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Development: Yolanda Marí­a Mercedes Bení­tez Ferreira, a customs official working in Ciudad del Este, was murdered in a drive-by shooting on 23 September.

Significance: The assassination took place while Bení­tez Ferreira, along with her husband and two colleagues, were returning to Asunción along an isolated road. According to witnesses, the assailants manoeuvred their car alongside their victim's before opening fire. Bení­tez Ferreira died instantly. Her husband and colleagues were injured, but are expected to recover.

Police officials believe the murder is linked to smuggling operations in Ciudad del Este. Located on the triple border with Argentina and Brazil, the city has become a centre of regional crime. Local newspapers said that Bení­tez Ferreira, who was investigating the illegal entry of pirate CDs into the country, was murdered because she was putting pressure on Ciudad del Este's smuggling cartels.

President Nicanor Duarte has attempted to reduce the amount of illegal goods entering Paraguay through Ciudad del Este. Upon hearing of Bení­tez Ferreira's death, he said her murder was a response to "the government's fight against contraband and corruption within the national customs office".

Development: Speaking on his weekly broadcast "Aló, Presidente!" on 30 October, President Hugo Chávez said he plans to take US$5bn in international reserves from the central bank in 2006 to fund "direct, productive" investments.

Significance: Chávez 's announcement, a month before legislative elections in which Chavista parties are expected to win 80% of seats, follows his tapping of the country's reserves for US$5bn in July. The money is being used to boost spending on social programmes, power stations and roads. The government's spending rose 37% in the first eight months of this year, according to the central bank.

One of the main beneficiaries of Chávez 's largesse is the medical sector. The president said that all government doctors, both full-time and part-time. would receive a 50% salary increase and full-time doctors will receive an additional 30%. This means a full-time doctor will now have a monthly salary of Bs$1,044,576 (US$486), at a cost to the state of Bs$571bn (US$266m).

Over the past two years, 15,000 Cuban doctors have travelled to Venezuela to take part in the government's Misión Barrio Adentro (Into the Neighbourhood) programme to dispense free healthcare in deprived areas. The average monthly salary for a doctor in Cuba is US$15.

Development: President Néstor Kirchner swore in four new ministers on 1 December: economy minister Felisa Miceli, defence minister Nilda Garré, foreign minister Jorge Taiana and social development minister Juan Carlos Nadalich.

Significance: Miceli, the surprise replacement for Roberto Lavagna, served notice that unlike her predecessor she is reading from exactly the same script as Kirchner. Her comments at the presidential palace Casa Rosada after being sworn in also strengthened the prevailing opinion that Kirchner will get personally involved in managing the economy.

Miceli said that prices of basic goods must remain compatible with people's purchasing power and announced a two-month price agreement with leading supermarkets to lower prices by 15% to combat rising inflation. A day earlier Kirchner signed an agreement with mayors in the province of Buenos Aires to prevent excessive price increases in supermarkets.

Interestingly, the IMF spokesman Thomas Dawson said that the Fund's managing director, Rodrigo Rato, had written to Miceli. "When the new minister shows interest in meeting with us, we will be glad to do so," Dawson said. Lavagna was keen to negotiate a new loan agreement with the IMF; Kirchner less so. Miceli has yet to speak on the issue.

Development: At least two Haitians were killed during violent protests on the Dominican border on 12 January.

Significance: Relations between Haiti and the Dominican Republic have deteriorated over the last nine months since the government of President Leonel Fernández introduced a controversial policy of "repatriating" Haitians in their thousands: 600 Haitians have been repatriated in the past week. The spark for the latest protests was the decision by the Dominican authorities to return the bodies of 24 Haitians who died from asphyxia in the back of a truck earlier this week while being smuggled from Haiti to the north of the Dominican Republic.

Haitians from the border town of Ouanaminthe opened fire on the truck trying to return the bodies. Seven people were injured, including two members of the UN peacekeeping force, Minustah, which tried to contain the violence. The truck was forced to turn back and the 24 bodies were buried in a common grave in the Dominican border town of Dajabón. The Haitian protesters, stirred by local radio reports that some of their 24 compatriots had died from bullet wounds (denied by the Dominican police and the Dominican doctors who examined the bodies), are demanding a full explanation from the Dominican government.

Human rights groups insist that many of the so-called illegal immigrants who are being sent back to Haiti had a right to be in the Dominican Republic; some, they argue, had been residents for more than 20 years. They say that it is common practice for the police to raid the homes of Haitians at night and confiscate their residence papers to provide a pretext for deporting them.

Development: On 16 February the supreme court upheld the Conselho Nacional de Justiça's (CNJ) anti-nepotism resolution for the Brazilian judiciary.

Significance: Last October the CNJ determined the dismissal of all relatives of judges employed by the judiciary who had not passed the civil service entrance contest and judges were given until 14 February to comply with the order. As expected, the CNJ ruling was unpopular among magistrates and was largely ignored. Several judges appealed against it and the Brazilian Magistrates' Association was obliged to request the supreme court to rule on the resolution's constitutionality.

By nine votes to one, the supreme court decided to uphold the CNJ's decision to bar the appointment of judges' relatives to "trusted positions" under a new anti-nepotism rule and considered the dismissal decree constitutional. In practice it means that more than 1,700 appointed positions have been scrapped overnight by the Brazilian judiciary.

The supreme court ruling is expected to give new impetus to a petition made by the Brazilian Attorneys' Order requesting congress to approve an anti-nepotism bill which has been stuck in congress for years. The bill bars the appointment of family members of civil servants and congressmen to public positions; appointments must be made on merit only.

Development: The guerrilla group Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) released a statement on its website on 22 March proposing a broad alliance to confront President Alvaro Uribe in the presidential elections on 28 May.

Significance: The ELN's announcement was seized upon by President Uribe as proof that the government's exploratory talks with the ELN in Cuba, which began in December 2005, have been a success. He said he was delighted that the ELN was opting for the ballot box rather than the bullet.

The ELN called for "a broad political alliance between the Left and the centre of the political spectrum." In order to successfully defeat Uribe this alliance would need to bring together legislators from the Partido Liberal, Polo Democrático, indigenous groups and even some Conservative representatives to rally behind one candidate to stand against Uribe, the ELN said. The likelihood of these disparate groups falling in line behind one candidate is slim.

Development: On 27 April President Oscar Berger chaired a meeting of Central American interior and defence ministers aimed at deepening regional cooperation and information-sharing to combat drug-trafficking. Guatemala will be confirmed today as the host of the headquarters of the new Centro Regional de Coordinación Contra el Narcotráfico.

Significance: The meeting coincided with an announcement from the Guatemalan army that its special anti-narcotics unit, the Fuerza Interinstitucional de Tarea (FIT), had destroyed 80 clandestine landing strips in the Laguna del Tigre national park in the northern department of Petén in the last five months. It claimed that the landing strips had been constructed by the Mexican drug gangs Golfo and Sinaloa as Laguna del Tigre borders Mexico. The FIT found 34 (Colombian) light aircraft, the majority of them burnt out, each one capable of transporting some 3,000 kilos of cocaine to Laguna from where it is transported overland to Mexico.

Separately, President Berger announced that he would be sending 11,000 soldiers to trouble spots across Guatemala to try and counter the alarming increase in organised crime. Earlier this month, the government recruited 3,000 former members of the military and reservists into a "special public-security support force" which, if it proves successful, will end up being incorporated into the Policí­a Nacional Civil (PNC).

Development: A new opinion poll published on 1 June puts President Lula da Silva way out front in October's presidential race.

Significance: According to the findings of Ibope, Lula is well ahead of his main rival, Geraldo Alckmin. Support for other prospective candidates is almost irrelevant, the only exception being Senator Heloí­sa Helena who has 6% of voter intentions. Crucially, the poll reveals that without the candidacy of the maverick evangelical Anthony Garotinho, Lula would win in the first round on 3 October.

Lula appears in the poll with 48% support to Alckmin's 19%. Yet as voting is compulsory in Brazil, Lula could receive 63% of the valid votes to Alckmin's 25%. It is impossible to compare the latest poll's first round results with previous surveys because of the absence of Garotinho. Yet a comparison between prospective second rounds between Lula and Alckmin reveals that the President is gathering support: in March Lula appeared with 49% of voter intentions to Alckmin's 31% in the second round. Now Lula would beat Alckmin by 53% to 31% in a prospective second round vote.

The results and the ever-closer deadline for politicians to formalise their candidacies (30 June) led the opposition to attack Lula and his Partido dos Trabalhadores, prompting the President to boast that "my adversaries should learn to lose". Lula has also challenged the opposition to use the congressional investigations against his "tortured comrades", who are accused of corruption, to win votes. Alckmin regarded Lula's comments as "proof of [Lula's] unforgivable cynicism".

Development: The Brazilian economy is expected to perform better in the second half of the year thanks to lower inflation and increasing domestic demand, according to the analysis of experts published in the local media on 6 July. 

Significance: Brazil's economy has put on a show of strength in recent months despite complaints from the productive sector. According to figures from the official statistics agency, the Ibge, Brazil's GDP grew 1.4% in the first quarter of the year (on 2005's first quarter), the fastest rate in 18 months. With new economic data in their hands, analysts anticipate the pace of growth will speed up further. 

Consumer prices in the metropolitan region of São Paulo in the first half of the year rose at their slowest pace since 1994, at 0.1% according to the Fundação Instituto de Pesquisas Econômicas (Fipe). The figure led analysts to forecast new consecutive interest-rate cuts, which added to rising wages (they were up 5% in April year-on-year), are expected to boost domestic demand in the second half of the year.

Indeed Brazil's industry has already given signs of the trend, expanding at 1.6% in May on April. This is the best result in the year so far, bringing the accumulated figure for the first five months of the year to 3.3%. According to analysts from the Ibge, the good performance was largely due to domestic demand, rather than exports. For instance internal sales in the automobile sector expanded at a 7.6% rate, while exports rose by 5.6% in the first half of the year.

Crucially, most analysts also agree that any eventual inflationary pressure caused by more domestic consumption will be counterbalanced by the Real's strength. The current exchange rate, floating at around R$2.25 to the US dollar, will work as an antidote to increasing prices since domestic producers will have to slash costs to compete with cheaper imports. In any case, most concluded that inflation rates will be slightly higher from now on.

Development: On 9 August Costa Rican police arrested a Colombian man accused of being a member of the terrorist group Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc). 

Significance: The arrest of Héctor Orlando Martinez Quinto shows that the Costa Rican government is willing to work with Colombian authorities to curb the power of insurgent groups in the region. Martinez had his arrest order issued after being found guilty of participating in the Bojayá massacre in 2002. The attack was ordered by the Farc and cost the lives of 110 Colombian civilians, many of them children. 

Martinez had been living in Costa Rica for many years but his residency was granted irregularly, according to authorities. An enquiry is trying to establish how his resident permit, which usually takes over one year, was fast-tracked in less then 20 days. Five people in the Immigration Office are under investigation. Costa Rican authorities said they will inspect other suspicious residency permits. 

Crucially, the arrest came only a few days after the Costa Rican president, Oscar Arias, called on the Colombian government and the Farc to negotiate an "unconditional ceasefire" to end the fifty-year-old internal conflict in Colombia. Arias, a Peace Nobel Prize winner for his efforts to end conflicts in neighbouring Central American countries in 1987, said he is happy to mediate negotiations. Last week another Colombian insurgent group, the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, asked Arias to "facilitate" peace negotiations with the Colombian government.

Development: Brazilian President Lula da Silva hosted the first India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Summit in Brasí­lia on 13-14 September. 

Significance: Lula and his South African counterpart, President Thabo Mbeki, together with the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, discussed “ways to increase south-south partnership" in a bid to “change global trade geography". The three men signed several cooperation agreements, including one relating to renewable energy sources. 

The three countries set up a joint team to increase cooperation in the development of so-called bio-fuels. Brazil is a world leader in the use of ethanol and bio-diesel. South Africa has coal gasification technology and a well-developed synthetic fuel industry. India has expertise in wind and solar energy. In partnership, the three governments hope to expand the use of bio-fuels and reduce dependence on oil. 

Significantly, the three countries have also issued a joint statement agreeing “to explore cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear technology". In practice this means that Brazil and South Africa gave their approval to India's nuclear programme. As members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and signatories of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, their support is crucial to convince the US congress to allow US nuclear cooperation with India.

Lula took the opportunity to argue once again for an “urgent reform" to the UN Security Council. According to Lula, the current set-up in the council “represents a world that no longer exists". Brazil is campaigning for a permanent seat on the council. To improve the chances of its plan succeeding, Brazil also advocated a place for India and South Africa on its new-look council.

COSTA RICA: Exports were up by 18% in the first nine months at US$6.14bn.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: The country will open negotiations with Taiwan about a free trade deal tomorrow (24 October).

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Tourist arrivals were up by 10% in the first nine months of the year at 3.38m people.

GUATEMALA: Exports in the first nine months came to US$2.98bn, up US$218m on the same period of 2005.

Development: The president of the supreme judicial council, José Alfredo Escobar, refused to resign on 27 November amid a scandal linking him to the Italian mafia.

Significance: A videotape acquired by weekly magazine Semana showing Escobar meeting the Italian businessman Giorgio Sale has added to the numerous scandals already swirling around Colombia's institutions. Not only was Sale recently arrested on charges of drug-trafficking, but the drug-smuggling ring also has strong ties to the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) paramilitary organization.

Escobar denies any impropriety in his encounters with Sale, pointing out that Sale is a successful businessman who owns a number of influential Colombian enterprises, the Made in Italy textile company and the L ´Enoteca restaurant chain. However, the tapes strongly indicate that Sale and an associate of his, Francisco Javier Obando Mejí­a, quizzed Escobar about specific criminal cases involving alleged drug traffickers and asked the judge to intervene.

Sale and Obando were under investigation at the time the tapes were recorded and were arrested earlier this month in an international operation involving the authorities in Italy, Spain and Colombia which also involved the US Drug Enforcement Administration. Sale and his son, Cristian were arrested in Italy along with 31 other suspects while Obando was one of three people to be seized in Colombia. A further 12 suspected drug traffickers were arrested in Spain.

The same operation, codenamed Galloway Shark, also implicated former AUC leader Salvatore Mancuso. An investigation in January 2004 linked Mancuso to the Ndrangheta calabresa organized crime outfit and revealed close ties between the Italian mafia, drug-trafficking and the paramilitaries. Given the current scandal over the AUC's political infiltration, signs that the AUC also has links to the judiciary are especially worrying.

Development: Speaking at the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on 11 January, two of the US's top intelligence chiefs said that the transfer of power in Cuba has started and that Raúl Castro will remain in power after the death of his brother Fidel.

Significance: John Negroponte, the director of National Intelligence, and Michael Maples, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, both seemed sure that a return to power by Fidel Castro is not on the cards. Negroponte stated last month that Fidel is "moribund" and would not lead Cuba again, though did not repeat this at yesterday's meeting.

These views coincide with those expressed by the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Thomas Shannon, who has also stated that the transfer of power from Fidel to Raúl has effectively occurred. 

Both intelligence chiefs were less certain about how successfully Raúl will be able to govern after Fidel's death. Maples said that Raúl's broad respect and support from the heads of the army is "crucial" for an effective succession. This, he said, will ensure that Raúl "will maintain power and stability after the death of Fidel Castro, at least in the short term."

Negroponte said that he did not know what would happen in Cuba after Fidel's death, but highlighted three factors which could affect events; the extent to which the government leaders stick together to present a united front, the ability of Raúl Castro to convince people that he is Fidel's natural successor and the pressure that the Cuban people exercise on the government to push for political and economic reform.

Development: Four state policemen were gunned down in Aguascalientes by drug gangsters on 15 February.

Significance: The murders suggest, again, the federal government's offensives against the drug trade are pushing the business, and the violence it produces, into fresh areas. Aguascalientes, a prosperous state, dominated by its huge Nissan car plant, has experienced little drug-related violence. In recent years, drug-related violence has been concentrated in states such as Michoacán, Tamaulipas, Guerrero, Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Baja California which have been the focus of the government's offensives. 

The murders occurred when the state policemen were tipped off about men transporting police uniforms and weapons. The police arrested two suspects, but other members of the gang then appeared and opened fire on the police. Three policemen, including a police captain, were killed in the firefight and one died later in hospital. Four other policemen were wounded, as was one of the gangsters. 

The police's follow up operation led to the arrest of three gangsters after a raid on one of the gang's safe houses. The raid picked up five AK-47s, tear gas, ammunition, radios and black uniforms. The state secretary for public security, Filiberto Ramí­rez Lara, said that the cars driven by the gangsters had Jalisco or Mexico City number plates.

Development: On 21 March President Lula da Silva chose Reinhold Stephanes, of the Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB), to become the new agriculture minister.

Significance: The choice of Stephanes was controversial not least because it went against the preferences of the agricultural lobby in Brazil's congress. Stephanes, also, served as social security minister under the previous (now opposition) administration of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and, significantly, under the disastrous administration of President Fernando Collor de Mello. 

Stephanes, however, is close to the PMDB's president, Michel Temer, whose support Lula needs to keep the PMDB allied with the government. At the same time, his appointment was criticised by the PMDB's senatorial faction. Nelson Jobim, who lost the PMDB's leadership contest to Temer earlier this month, and said that Stephanes represented a faction of the PMDB “without any project or position". 

Stephanes will take on the post today (22 March) together with the new tourism minister Marta Suplicy, of Lula's Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), and the new political coordination minister, Walfrido Mares, of the Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro. Miguel Jorge, the vice-president of Banco Santander in Brazil, has accepted Lula's invitation to become the new development minister. Lula also decided to make no changes in the agricultural development ministry, which will remain under Guilherme Cassel, of the PT. 

With that the cabinet reshuffle will be done with. Lula, however, is said to be considering a last-minute change and may substitute the defence minister, Waldir Pires, of the PT, with Aldo Rebelo, a communist.

Development: President Lula da Silva met his Chilean counterpart, Michelle Bachelet, in Santiago on 26 April. From there Lula went on to Buenos Aires to meet the Argentine President, Néstor Kirchner.

Significance: The tour was understood as an attempt to resurrect the so-called "ABC partnership" between Argentina, Brazil and Chile. This partnership was the motor behind the beginnings of South American integration in the 1990s. The insertion of Venezuela at the centre stage of South American affairs with the election of President Hugo Chávez in 1999 changed this dynamic. For many commentators this has been the cause of friction in the region.

Indeed, the signing of several cooperation agreements, including a "memorandum of understanding" between Brazil's Petrobras and Chile's ENAP to boost biofuel production in Chile, is an alliance between the two "softer" leftwing governments against Chávez 's "purer" version of socialism. Lula, however, denied this when he declared that "the main problem in South America is not Chávez [...] the problem is that we must recover from decades in which the poor were subjected to hunger and lack of education".

Lula and Chávez have been entangled in a battle of words over the production of biofuels, particularly of ethanol, which the Venezuelan leader claimed would lead to an increase of poverty and hunger worldwide. In order to set the facts straight on the issue Lula asked the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, whose regional office is in Santiago, to conduct a study on ethanol. Lula collected the study during his visit and, according to leaks to the press, the study maintains that "by taking certain precautions, the production of biofuels present no threat to the cultivation of food".

Lula left Santiago late in the evening for Buenos Aires where he has a meeting scheduled with Kirchner. Lula admitted that Brazil and Argentina "have problems" but praised Kirchner's commitment to South American integration. Indeed, Lula gave his blessing for the Argentine's attempt to be re-elected in October by declaring, contradictorily, that "Brazil and Argentina have never had such good relations as now" and that Kirchner's victory would "give continuity" to this. Kirchner is Chávez 's main allies in the region.

Development: The rightwing businessman Mauricio Macri won 3 June's election for the Buenos Aires mayoralty with a convincing 45.6% of votes, but will have to face a runoff with President Néstor Kirchner's favoured candidate, Education Minister Daniel Filmus, who got 24%.

Significance: The polls had all predicted that Macri would win, although not by such a wide margin. The real race was for second place and between the incumbent mayor Jorge Telerman and Filmus. The Kirchner camp loudly celebrated Filmus's second-place performance; this election was a test of the president's own popularity and had Filmus failed to even make the runoffs it would have boded ill for the incumbent administration in October's general elections. The turnout was surprisingly high at over 75%.

Filmus and his team are now hoping for a repeat performance of the 2003 mayoral elections in Buenos Aires, when Macri won the first round but was defeated in the runoff by the kirchnerista candidate, Aní­bal Ibarra, who was impeached in 2005. The head of the cabinet, Alberto Fernández, said, "Now it is [Macri] against Filmus, our model against what he represents."

However, Macri's level of support has increased; in 2003 he won 37.55% of votes in the first round against Ibarra's 33.54%. Although it is likely that most people who voted for the centre-left Telerman in this year's ballot will support Filmus in the runoff, Macri will only need to attract a few more votes to win a majority. Telerman won 20.5% of the votes. It is also worth noting that the victory for the ruling Partido Justicia in Buenos Aires in 2003 was an anomaly; traditionally it is not a stronghold for the Peronists.

Interestingly, it was Cristina Fernández Kirchner who appeared on the balcony of the Casa Rosada with Filmus rather than her husband, fuelling speculation that she will be the presidential candidate instead of him. She did not attend the campaign-closing rally for Filmus last week, probably because associating herself with Filmus would have been damaging to her prospects if he had come third in the election.

Elisa Carrió, the leftwing presidential candidate from the Coalición Cí­vica, had aligned herself with Telerman, but tried to put a positive spin on his defeat; "I can't help being happy with the massive victory for the opposition in the capital. An opposition leader is going to govern the city and we are going to fight for the presidency."

The lukewarm victory for Kirchner in the capital was cooled by a defeat in the gubernatorial election in the western province of Neuquén, also held on 3 June, where the kichnerista candidate, Horacio Quiroga, was beaten by Jorge Sapag of the Movimiento Popular Neuquino. Quiroga is one of the members of the K radicals, a group from the opposition Unión Cí­vica Radical party who formed an alliance with the president. He is the first of the group to lose a gubernatorial election in this electoral cycle.

Development: On 5 July politicians from all parties appealed for an end to the violence.

Significance: The country's murder rate has increased sharply in recent weeks prompting some politicians to claim that General Otto Pérez Molina, the rightwing candidate for the Partido Patriota, wants to create a climate of fear to improve his chances in the forthcoming general elections. Pérez Molina advocates tougher anti-crime policies (mano dura). Since campaigning started officially in mid May, 44 politicians have been murdered: in the whole of the previous election campaign only 23 politicians were killed. The country goes for the polls in the first round of elections on 9 September.

On 4 and 5 July, 12 people were murdered including two (centre left) candidates for office. So far this year 30 candidates for public office, mostly from the left and centre left, have been gunned down. In the past month alone eight candidates have been killed. In addition, the killing of political organisers and even violent attacks on party activists fly-posting on behalf of their candidates has increased.

Alvaro Colom, from the Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE), who, according to the opinion polls, is likely to face Pérez Molina in a run off at the end of September, after the first round of the elections in which 17 groups are fielding presidential candidates. Colom, though well ahead of Pérez Molina, has been sliding in the polls: Pérez Molina has been rising slightly.

Colom wants to suggest, without actually saying, that Pérez Molina's campaign is behind the killings. Last week a UNE deputy, Mario Taracena, said that the PP was responsible for the killing of bus drivers: most people had assumed that the bus drivers were being killed by the Mara gangs in order to boost the gangs' protection rackets.

Colom said on 5 July that half the 30 candidates killed this year were standing for the UNE. He further claimed that nobody had been convicted of any of these killings. Pérez Molina said that it was not just politicians who were suffering from the upswing in violence but the whole country. He blamed the current government, run by Oscar Berger, from the Gran Alianza Nacional, for failing to control the violence. The Gana's candidate for the presidency, Alejandro Giammattei, said that the lack of investigation into the killings was destabilising in itself and worried people.

Pérez Molina is right in claiming that it is not just politicians who are being killed. On 4 July six people were killed after a gang armed with assault rifles confronted the police. On 5 July, the police claimed that their action pre-empted an attack by the gang on a bus station in Guatemala City. The police said that they now believed that the gang had been in the final stages of planning its attack.

Development: The supreme court opened an enquiry over alleged wrongdoing practiced by the president of Brazil's senate, Senator Renan Calheiros, on 6 August.

Significance: The probe increases the pressure on Calheiros, an ally of President Lula da Silva, to take a leave of absence while his peers investigate allegations that he received money from a lobbyist to pay for the care of an extra-marital child. Calheiros presented (fake) documents to show his innocence.

The police investigation also found several irregularities in Calheiros's tax declarations. To make matters worse, new allegations surfaced that he used his influence to let off a bankrupt brewery from paying its social security dues, that he owns several radio stations without declaring them to the tax man and that he committed environmental crimes by deforesting protected areas to increase pasture on his cattle ranches.

The public-prosecutor general, Antonio Fernando de Souza, said that there are "just too many allegations" against Calheiros that legal proceedings must be taken. So far only Calheiros's peers, through the senate's ethical council, have been allowed to question him. As a member of Brazil's congress, Calheiros has immunity from common prosecution and apart from his peers, who requested the police's scrutiny of his documents, only the supreme court could investigate him.

Calheiros will be impeached if found guilty by the senate's ethical council. If the supreme court finds enough evidence against him a court case could be launched against him. Yet, in over 40 years, no Brazilian politician investigated by the supreme court was ever convicted. This may change now: the supreme court seems to have taken a tougher stance against corruption and will issue judgments the infamous mensalão corruption scandal, which also involved Lula allies, later this month.