Colombia celebrated this week the release of the last 10 so-called ‘exchangeable prisoners’ (members of the police and armed forces) held in captivity by the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) for more than a decade. The unilateral gesture by the world’s longest standing guerrilla group closes one of the most nefarious chapters of the Colombian internal conflict, but it is far from bringing about the end of the story. The celebrations of the relatives of those hostages who were released have been marred by the ongoing suffering of those civilians who remain captive (or whose whereabouts remain unknown). Their…

The stage is now set for an unconstrained increase in public spending ahead of presidential elections in October. President Hugo Chávez used the powers conferred on him by the national assembly in late 2010 to legislate by decree the removal of the debt ceiling that can be contracted by the State. The opposition Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD) contends that the Chávez administration will now ramp up spending even more to fund ever-more costly ‘missions’ in order to try and buy re-election, not to mention saddling the public, and future governments, with enormous debt. Chávez used his ‘enabling powers’…

ECUADOR | Growth record. The economy grew by 7.8% in 2011. The national press, which is largely hostile to the government, clearly found it difficult to report this news, providing scant coverage of what was the most impressive economic expansion since President Rafael Correa took office in 2007. It focused on the fact that the GDP growth figure was beneath the official estimate of 9% for the year, and followed years of modest growth (0.4% in 2009 and 3.6% in 2010). Higher oil prices and increased production helped the oil sector grow by 4.2% year-on-year, bouncing back from a 2.7%…

President Evo Morales has ended speculation. In its recent national summit, the ruling Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) unanimously selected Morales as its presidential candidate ahead of the 2014 general election. This, despite the doubts surrounding his validity to run: the 2009 constitution permits only two consecutive presidential terms, but Morales, who first took office in January 2006 and then again in January 2010, argues that, as he is serving for the first time under the new constitution, he is eligible to stand again. While the opposition has challenged this argument, its weakness in the plurinational legislature - in which the…