Latin America and the US

In the last decade, Latin America has undergone a series of historic transformations. Major political shifts, unprecedented economic growth, and political leaders challenging US influence and championing regional autonomy, have combined to reshape an emerging new continent.

With ideologies and policies as varying as Venezuela’s Bolivarian socialism, Colombia’s economic liberalism and the centrism of Brazil and Argentina being exercised throughout the region, Empire examines the geopolitical shifts across Latin America and asks what challenges may yet lie ahead

Across Mexico: Chasing an impossible dream

Latin American migrants risk life and limb to reach the US border in search of the American dream. Every year more than a million men and women from countries like El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua attempt to cross the river that forms a border between Guatemala and Mexico. Their immediate aim is to enter Mexico illegally, but they have another destination in mind - the US. Once in Mexico, they must cross the entire Mexican coast in order to reach the border with Texas. It is a journey of about 4,000km and one that begins at the Arriaga train station. The freight trains are the only means of transport for these migrants. Thousands take them every day - each trying to find his or her own spot on the roofs or the axles between the coaches. But it is a dangerous journey towards what some call "the impossible dream" and only 40 per cent of all those who attempt it make it to the US border. With no way of knowing where the trains are heading, some make the mistake of climbing aboard trains heading in the wrong direction - towards the Guatemalan border. Others are caught by police who regularly stop the trains in the middle of the countryside and round up all those hitching a ride. But for some, the dangers prove far greater. One Mexican shopkeeper explains: "I've seen lots of accidents ... people who fall off the train and die because the train runs them over. People who get their legs cut off too."

Wealth inequality in the US. Is the American dream fading?

With more people living on the breadline in the United states, how can prosperity be restored for the US people. Discussion with Tavis Smiley, Barbara Ehrenreich and Cornel West.

Slavoj Zizek: 'Now the field is open'

The philosopher discusses the momentous changes taking place in the global financial and political system.

From the Middle East to the streets of London and cities across the US there is a discontent with the status quo. Whether it is with the iron grip of entrenched governments or the widening economic divide between the rich and those struggling to get by. But where are those so hungry for change heading? How profound is their long-term vision to transform society?

Meltdown

A world of greed and recklessness that brought down the financial world.

The 2008 crash pushed 30 million people into unemployment, brought countries to the edge of insolvency and turned the clock back to 1929.

The world's banks to stop lending and how the people began their fight back. How the world can prepare for the next crisis even as it recognises that this one is far from over.

How will governments deal with the information revolution?

Information is power and in the age of the information revolution, cyber and satellite communication is transforming our lives, reinventing the relationship between people and power.

New media, from WikiLeaks to Facebook, Twitter to YouTube, is persistently challenging the traditional flow of information, and cyber disobedience is exposing powerful governments.

Websites are now being treated like hostile territories; whistleblowers and leakers as terrorists, and hackers as insurgents.

Lula -the struggle for democracy

The Sixth Al Jazeera Forum