influence of western — and pop — culture is so pervasive in his work it hardly warrants remark. Overseas, he is a critical favorite for novels whose genre might be called metaphysical detective sci-fi straight-faced absurdist. “Norwegian Wood” has been described as his most loved book. It lays genre-bending and surrealism aside to produce romance, of a sort.
The novel follows the early adulthood of introspective college student Toru Watanabe as he struggles through disaffection and towards emotional attachment in 1960s Japan.
Until now, sexual harassment seemed like a simple matter. If a supervisor behaved inappropriately with an employee, that employee could sue.
But a California court ruling just broadened the rules to include "sexual favoritism." That means that employees can sue if other employees are having sex with the boss and getting preferential treatment. Could this spell the end of all office romance?
Hear about the significance of the California court ruling on "sexual favoritism" in the workplace and hear some sordid stories.
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The tabloids are so desperate to see Jennifer Aniston happily in love that rumours of her dating 'The Break-Up' co-star Vince Vaughn have resurfaced in the headlines.
According to Ananova.com, some newspapers are carrying of shots of her and Vince looking in love and hugging.
The Daily Mirror claims that the photos of Vince sweeping Jen into his arms and the pair kissing are taken during a break in shooting 'The Break Up', but sources close to Jen say they were probably just rehearsing.
The papers, however, quoted an onlooker in a Chicago park as saying: "They cuddled and laughed and even kissed.
Emirates Holidays, the tour operating arm of Emirates Airline and one of the largest wholesale tour operators in the Middle East, declared a revenue of Dhs 355 million (US$97 million) for the financial year ended 31st March 2004 - an increase of 23 per cent over the previous year.
Around 100,000 tourists travelled with Emirates Holidays over the past twelve months, with the top destinations proving to be the U.A.E, Malaysia, Thailand, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Mauritius, the Maldives, Singapore, Lebanon and India. The six destinations growing fastest in popularity were Singapore, Australia, Switzerland, Austria, Hong Kong and New Zealand.
The past