All Categories

BRAZIL: 47 out of every 100 Brazilians own a mobile phone. Still, the cost of making calls from a mobile phone in Brazil is US$0.53, above the Latin American average of US$0.32.  

BRAZIL: Industrial sales increased 0.73% between April and May. In comparison with May last year the increase was 4.55%. In the first half of the year the industry sold 1.59% more than in the same period in 2005.  

BRAZIL: Industrial employment increased 0.46% between April and May and 1.14% in relation to May 2005. In the first five months of 2006 employment in the industrial sector increased 0.86% on the same period last year.  

BRAZIL: The number of bankruptcies fell 75.8% in June on June last year.  

BRAZIL: The sale of flex-fuel cars increased 133% in the first half of the year in comparison with the same period last year. Flex-fuel cars now account for 76.3% of the Brazilian production.  

BRAZIL: Exports of agricultural products in the first half of the year totalled a record US$21.5bn, 5.7% more than in the same period in 2005. Agricultural imports were also up, by 20%, but reached only US$2.9bn, bringing the trade surplus in the agricultural sector to US$18.3bn so far this year.  

BRAZIL: The EU continues to be Brazil's biggest buyer of agricultural products, buying 31.3% of all agricultural exports. Asia comes second, importing 19.6%, followed by the Nafta, at 16%. Agricultural sales to other partners, however, were growing fast. Exports to Africa rose 11% in the first half of 2006 and 12.5% to the Middle East in the same period.

Development: The parliamentary committee investigating the sanguessuga corruption scandal accused 72 congressmen of wrongdoing in its partial report published on 9 August. 

Significance: This is the worse-ever corruption scandal, at least as regards the number of congressmen involved, to hit Brazil's congress. According to the report, there is enough evidence to initiate impeachment proceedings against the involved. This is crucial since the great majority of the congressmen accused are running for re-election or to other public office in October, and they may only be prosecuted once stripped of their parliamentary immunity.

The committee said it has not found conclusive evidence to charge 18 other congressmen, including the former health minister Saraiva Felipe. The report, however, indicated that investigations against them are still ongoing, and that several government officials in the health, education and science and technology ministries may also be involved in the corruption scheme. 

Significantly, of the 72 congressmen denounced in the report, 63 are from the government-allied bloc. Not surprisingly, President Lula da Silva tried to make it clear to voters that he is tough on corrupt officials. Lula said in an interview that he personally discharged former ministers José Dirceu and Antonio Palocci, both stars in his government, after both men had been implicated in corruption scandals. That is only partially true, since Lula sacked the duo only after their wrongdoings became indefensible.

Development: Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, the founder of the leftwing Partido de la Revolución Democrática, said on 18 September that Andrés Manuel López Obrador was damaging the Mexican Left by continuing to protest about his defeat in the 2 July presidential election.

Significance: Cárdenas's unequivocal criticism carries huge weight because Cárdenas refused to set himself up as an alternative president in 1988 when he was, almost certainly, cheated of the presidency by Carlos Salinas de Gortari and the Partido Revolucionario Institucional. Although the 2006 elections had their flaws and the vote was tight, López Obrador lost: no independent observer has endorsed any of his complaints. 

Cárdenas made his comments in an interview with a Spanish newspaper, “La Vanguardia". Cárdenas said that López Obrador's decision to have himself declared president “was a serious error which will have the highest cost for the PRD and the democratic movement." Cárdenas also said that he was concerned about the confrontations in the country. In 1988 Cárdenas refused to challenge the election: it transpired, over 10 years later, that he had secretly met the sinister, and ill-fated, Salinas immediately after the elections. Cárdenas, the son of Mexico's greatest president, refused to accept Salinas as president, but he did not attempt to overthrow him. What nobody in Mexico is sure about is whether López Obrador has the wit and magnanimity to follow Cárdenas's example. 

“We have to respect the [national] institutions," Cárdenas said. “The path of confrontation, breaking and disregarding the constitutional order, will not benefit the country." Cárdenas pointed out that some of López Obrador's closest advisers and advocates of the protests against the election were the same people who had stolen the 1988 from him: the prime example of such a person is Manuel Camacho Solí­s, who was appointed mayor of Mexico City by Salinas and then became Salinas's foreign minister. Camacho is now effectively López Obrador's chief of staff. 

Cárdenas also took a few swipes at López Obrador, suggesting that one of the reasons why he lost was that he was not a true leftwinger . Cárdenas added that López Obrador's campaign was flawed because a lot of perredistas were not mobilised, and indeed were put off, when “worthless" candidates were nominated. He also criticised López Obrador for his attacks on President Vicente Fox and López Obrador's Manichean view of the world: Cárdenas said that López Obrador was wrong to depict all bankers and businessmen as wicked: “they're just like everyone else," Cárdenas said, “good, bad and average."

Development: The latest poll released on 20 October by Cid Gallup has prompted new divisions in the liberal camp over which candidate should take on Daniel Ortega of the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN).

Significance: Contradicting a poll published last week by the Universidad Centroamericana, the Cid Gallup poll puts Eduardo Montealegre from the dissident liberal party, Alianza Liberal Nicaragüense (ALN), in second place, with 21.1%, over José Rizo of the Partido Liberal Constitucionalista (PLC), on 16.8%. Both polls show Ortega comfortably leading the pack, but differ over whether he will have enough votes to win in the first round; he needs 35% with a five-point lead over his nearest rival to gain the presidency, and the Cid Gallup poll, which puts him on just 32.5%, predicts that a second round will be necessary. The Cid Gallup poll is more consistent with previous polls than the one released by the Universidad Centroamericana.

The dissident liberal leader has some powerful friends; in direct response to the Cid Gallup poll, the business group Consejo Superior de la Empresa Privada (Cosep) announced on 20 October their support for Montealegre. Representatives of the US government have also made their preference for him abundantly clear. The US ambassador to Nicaragua, Paul Trivelli, was characteristically outspoken about the election on 20 October; he said that a vote for Rizo was essentially a vote for Ortega due to a corrupt power-sharing scheme, "El Pacto", agreed between the FSLN and the PLC in 2000. He criticised the PLC for using US symbols in their electoral campaign, and said that the message it conveyed, that "the gringos support them as the only option against the Frente Sandinista", was incorrect.

Ortega, who was on the campaign trail in Rivas on 21 October, warned his supporters against complacency and urged them not to pay attention to the polls. In his speech, he pledged that he would appoint women to 50% of the important roles in his government.

Development: The supreme court announced on 28 November that it is investigating six more legislators for their links to paramilitary groups, five of whom belong to parties loyal to President Alvaro Uribe.

Significance: The para-politics scandal is snowballing. The supreme court is already investigating four legislators for collaborating with the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), three of whom are behind bars while one is still on the run.

The six congressmen accused yesterday by the supreme court are Alvaro Araújo, Dieb Maloof, Mauricio Pimiento, Jorge Luis Caballero, Luis Eduardo Vives and Alfonso Campos. They will appear before the supreme court - the only institution capable of trying incumbent congressmen - from 5-7 December, after which the court will decide whether to instigate a criminal trial.

Two of those newly under investigation bring the scandal uncomfortably close to President Uribe. Alvaro Araújo is the brother of his foreign minister, Marí­a Consuelo Araújo, while Mauricio Pimiento is a senior member of the Partido de la U, arguably the key pro-Uribe party in congress. Pieded Córdoba, an influential senator from the opposition Partido Liberal, demanded Uribe resign and congress be dissolved.

Uribe has urged any congressmen with links to the paramilitaries to come clean about their activities. However, the scale of the blood-letting might be more than a president even as popular as Uribe can sustain: the AUC has boasted that it controls a third of congressmen, and it emerged over the weekend that 40 legislators signed a document in 2001 supporting the paramilitaries' political ambitions.

This document has already claimed one high-level official. On 28 November Carlos Ordosgoitia, the president of the Instituto Nacional de Concesiones (the government agency responsible for transport contracts), resigned after admitting to being present at the meeting in Santa Fe de Ralito where the document was signed in the presence of the two then-leaders of the AUC.

Development: On 11 January a US grand jury charged jailed anti-Castro Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles, accused of bombing a Cuban airliner in 1976, with giving false testimony about how he entered the US.

Significance: Posada, 78, was charged with one count of naturalization fraud and six counts of making false statements while seeking US citizenship after he entered the country illegally in 2005. If convicted, Posada faces up to 10 years in prison for the naturalization fraud charge and five years for each of the other six counts. Keeping Posada in prison in Texas would mean the US authorities would not have to deport him. He is wanted by both Venezuela and Cuba on terrorism charges, but the US is reluctant to deport him to either country. Seven other countries have refused US requests to take him in.

Johnny Sutton, the attorney for the western district of Texas, said that Posada gave false declarations in his request for citizenship in 10 September 2005. Additionally, the attorney claims he lied under oath to officials from the department of homeland security. Posada told immigration authorities he came into the United States overland with the help of a human smuggler when in fact he was brought in on a boat, accompanied by men who included other anti-Castro activists. Sutton also said he lied when he denied he once had a fraudulent Guatemalan passport.

Development: Beatriz Paredes won the presidency of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) on 18 February.

Significance: Although the PRI is now only the third-biggest party in the federal congress it still controls 17 of Mexico's 32 states. Paredes's first act after winning was to offer to negotiate with the government of President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa: a PRI alliance with Calderón's Partido Acción Nacional in congress would give the government a comfortable majority.

The big doubt about such an alliance is whether Paredes could impose it on the party's deputies and senators. She hinted that she has a good working relationship with Manlio Fabio Beltrones, the ambitious leader of the PRI in the senate who is a former governor of Sonora. She appears to have been backed by most of the state governors, though at least one, Enrique Peña Nieto, the governor of the Estado de México, demanded that she appoint Jesús Murillo Karam, a former governor Hidalgo as her running mate, which she did. 

Although Paredes herself has been a state governor (of the small state of Tlaxcala), she is hardly an inspiring choice. She did win convincingly, however, polling 9,410 of the 17,731 votes available. This was double what her nearest rival, Enrique Jackson, managed: he is a prominent opponent of Roberto Madrazo, a former party president and then the PRI's presidential candidate in the disastrous elections in 2006. 

Paredes's priorities are the three state elections this year. The PRI has good chances of winning all three states: the first election is in PAN-controlled Yucatán. This election is followed by ones in Baja California (also PAN controlled) and finally Michoacán (which is controlled by the Partido de la Revolución Democrática).

Development: The Venezuelan-led trade bloc, Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas (ALBA), established a multi-disciplinary group to organise co-operation on mining on 22 March during the meeting of its four members, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba in Havana.

Significance: The newly formed group will promote co-operation in areas such as mining legislation, market studies for mining and minerals and training for mining professionals in all four countries. The creation of the group can be seen as a step towards greater integration for ALBA, which was set up initially by President Hugo Chávez as an alternative to the US-led Free Trade Area of the Americas.

There were signs, however, that not all was right between members of the trade bloc when the Bolivian government urgently summoned the Venezuelan ambassador on 22 March to explain alleged restrictions on imports of Bolivian soya. The Bolivian foreign trade institute (IBCE) has complained about Venezuela's protectionism. The vice-minister for trade, Pablo Rabzuck, said that he would not rush to take action until the Venezuelan ambassador had given an explanation for the restrictions.

Development: On 26 April the foreign ministry announced that President Rafael Correa had declared the representative of the World Bank in Ecuador, Eduardo Somensatto, “persona non grata".

Significance: Correa's decision is apparently due to the refusal of the World Bank to disburse a US$100m pre-agreed loan in 2005 because of Ecuador's non-compliance with its conditions pertaining to public debt levels. At the time Correa was the country's economy minister. The decision comes a month after Ecuador paid off its US$9m debt to the IMF and announced its intention to sever ties with the financial institution.

Correa sent a letter to the World Bank on 20 April. A day later, on his weekly radio broadcast, he said, “We don't want to hear anything more from that international bureaucracy. We are imitating brother nation Venezuela." Nevertheless, according to the economy ministry, Ecuador still owes US$748.2m to the World Bank.

The World Bank responded by saying that it was studying Correa's request and reiterated its commitment to hold dialogue with the highest authorities in the country. Somensatto is currently in Washington and it is not clear whether he will be allowed to return to Ecuador.

Separately, Correa travelled to the Amazon on 26 April where he attacked the US oil company Chevron-Texaco for the environmental damage it had caused to the area and said he would order the country's attorney general to reopen the lawsuit against the company. Ecuador and Chevron Texaco have long disputed the responsibility for the environmental damage in the area. The US company says the damage is the fault of Petroecuador, the state oil company, that took over the running of the area 15 years ago.

Development: On 3 June, President Lula's key foreign policy adviser said that President Hugo Chávez had done nothing illegal in taking RCTV off the air.

Significance: The Brazilian government has issued contradictory statements about Chávez 's controversial decision not to allow RCTV, a Caracas TV station, to keep broadcasting. The Brazilian senate issued a strong statement on 31 May calling for Chávez to review his decision. This annoyed Chávez who sent his “condolences to the Brazilian people" for having a senate which “parroted" US policies. The Brazilian foreign ministry summoned Venezuela's ambassador to explain these insulting statements and President Lula issued a statement from London criticising what Chávez had said. On 2 June, Chávez admitted he had spoken intemperately. Then came the statement from President Lula's key foreign policy adviser, Marco Aurélio Garcí­a on 3 June.

Garcí­a, speaking in New Delhi, emphasised that Chávez had done nothing illegal, nor violated the principle of free speech. Both of these statements are arguable, given Venezuela's commitments to the Organization of American States. But Garcí­a went further, claiming that Venezuela was unusual because in few other countries had he seen the press speak with such freedom as it enjoyed under Chávez . Garcí­a pointed out that he had seen telenovelas with a ticker running underneath the actual programming calling on people to come out and demonstrate against Chávez and his government. 

Garcí­a stuck to this position even when it was put to him that RCTV had a valid broadcasting licence that was not due to expire until 2022. Garcí­a argued that Brazil's bilateral “political and economic" dealings with Venezuela and the integration projects in South America justified Brazil's decision to smooth relations with Venezuela.

Development: On 5 July, the Senate's ethics' council granted Renan Calheiros five days to question the investigation opened against him for "breaking parliamentary decorum".

Significance: When Calheiros' five days are over, he will have a further five days in which to present documentary evidence that can be used in his defence. According to Renato Casagrande, one of the new investigators on the case, the "objective is to speed up the process". These deadlines were set by the investigators and Leomar Quintanilha, the president of the ethics' council. In addition, they requested that the federal police finalise its investigation into Calheiros' documents, ascertaining their legitimacy and that of his financial transactions.

In order to prove that his expenses were compatible with his income, Calheiros supplied documents that stated his income from the sale of livestock in the last four years as US$1m. However, in initial police investigation there are signs of fraud and a discrepancy of over US$300,000. Calheiros is currently under investigation for using construction company Mendes Júniors' funds to house and feed journalist Mônica Veloso, with whom he had an extra-marital daughter. He is also accused of granting the company parliamentary exemptions on its construction sites. Calheiros vigorously denies foul play.

The ethics' council believes that it will reach a resolution in mid-September. However, according to Casagrande, the counsel will need at least another 45 days to reach the final stage of the process - the tripartite commission of senators' vote on their report.

COLOMBIA: Bogotá's economy grew by 9.65% year-on-year in the first quarter.

ECUADOR: Prices rose 0.42% in July from the previous month and were up 2.58% year-on-year.

PANAMA: The economy grew 9.4% year-on-year in the first quarter of this year.

Development: On 12 September, the main opposition party in Bolivia called for a "national dialogue" to save the constituent assembly.

Significance: The call shows that President Evo Morales is in danger of losing control of the reform process which has been blocked and delayed by his right wing opponents. Morales's attempt to intimidate the Right by summoning his supporters to Sucre fizzled out when only 10,000, rather than the expected 100,000, turned up on 10 September.

At the heart of Morales's reforms should be the constituent assembly which is rewriting the constitution. The assembly has failed to achieve anything for a year and on September 7 closed for a month. The assembly's mandate expires in December.

The shut down of the assembly followed weeks of protest, regional strikes and violence in Sucre (capital of the Chuquisaca and site of the forum) after a vote on 15 August led by delegates from the ruling Movimiento al Socalismo (Mas) to halt discussion on the issue of transferring the country's capital from La Paz to Sucre.

The opposition has so far resisted negotiating with the government over the capital issue. Local leaders in Sucre refused to accept Morales's grudging concession that Sucre could become home to any new national institutions the constituent assembly created and some legislative sessions. The right also rejected the government's idea of moving the constituent assembly from Sucre to Oruro. Leaders from Chuquisaca have refused to meet the government on two occasions because the agenda did not include the issue of the capital.

The rightwing Poder Democrático y Social now feels that Morales is in a tight enough corner that he will have to offer concessions on substantive issues. Its senator, Oscar Ortiz, called on Morales to convoke a "national dialogue" to resolve the conflicts which have bedevilled the assembly.

If the government agrees to a "national dialogue" the rightwing will feel that it now has the initiative and that it can now tilt the tricky issues that the constituent assembly should have resolved, such as the degree of regional autonomy departments should have, its way.

The constituent assembly has to complete its work by 14 December. It opened at the beginning of August 2006. The joint commissions have yet to finish their drafting work, let alone the settlement commission (which is composed of the assembly leadership, commission presidents and leaders of political parties) which is supposed to resolve any differences before voting takes place in the full sessions attended by all 255 members.

FRIDAY

ARGENTINA/URUGUAY: The 5th meeting of the Union of Citizen Assemblies (including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay) will be held where the conflict caused by the construction of the paper mill will be discussed.

BOLIVIA: President Evo Morales will head a meeting of indigenous people and poor farmers from various countries to celebrate the declaration of indigenous rights approved by the UN.

HONDURAS: Protests will take place in Tegucigalpa, organised by National Coordinating Committee. for Popular Resistance (CNRP) to demand changes to laws regarding mining, forests, agricultural modernisation and telecommunications among others.

SUNDAY

CHILE: Chilean president Michelle Bachelet will travel to Italy for a three-day official visit.

BRAZIL: Brazil president Lula da Silva, will begin a tour of Africa where he will Burkina Faso, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa and Angola.

PARAGUAY: Extraordinary convention of the Partido Unión Nacional de Ciudadanos Éticos (UNACE) to elect members of the electoral and conduct tribunals.

Development: On 13 November Agustí­n Carstens, Mexico's economy minister, said that the government would not propose another economic reform package.

Significance: Carstens was speaking after congress passed the budget for 2008. The budget envisages the highest public spending in Mexican history. Carstens said that this would offset the effect of any slowdown in the US economy.

The government got some modest economic reforms through congress before the budget. Carstens claimed that these would reduce the government's dependence on oil revenues. He said that the government's dependence on oil revenues would fall from 37% of total revenues to 34%.
Congress increased spending in the budget by M$153bn (US$13.9bn) compared with the government's initial draft. This brought total spending up to M$2.56 trillion (US$232bn). The main beneficiaries of congress's largesse are agriculture; health; education; pensions' law and order and infrastructure. The budget is based on GDP growth of 3.7% in 2008 up from an anticipated 3% this year.

Development: On 18 December the Argentine foreign minister Jorge Taiana will meet the US ambassador in Buenos Aires and express concern over the US handling of the Antonini Wilson case.

Significance: The move reflects increasing anger on the part of Argentina over the case, which revolves around allegations by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, a Venezuelan arrested while trying to smuggle US$790,000 into Buenos Aires earlier this year intended the money as a campaign contribution for Cristina Fernández. She dismissed the charges as a "trashing operation".

The only link to the Fernández campaign is the word of four men, in prison in Miami. They told US prosecutors that they were Venezuelan agents and that the money was destined for a candidate in the Argentine presidential elections. The evidence is flimsy at best and on 17 December Miami judge William Turnoff granted bail at US$150,000 for one of the suspects, Rodolfo Edgardo Wanseele Paciello, although delayed his order for 48 hours to allow prosecutors to appeal.

Tensions, however, were inflamed by claims by a US prosecutor yesterday (17 December) that Antonini was offered US$2 million to keep quiet. The Argentine government has become increasingly explicit in its condemnation of the US and what it perceives as the US intention to discredit Argentina and Venezuela and undermine relations within the region.

Bolivia shaken by domestic spying revelations

The Bolivian government has ordered an overhaul of the national police's intelligence activities, following revelations that it had been involved in 'unauthorised' spying on politicians and journalists. It has suggested that the US embassy may have exerted undue influence over 'irregular' police intelligence agencies. Opposition leaders have instead suggested that the domestic spying operations may have been conducted by Venezuelan and Cuban intelligence personnel acting under police cover. The senate has summoned interior minister Alfredo Rada to explain what has been going on.

The last week-and-a-half of January opened with the anonymous distribution to two Bolivian newspapers and four television channels of evidence - in the form of surveillance dossiers and photographs - that police intelligence agents had been spying on at least 44 people, mostly politicians, but also journalists. Among the most prominent targets were former president Jorge Quiroga, the governors of Santa Cruz, Beni, Tarija and Cochabamba, opposition legislator Óscar Ortiz, maverick congressman Gustavo Torrico of the ruling Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), and deputy news editor of the TV station Unitel, Juan José Espada.

Interior minister Alfredo Rada promptly denied that anyone in the government had ordered the police to conduct domestic spying operations and suggested that the documents had been leaked to the media as part of an internal 'dirty war' within the police officer corps, between factions backing different candidates for promotion to general. Vice-president Álvaro Garcí­a Linera also denied any government involvement, adding the surprising claim that 'we have discovered that we don't have one intelligence service, but two or three.' The proliferation of police agencies performing intelligence tasks has actually been well-known for a long time.

Rada took the cue and 'revealed' that there were 'irregular' intelligence outfits within the police. He cited the Comando de Operaciones Especiales (Copes), established 15 years ago with, he underlined, the logistical and technological support of the US embassy. Rada said that in January 2006, when President Evo Morales took office, this outfit was re-designated Organización de Estudios Policiales (Odep), 'but we have discovered that it is Copes that has continued to operate behind that name.' He also cited as a 'less irregular' outfit the Grupo Especial Táctico de Investigaciones de Delitos (Getide), which he said had engaged in activities beyond its formal brief of investigating crime. Finally, he cited a third unit, the Grupo de Seguridad Anti-terrorista, which he described as charged with the security of the US embassy.

Rada said the US embassy would be asked to inform about its links with these units and whatever support it offers them, a remark widely interpreted as a suggestion that the 'irregular' spying had been orchestrated by the US embassy. He did not make any reference to the fact that the targets were predominantly opposition politicians routinely accused by the government of being in league with the US. The embassy said that all of its cooperation with Bolivian police activities was conducted with the full knowledge of the government.

The chief of police, General Miguel Vásquez, went further than Rada or Garcí­a Linera, unambiguously admitting that police agents had engaged in spying on politicians. He added, however, that he had not ordered this, and that the person who should provide the answers was police intelligence chief, Colonel José Luis Centellas. The government endorsed this passing of the buck: on 28 January Garcí­a Linera publicly confirmed General Vásquez in his post, and ordered him to clean up police intelligence activities, bringing them all under the wing of the Dirección Nacional de Inteligencia (DNI).

The opposition governor of Cochabamba, Manfred Reyes Villa, claimed on 26 January that 'Cuban and Venezuelan nationals' had been identified among those who had been spying on opposition politicians. Opposition senators, taking General Vásquez's disclaimer at face value, said that his ignorance of what was happening could only be explained by the 'Cuban and Venezuelan takeover' of domestic intelligence-gathering. Two days after Reyes Villa's accusation, the opposition-controlled senate announced that it was summoning minister Rada to clarify this matter.

Development: On 3 March President Rafael Correa's measured response to Colombia's raid on 1 March started to deliver dividends.

Significance: There is a groundswell of support for Correa, who starts a regional tour today, across Latin America. This is isolating Colombia and forcing it to rely on the unequivocal support of US: the US government refused to condemn the raid and US politicians argued that Colombia was entitled to attack menacing guerrilla bases. This support may tempt Colombia into further pre-emptive attacks.

Latin America was much more critical of Colombia. Presidents Michelle Bachelet of Chile and Cristina Fernández of Argentina were unequivocal in their condemnation of Colombia. The Argentine foreign ministry said that Argentina "was alarmed and worried by the blatant violation of the territorial sovereignty of a Latin American country, Ecuador." President Bachelet said that Colombia owes Ecuador an explanation. She implied that what Colombia really should do is apologise. Brazil's foreign minister, Celso Amorim, was more outspoken: "There is no doubt that any territorial violation is something that should be condemned [and] a serious act_[the attack] is a [criminal] offence which has an impact on the security of all the countries in the region, especially the small ones."

Nicaragua, which has a territorial dispute with Colombia over three atolls (Roncador, Quitasueño and Serrana) in the Caribbean, was the most critical of Colombia. President Daniel Ortega said that "the situation in Colombia was a serious problem and grave threat to Latin America." He said that the drug traffickers were picking Colombian presidents and that the Colombian drug business had contaminated Central America "from Mexico to Panama" while the internal conflict inside Colombia risked spilling over into neighbouring countries. Ortega called on the Colombian government to negotiate with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc). This is the line that President Hugo Chávez took on 2 March.

The US State Department's deputy official spokesman, Tom Casey, argued that the problems caused by the Colombian raid on Ecuador, which killed 21 people including Raúl Reyes, the number two in the Farc, needed to be sorted out diplomatically. "We think the way for any differences about this particular military action to be resolved is through dialogue among the two countries and that's in everyone's interest and it's certainly what we are encouraging the Government of Colombia and the Government of Ecuador to do," Casay said. "At this point I certainly don't see any reason why there should be any involvement from other countries in the region in this matter save to encourage that kind of diplomatic resolution of this issue."

Brazil: The regional government of Rí­o de Janeiro announced it would invest US$187 m to develop and improve tourism sites in the province.

Mexico: Mexico's largest construction company ICA announced that it had obtained a US$910 m credit to build the La Yesca hydroelectric project. La Yesca will be built on the Santiago River, near the border of the western coastal states of Jalisco and Nayarit.

Development: On 12 May José Aparecido Nunes Pires resigned as an adviser to the ministry of the presidency.

Significance: Nunes Pires is accused of leaking confidential documents about the spending habits of a previous president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso. The timely leak deflected media criticism of the current president, Lula da Silva.

Nunes Pires was charged last week by the federal police of leaking details of President Cardoso's government credit card bills. Cardoso's Partido da Social Democracia do Brasil (PSDB) claimed that the leak was deliberately timed to switch public attention away from the investigation into the way the current administration had abused official credit cards.

Nunes Pires answered to Dilma Rousseff, the minister of the presidency, who admitted to the senate last week that a crime had been committed over the release of the information about Cardoso's spending. Cardoso's wife, Ruth, also had a government credit card.