I continue to keep enjoying my time very much at VmasV as I better my professional, written Spanish, keep up to speed on news around the world, and see how Latin American outlets tend to report on international news.
One of the most interesting stories I came across in the last couple days (and wrote about) is the Reporters Without Borders' recent release of the Press Freedom Index. This organization, dedicated to defending press freedom globally, releases this index anually, calculating how countries around the world rank in terms of access to information and safety of reporters. Finland and Denmark top the list (gotta love Scandinavia), and Eritrea, North Korea and Iran occupy the bottom. Cuba and Venezuela are down there too. The interesting news this year is that the U.S. leapt from place 36 to number 20 in just one year, which RSF outrightly attributes to "The Obama Effect." Suck it, Bush. RSF is concerned about the nations that continue to slip every year, including Spain, France and Italy, but are encouraged by new democracies like Ghana and Mali inching up in the rankings. Latin American countries are moving up...Chile, Argentina and Paraguay all moved up signifcantly from last year, while Costa Rica and Urugay (my new favorite country) are in the top 30. So anyway, I thought this was all super interesting.
Referring back to my Uruguay statement, DAMN, Uruguay, you are rockin' it. Seriously. It seems every news article I'm writing recently concerning Latin America involves Uruguay being awesome and distancing itself more and more from its conservative past. As I mentioned before, the country recently legalized civil unions, gay adoptions and legalization of changing one's name and sex...it also is the first country in the world to distribute laptops to every public school student. And earlier this week,the Uruguayan congress declared it illegal for previous military dicators to have any amnesty under national law. Just like basically every other South American country, Uruguay suffered a brutal military dictatorship in the '70s and '80s (thanks to idealogical and monetary support from the good ol' U.S.A) and now the country has declared that the amnesty that these horrible people have lived with for the last 20 years is unconstitutional. BAM. Go Uruguay. (Also, I should mention, Argentina passed this similar law in 2006, and a handful of former rulers have been tried or are in the process of being tried. Finally).
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