Recently added articles from Americas:

FROM THE EDITOR

Jul 01, 2008; Anonymous ... In this issue, we highlight three important anniversaries. It has been 60 years since the OAS Charter-the compass that guides the Organization of American States (OAS)-was signed by 21 countries in Bogota, Colombia. Today, the 34 member states that participate in the OAS work hand in hand to ...

UPFRONT

Jul 01, 2008; Anonymous ... Mochu Pkchu's Splendors We just received our first copy of Américas, and it is a thrill for us. The article on Machu Kcchu is wonderful. I have never seen photos that reveal the surrounding area in the splendid detail that these do. I haven't read the entire publication yet, but ...

Peace Parks

Jul 01, 2008; Holston, Mark ... THE CONCEPT WAS BORN amidst the craggy, glacier-covered peaks of the Rocky Mountains that cut through the most remote and under-populated region along the shared border of Canada and the United States. In the early twentieth century, each country had already established its own national park on ...

Surreal Sanctuary

Jul 01, 2008; Werner, Louis ... Edward James, an eccentric British millionaire and close Mend of artists René Magritte, Leonora Carrington, and Salvador Dalí, always said that he wanted to live in his own Garden of Eden. So, starting in 1949 and working over a 35-year period-and selling off what was then the world's largest ...

Birds of Paradise

Jul 01, 2008; Hardman, Chris ... PEOPLE ARE ATTRACTED to the tropical regions of the Americas for the beautiful weather and relaxed lifestyle. High humidity and blazing sun encourages us all to take it slow. In a recent study, scientists have found that the birds in the tropics have a slower pace of life as well. By comparing ...

There's Green in Green

Jul 01, 2008; Mayer, Wayne E ... EVER SINCE Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel The Lost World introduced readers to "the grandest, richest, most wonderful bit of earth upon this planet," conservationists have been designing creative ways to protect Latin America's wildest places. Setting aside areas as national parks ...

60 MOMENTS IN TIME

Jul 01, 2008; Insulza, José Miguel ... The Organization of American States commemorates 60 years of promoting solidarity and peace in the hemisphere SIXTY YEARS AGO, IN BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA, representatives of the nations of the Americas articulated the principles that for more than half a century have guided the work of the ...

THE PEOPLE'S CHARTER

Jul 01, 2008; Camargo, Alberto Lleras ... The following is taken from an essay by the first OAS Secretary General, which appeared in Américas in April 1949 PRESS ACCOUNTS of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's debate on the OAS Charter reopened a discussion that had already taken place among American delegates during the ...

OASIS OF PEACE

Jul 01, 2008; Mitchell, John ... Verdant volcanoes and ancient legends are just part of the lure of Isla de Ometepe, an idyllic refuge in the vast expanse of Lake Nicaragua Like islands everywhere, Isla de Ometepe seems like a world unto itself. Even during the Sandinista Revolution of the 1970s and the contra war of ...

Life in the Slow Lane

Jul 01, 2008; Cohn, Jeffrey P ... For an animal that does little but sleep and eat, the sloth has proved to be a remarkable survivor, hanging out in tropical forests from Nicaragua to Paraguay Al Gardner is a curious man. Once, while walking at night on Barro Colorado Island, in Panama, the US Geological Survey wildlife ...

DEMOGRAPHIC Diversity

Jul 01, 2008; Murphy-Larronde, Suzanne ... In two very different Caribbean countries-Trinidad and Tobago and Belize-the faces of the people reflect a rich ethnic mix TAKE A STROLL AROUND TRINIDAD'S DIVALINAGAR, OR VILLAGE OF LIGHTS, on one of the nine nights commemorating the age-old Hindu festival known as Divali, and you're ...

Bonne Fête, Québec!

Jul 01, 2008; Waytiuk, Judy ... The postcard-perfect capital of French Canada is going all out this year for a quadricentennial celebration awash in history and joie-de-vivre On Québec City's Plains of Abraham in early February, rubber dinghies crammed with rosy-cheeked, screaming revelers swoop down snow tubing slides ...

Cultural Connections in Belize

Jul 01, 2008; Durán, Victor Manuel ... Located in the heart of Central America, just below the Yucatán Peninsula, Belize stands out for its stunning geographical diversity. It has flat, sometimes swampy plains in the north, picturesque mountains in the west, breathtaking coastal stretches in the south, a large, well-preserved ...

ECHOES OF ANCIENT TIMES

Jul 01, 2008; Conaway, Janelle ... It has been more than a decade since Nebiur Arellano has lived in Peru, but the shapes and colors of her native country continue to infuse her vivid paintings on silk. "When I paint," she writes in a statement of her artistic vision, "I can almost feel the mud friezes of the citadel of Chan ...

PIZZAZZ ON THE PODIUM: GUSTAVO DUDAMEL

Jul 01, 2008; Holston, Mark ... Seldom in the history of classical music has an artist ascended as quickly and with as much giddy fanfare to the summit of international acclaim as has Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel. Virtually overnight, the Wunderkind of the baton has become the world's most celebrated young symphony ...

THE NEXT GENERATION OF ENTREPRENEURS

Jul 01, 2008; Chelala, César ... A number of initiatives that have the support of both national and international organizations are yielding positive results when it comes to one of the hemisphere's most serious problems: youth unemployment. This situation affects millions of young people, many of whom are trapped in poorly ...

CLASH OF LITERARY TITANS

Jul 01, 2008; Contreras, Jaime Perales ... "It can take me months to write a poem! I correct it endlessly," Octavio Paz once confessed to Argentine photographer Sara Facio, when she was taking his portrait for a book about writers. That was in 1970, and he was marveling to Facio about the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, during a conversation ...

A SONG FOR BOLÍVAR

Jul 01, 2008; Neruda, Pablo ... Our father who art in the earth, in the water, in the air of all our great and silent breadth, all bears thy name, father, in our land: thy name the sugarcane raises to the sweetness, Bolívar tin has a Bolívar brilliance, the Bolívar bird over the Bolívar ...