Joel D. Hirst

Our world has become more social. We are more than ever an interconnected species; existing in new digitally urbanized neighborhoods that transcend physical geography. Our communities consist now not of our neighbors -- most of us don't even know who they are. Nor are our most frequent contacts with church...

On the night of April 18, 2012 a new, small Miami-based TV station Soi TV broke a story which has shaken the Venezuelan political landscape. From an undisclosed location they ran a taped interview with Venezuelan Supreme Court Justice Eladio Aponte Aponte. After seven years as...

There is perhaps no term more used, misunderstood and abused than the word 'democracy.'

Abraham Lincoln's democracy was encapsulated in his quote, "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy"; while Gandhi said,...

Good fiction books are ones that entertain, while at the same time leave the reader with a better understanding of the truths they are trying to portray. Plant Teacher by Caroline Alethia does both. This book is set in modern day Bolivia, a stunningly quirky and contradictory Andean...

Vice President Joe Biden is slated to travel to Mexico and Honduras in the first week of March. He is visiting the region at a particularly difficult moment. The security situation throughout Mexico and Central America is getting worse. Honduras has been particularly hard hit. A recent United...

Tiny El Salvador, nestled between Honduras and Guatemala on the Pacific Ocean, has had more than its fair share of turbulence. From 1980 until 1992 the country was besieged by a violent civil war which pitted the government against the guerilla armies of the FMLN. An estimated 75,000 people died....

The Venezuelan opposition has a new leader. Yesterday, after a grueling five month campaign, the Venezuelan opposition under the umbrella of the Mesa de Unidad Democratica went to the polls to chose their united candidate who will face President Chavez in the October 7 general elections. Vying for...

It must seem an attractive proposition, especially for a country as poor as Haiti. Already participating in Petro-Caribe -- a Venezuelan energy plan that provides preferential rates on oil -- Haiti now has its eyes set on full membership in the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (ALBA). This...

The dust has settled on the streets of Managua, Nicaragua, following Daniel Ortega's fraudulent re-election in November of 2011. There is nothing like a holiday season to put a damper on political protests - especially in Latin America where the festivities are anticipated all year long.

Nicaragua,...

In the early morning of Dec. 20, a Bolivian judge ordered the arrest of Ruben Costas, governor of Santa Cruz state. Situated in the lowlands of the Bolivian heartland, Santa Cruz is the wealthiest of Bolivia's constitutionally autonomous provinces. Costas, subpoenaed to appear at a court in La...

On October 20th President Hugo Chavez declared himself free of cancer. Kissing a statue of Jose Gregorio Hernandez, Venezuela's patron saint of health, he stated, "I've finished the final stage of treatment (...) I can say I got an 'A' on my tests (...) they show that I...

On Sunday, Nicaragua's 3.4 million voters went to the polls to choose their president and their 92 Congressional representatives. Vying for the highest office in the land were five candidates, the most important of these being the sitting President Daniel Ortega, former Sandinista revolutionary-turned-elected-president; and Fabio Gadea, the...

A group of indigenous Bolivians are on the march; making their slow way from the sweltering Amazon jungles to La Paz. Waiting for them in this Andean capital city, wedged into a crevice at 13,000 feet, is the country's first Coca Growers Union leader to make it to...

Ripples of change have been lapping upon the warm sands of North Africa and the Middle East. The so-called "Arab Spring" has rendered pre-conceived notions about governance in the Arab world obsolete. "The Arab countries don't want democracy" we have been told for too long. "The ideas of freedom are...

It reads like the plot of a Hollywood movie. On August 19, 2010 Walid Makled Garcia, a Venezuelan national of Syrian origin was arrested in the Colombian border down of Cucuta by Colombian intelligence agents supported by the DEA.

Makled, either 41, 43 or 47 years of age, was...

What if the news this morning read:

"Supported by air power and several armored tank divisions, Muammar Gaddafi's soldiers this morning moved into Benghazi. Snipers fired upon the rebels from buildings around the central square. Opposition forces were rounded up and executed. Those not executed were moved to internment camps...

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a new phenomenon has emerged for the removal of dictatorial governments. In Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia and Lebanon "color revolutions" brought about new, more democratic models of governance. Most recently, the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak was ousted by a Jasmine Revolution. These revolutions...

Over the last several weeks the situation in Libya has become increasing complex. In Egypt and Tunisia the respective leaders chose to leave power rather than launch an offensive against their citizens. It seems President Muammar Gaddafi has chosen a different route. Instead of resigning or accepting the United States'...

In the first decade of the new millennium, two brutal regimes in important Muslim countries were brought to an end. In response to the attacks on the World Trade Center, the dictators in Afghanistan and Iraq were overthrown. This important act of liberation took place at the hands of the...

"Dictatorships are stable," I have often been told by friends who object to my unwavering commitment to democracy promotion, "In a dangerous world we need stability more than freedom." My answer to them has always been, "dictatorships are stable, until they aren't." Their argument continues, "But not all cultures are...