COLOMBIA | Economic deceleration. This week the president of the national business association of Colombia (Andi), Luis Carlos Villegas, said that the organisation’s June poll indicated that both industrial production and sales registered a significant slowdown in May. Industrial production grew 2.2% in May, compared with 6.3% during the same month of 2011. Similarly, sales increased 6.8% year-on-year in May, increasing the Andi’s worries that low-investment levels in infrastructure could worsen both indicators further before year-end. Nonetheless, Colombia has registered the second-highest industrial production growth rate for the region in May after Chile, which posted a 3.4% expansion. The head…

President Hugo Chávez was “compelled by circumstances” to speak out this week in order to “unmask” the man who “says he is going to be commander-in-chief”. Chávez was responding to a message from Henrique Capriles Radonski, the presidential candidate for the opposition coalition Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD), directed at the armed forces, which was aired on private television stations on 12 July. President Chávez does not often appear rattled. His speech at the Fuerte Tiuna military academy in Caracas on 14 July, however, indicated that he might not be quite as confident as a freshly released opinion survey…

 Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández this week travelled to Bolivia where she met her peer Evo Morales to discuss energy. After Brazil, Argentina is Bolivia’s biggest market for gas exports. While the meeting yielded the agreement that Bolivia would boost exports to its neighbour, it took place against an awkward backdrop; Argentina’s Astra Evangelista Sociedad Anónima (AESA), has been implicated in a scandal involving Bolivia’s state energy company, Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB). Despite speculation that the meeting could include discussion of price changes, this was not addressed and the main agreement to emerge was that Bolivia export an extra 5.95m…