"All these recent movement points to Maduro trying to get Washington’s attention... The question is whether the White House is ready to commit to a full-fledged negotiations strategy, or whether it will continue to play it safe and keep the policy on the back burner.” - Geoff Ramsey, Director for Venezuela, in the Associated Press. 

"People are very unhappy about rising insecurity, the massacres, the killing of social leaders, basically the overall repression and the lack of separation in terms of the balance of power due to the friendships between the different institutions in Colombia. All of that is leading to a tremendous discontent of governing ability with Duque.” - Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli, Director for the Andes, in Al Jazeera.

"What we would hope to avoid is any perception that increased access to lifesaving vaccines in Central America is in exchange for increased tightening of border security." - Maureen Meyer, Vice President for Programs, in the Associated Press.

"[Elites in Central America are] increasingly colluded with criminal groups... [This] has translated into an inability to provide basic services, invest in education, health care, and respond to emergencies when disaster strikes." - Adriana Beltrán, Director for Citizen Security, in The Hill.

"This isn’t a dynastic transition — [Cuba's] new leadership, though shaped by the Castro brothers and their legacy, are the next generation of the Cuban Communist Party, not the next generation of the Castro family." - Geoff Thale, President, in The Hill.

"While Colombia and Venezuela fight over what these operations are about and put the blame on each other, what we are seeing are thousands of Venezuelans desperately fleeing into precarious conflict regions of Colombia, in the middle of a pandemic, to areas that are ill-equipped to take care of them." - Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli, Director for the Andes, in Al Jazeera.