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Development: On 29 April President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela fuelled rumours that Fidel Castro will officially return to the presidency during celebrations for the third anniversary of the alternative trade bloc, Alba, to be held in Havana on 1 May.

Significance: The rumours about Castro's return to power originated with a vague comment by President Evo Morales of Bolivia, who said on 19 March that, "If the comandante and president Fidel has decided to hold the celebrations for the third year of Alba in Cuba, I wish and think, and I hope I am not wrong, that surely comrade Fidel will return to the presidency on 28 or 29 April to continue supporting the whole world in terms of health and education." It is worth noting that Morales has previously been wrong about Castro's return to power; in October he declared that Castro would be back in his job "in two or three weeks".

Morales repeated over the weekend that Castro is about to come back to power, citing as evidence a "huge mobilisation" of people expected at the celebrations on 1 May. Cuban officials have refused to comment on whether Castro will make a public appearance or send the Cuban people a message on television on 1 May. But, following the release of photographs of Fidel looking stronger while meeting a Chinese delegation last week, the Cuban government has been making increasingly positive comments about his recovery.

Otto Rivera, the vice-president of the Council of Ministers, claimed that Castro is "permanently" present in the island's political activity and that he participated in decision-making. Chávez said, "But more important than Evo's insistence that Fidel will appear on 1 May, is the fact that Fidel is in charge."

Development: President Néstor Kirchner weighed into the race for Buenos Aires mayor on 4 June by heavily criticising the rightwing candidate Mauricio Macri, who won the first round of the election by a comfortable majority and faces Kirchner's favoured candidate, Education Minister Daniel Filmus, in a runoff later this month.

Significance: Kirchner has always supported Filmus's campaign to be mayor, and he is becoming much more involved in the race now it is clear that Macri has a good chance of winning. The mayoral election has repercussions beyond the capital; it could become a referendum on the performance of Kirchner's government and it would therefore be a blow to the president should his candidate lose this contest before the general elections in October.

Kirchner did not hold back. Speaking at the government palace, he criticised Macri for voting in congress to uphold the amnesty laws which protected members of the military who had committed human-rights abuses during the military dictatorship (1976-1983). Kirchner succeeded in overturning the law in 2005, which was an overwhelmingly popular move, and he contrasted his policies with those of Macri, asking: "What does he care about human rights?"

Kirchner's aim is to raise the election to a national level and present the two candidates as representatives of two different systems: the "Kirchner" system and the "neoliberal" system. He said, "This [neoliberal] model destroyed our country's production and the government proposes the model of social inclusion and incorporation of our middle class."

The Filmus team has put up posters around Buenos Aires which read, "Don't forget; Mauricio is a Macri." His father, the well-known Italian-Argentine industrialist Franco Macri, has a reputation in as something of a Mafioso. Filmus is playing on Mauricio Macri's record of corruption; while working as president of Sevel automotive company he was accused of committing fraud by importing and re-exporting car parts to Uruguay in order to gain state subsidies for exporting.

Macri won the election of 3 June with 45.62% of the vote, while Filmus came second with 23.77%.

BRAZIL: Agricultural exports reached US$5bn in June, 19% higher than in June last year and a record for the month. Agricultural imports were also up, by 28%. Even so, Brazil posted a trade surplus of US$4.4bn in the agricultural sector for the month. In the first half of the year agricultural exports were up 25% in comparison to the same period in 2006. The agricultural trade surplus in the first half of 2007 reached US$22.8bn. Exports of cereals were up 128%; fruit juices 112% and soya   61% year-on-year.

BRAZIL: Ethanol exports totalled US$698m in the first half of 2007 in comparison with US$351m in the same period last year. This was achieved despite the fall in the price of ethanol in the international market (12.8% in June alone).

BRAZIL: Meat exports totalled US$10.49bn in the year up to June. Beef exports reached US$4.4bn, poultry exports US$3.8bn and pork exports US$1.16bn in the period.

CHILE: Chile's bilateral trade with the US reached US$5.3bn between January and April, a 25% increase on the same period last year. Chile exported US$3bn worth of goods to the US in the period, a 11% increase on 2006 despite the depreciation of the US dollar against the Chilean peso.

Development: Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the almost out-of-sight front-runner for the presidential election on 28 October, outlined her economic policy on 7 August.

Significance: She was speaking amid the controversy triggered by the release of a barely-believable inflation figure (0.5%) for July. The government, headed by Cristina's husband, President Néstor Kirchner, is widely believed to be cooking the inflation figures: it has removed independent experts from the official statistics agency, Indec. Cristina told businessmen that she would stick to her husband's economic policies.

Inflation is the crucial economic variable in Argentina, given the country's history of hyperinflation. The government claims that inflation in the first seven months of the year is only 4.4%. Its critics say that a true figure is anywhere between 10% and 15%. The central bank is forecasting an inflation rate of between 7% and 11% for 2007.

Cristina did not discuss the minutiae of economic policy-making, preferring broader-brush claims that Argentina now had an unprecedented opportunity to feed people in India and China. She was speaking at a forum organised by the Council of the Americas and Cámara Argentina de Comercio in Buenos Aires. She talked about developing the "tripartite pact between the government, business and society." Cristina was strongly critical of the neo-liberal model which she said led to "transfers" and "social inequality." She said that what the first Kirchner government had done was to replace this with "a diversified model of accumulation." This is the sort of economic policy espoused by Joseph Stiglitz, a former chief economist at the World Bank.

The Kirchners' anti-inflation strategy -of setting prices with producers for key categories of goods- is creaking. Prices of both food and medicines, the two most politically sensitive goods, are rising. A report by the independent Defensa de Usuarios y Consumidores (Deuco), found that the prices of 500 medicines rose by between 3% and 20% in the first half of July. Other surveys suggest that pharmacies are putting up prices almost daily.

Guillermo Moreno, the minister for retail prices, claimed that the official inflation index was accurate when he defended it at a press conference in the presidential palace on 7 August. His arguments were rickety, though. He claimed that if the price of fresh food -for example, lettuce- doubled, consumers would not buy it, but the inflation index would reflect the increase since it monitored a defined collection of goods and services.

Moreno was speaking as he launched another agreement with food companies that fixed food prices. The companies agreed not to raise prices by more than 6% in the whole of 2007.

On pharmaceuticals Moreno said that prices were only authorised to rise by 3% in the first six months of 2007. He called on consumers to inform the authorities if they were having pay higher prices. The front page of one of Buenos Aires's main newspapers, La Nación, named pharmacies which had increased prices by more than 3%. Deuco claimed that since the end of 2006 drug manufacturers had increased the prices of pharmaceuticals by between 6% and 25%.

In 2005 the government signed an agreement with the main manufacturers (both local and international) that lowered the price of 237 drugs by 10% and fixed the price of the rest. The agreement was extended, at the end of 2006, to 2007. Since March Deuco has been reporting on drug prices each month, as has the health ministry. The health ministry claims that its index of drug prices registered a rise of 2.7% in the first six months of 2007 while Deuco claimed that lots of drugs had 25% price increases.

The pharmaceutical industry says that each manufacturer now negotiates prices individually with the government, so it is difficult to provide an overall snapshot of what is happening. The drug manufacturers are refusing to comment. Pablo McCormick, the executive secretary of the Confederación Farmacéutica Argentina, said that the pharmacies, which his organisation represents, were just passing on what the manufacturers did: he said that in June alone the price of the 100 most popular drugs rose by 2%.

Development: The anti-terrorism agency, Dircote, announced on 11 September that it had arrested three soldiers involved in selling Peruvian army weapons to Colombian guerrillas.

Significance: The price the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia was prepared to pay for guns was high (at US$3,800 per AK-47), suggesting that the guerrillas are having trouble sourcing weapons. The Peruvian soldiers who stole the weapons were getting paid US$800 a gun.

The gang supplied weapons to Gilma Montenegro Vallejos, who lives on the Ecuadorean-Colombian border and is supposed to be one of the Farc's main armourers.

The Peruvians arrested were charged with the new crime of aiding international terrorism, which came into force on 21 June 2007. If they are convicted they could spend 35 years in prison.

Development: On 13 October the US ambassador to Colombia, William Brownfield, said that his government is waiting for a concession from the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombian (Farc) before it gets involved with the prisoner swap.

Significance: Brownfield reiterated that Washington is firmly in favour of a prisoner swap but said that the efforts of Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez will come to nothing if the Farc is not willing to compromise. "The solution to this problem does not lie in Bogotá, Caracas, Washington, or Paris. It's up to the Farc to say and offer something significant," Brownfield told an interview with Colombia's El Tiempo newspaper. The ambassador made it clear he saw no evidence the guerrilla group is about to do this.

Brownfield's comments indicate that the US is firmly behind Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe, who is waiting for a significant gesture from the Farc before he makes the concessions needed for the meeting between Chávez and the Farc to this attitude go ahead. Significantly, Brownfield revealed that Congress shared the White House's attitude: the ambassador said that three congressmen (almost certainly Democrats) had sent a letter to Chávez saying that they were willing to take part in a meeting with the Farc provided that the guerrilla group offered proof that its hostages were alive.

The bearishness of Brownfield contrasted with the continued optimism of Chávez , who met Uribe in La Guajira on 12 October to inaugurate a new gas pipeline. Following the meeting, which was also attended by Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, Chávez said that he would hold a meeting with the Farc "in the coming days", though he did not specify where or when the encounter would take place, or who would represent the Farc. Though he admitted that there were major hurdles in the way of a prisoner swap, "our desire will be superior".

BRAZIL: Retail sales increased a seasonally adjusted 1.4% in volume terms in September compared with August.

CHILE: The central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 5.75% at a policy meeting on 13 November.

ECUADOR: Average oil output fell 6% to 508,000 barrels a day in the first nine months of the year according to central bank data.

After having tested their ability to engage in combined operations with the other services, between late November and early December the Brazilian army again conducted a massive deployment of troops along more than 7,000 kilometres of its borders with eight neighbouring countries. They were not simulating conflict with these neighbours, but their ability to act in policing roles, in response to both threats to public security and demands to assist law-enforcement agencies in actions against crossborder crime.

The troops were deployed to key areas in order to secure strategic sites and to set up checkpoints along highways and rivers. They were accompanied by officers from federal and state police forces, and inspectors from the tax collection and environmental protection agencies. The exercises went beyond simulation to actual searches of vehicles and boats, which in many cases led to arrests and seizures of contraband, drugs and stolen cars.

Three separate exercises were carried out, as simultaneously as circumstances permitted. Operação Curare (named after the deadly poison used by Amazonian Indians on their arrows and darts) was handicapped by the great length of the frontier area they had to cover: 3,159km of borders with Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and Guyana - in most cases accessible only by air or river. The complex logistical demands of the environment meant that this exercise had to start long before the others, on 16 November, and continue on till 30 November, when the others were just getting started. About 1,500 troops from four brigades of jungle infantry and a special forces unit were spread out along the border.

The name of the second exercise, Operação Cadeado ('Operation Padlock') hinted at the strategy already adopted by the federal police and the federal highway police, aimed at choking off the supplies of arms and drugs to the violent gangs which control many of the slum districts in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. It involved 1,600 soldiers stationed along the 2,300km of border between the states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, on the Brazilian side, and Bolivia and Paraguay on the other. This stage of operations overlaps that of Operação Pantanal, the combined exercise staged in October which simulated the evacuation of Brazilian nationals from a neighbouring country caught up in conflict.

Operação Cadeado began on 30 November and lasted four days, one more than the virtually simultaneous Operação Fronteira Sul ('Operation Southern Frontier'), which mobilised 3,200 troops along 1,923km of Brazil's borders with Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay. This last exercise was carried out in an area overlapping with that of Operação Charrua 2007 (Charrua being the name of an Indian tribe which lives in the area, straddling the borders). Operação Charrua 2007 was a huge combined exercise involving 12,500 members of the three armed services, and was carried out in November to test Brazil's capability to mobilise for conventional conflict.

This string of major military exercises, conducted since October, has been subject to more than the usual scrutiny. The military are keen to highlight not just their capabilities, but also the shortcomings they want addressed in the comprehensive review of national defence strategy which was recently ordered by President Lula da Silva.

Development: The US ambassador to Argentina, Earl Wayne, is scheduled to meet President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner on 31 January.

Significance: The meeting between Wayne and Fernández is unlikely to improve the strained relations between Argentina and the US. The strains are a result of US prosecutors' claims to have found evidence that the Venezuelan government had provided money for Fernández's election campaign. The White House has stressed that the case, in which five people have been arrested and one has pleaded guilty, is a purely judicial affair in which it cannot interfere. The Argentine government doubts this.

Wayne will meet Fernández at the presidential palace, the Casa Rosada. This represents progress in itself: Fernández had barred Wayne from dealing with the Argentine government except through the foreign ministry. During the meeting Wayne and Fernández will try to fix a date for a visit to Buenos Aires by Thomas Shannon, the assistant secretary of state for Western hemispheric affairs.

Development: On 4 March President Rafael Correa began a lightening visit to five Latin American countries to rally regional support for Ecuador's major diplomatic row with Colombia.

Significance: President Correa's visit to Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, Panama and the Dominican Republic - which does not as yet have a return date - is significant by what it omits. He will not be visiting Cuba (as planned), Bolivia, or Nicaragua - all countries which support Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez . This suggests that he does not wish to appear too anti-US. Peru, Panama and the Dominican Republic are all relatively pro-US and Brazil is, as befits its role as regional superpower, an independent bystander. It is interesting that Correa will not be visiting Argentina, Chile or Mexico: all three have offered their help in mediating the dispute.

Correa asserted on 3 March that the current row over Colombia's raid on the Farc in Ecuadorean territory "is not a bilateral problem; it is a regional one." He is certainly doing his best to ensure that it is treated as a regional issue, telephoning no less than 13 Latin American presidents to discuss the attack. Correa decided to carry out his brief tour of five countries after officially cutting off all diplomatic relations with Colombia and meeting his national security council.

Significantly, Correa cancelled his planned visit to Cuba, where he was due to give a keynote speech on 4 March at an economists' conference on globalisation and the problems of development.

The Ecuadorean secretary for planning and development, Fander Falconí­, received in his stead an honorary degree awarded to Correa by the Cuban economists' association. The fact that Correa himself is not there to receive it, however, shows Cuba's waning diplomatic importance.

Correa is in Lima today (4 March), meeting Peru's President Alan Garcí­a, and will meet his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chávez , tomorrow in Caracas.

Chávez has been vociferous in his condemnation of Colombia's action and has sent much of his military capability to police Venezuela's border with the country.

 Development: On 4 April the supreme electoral court (CSE) postponed regional elections in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (Raan) until April 2009.

Significance: The ruling, backed by President Daniel Ortega and the ruling Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), has been heavily criticised by the opposition and is likely to result in continued tensions in the region which is home to various indigenous communities.

The possibility of suspending the November municipal elections in Waspam, Prinzapolka and Bilwi (also known as Puerto Cabezas), three provinces in the RAAN has been on the cards for several weeks; Ortega maintains that the conditions for voting do not exist due to damage caused by last September's Hurricane Felix.

The opposition, however, claim that the real reason is fear on the part of the FSLN that discontent in the region could translate into an electoral defeat. They also protest the move claiming that it is illegal and that only congress is authorised to make such a decision.
The immediate justification, however, for the ruling by the Sandinista-led court, was an outbreak of violence in Bilwi between members of the indigenous party Yatama, some of whom are allied to the FSLN, and a much larger opposition group. The latter had met with a delegation of liberal deputies who had travelled to the coast to investigate the situation.

Both the government and opposition, Partido Liberal Constitucionalista (PLC) have since accused each other of inciting the violence and rioting, with the FSLN filing a criminal accusation against one of the legislators, PLC deputy Enrique Quiñónez.

Separately, the first poll released regarding the Managua mayoral elections, due to take place in November, promise a tight contest. The survey by pollster M&R Consultores show Eduardo Montealegre, of the Alianza PLC-Vamos con Eduardo and FSLN candidate Alexis Argüello neck-and-neck with 32.1% each, far ahead of nearest competitor, Movimiento Renovador Sandinista (MRS) candidate Enrique Sáenz who took 3.4% of voting intention. Nevertheless a third of those questioned (30.1%) refused to disclose their preference.

Development: On 12 May Panama's President Martí­n Torrijos announced changes to his cabinet.

Significance: The announcement was not a surprise, given the recent resignations of various ministers - in accordance with protocol - who are seeking to stand in the 2009 May general elections. These include former housing minister, Balbina Herrera, who was recently elected president of the ruling Partido Revolucionario Democratico (PRD) and announced her intention to stand as presidential candidate for the party.

Torrjos announced yesterday that Herrera would be replaced by Gabriel Diez, former president of the chamber of the construction industry. Other ministers planning to stand as deputies in the general elections who similarly resigned include education minister, Belgis Castro, and minister of the presidency, Rubén Arosemena. They will be replaced by ex rector of the Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá (UTP), Salvador Rodrí­guez and vice minister of the presidency, Dilio Arcia.

Another key appointment was that of the new police chief, after Rolando Mirones quit last week following calls for his resignation by the transport lobby, which was unhappy at his perceived failure to address the country's worsening security situation. Mirones denied, however, that this was a factor in his decision to step down. A recent survey by pollster Dichter & Neira showed that 57.6% of those interviewed considered Mirones' leadership to be either “bad" or “very bad".

Mirones will be replaced by his former deputy, police commissioner Jaime Ruiz. This appointment has generated controversy with politicians such as Panama City mayoral candidate and legal expert Miguel Antonio Bernal, however, who claims that the move is illegal because it violates a constitutional clause stipulating that police officials cannot be appointed to head the institution.

More generally, Torrijos' cabinet changes have been dismissed by the opposition as “more of the same", particularly in the area of security, pointing out that Ruiz was part of the same “failed administration" which has been unable to address the rising problem of delinquency.

Development: On 17 June the US Deputy Secretary of State, John Negroponte, said that the administration would modify its plan for military aid for Mexico under the Iniciativa Mérida.

Significance: The US administration is responding, belatedly, to the heavy criticism by the Mexican government of the conditions the US Senate attached to the Iniciativa Mérida. The question is whether the administration can persuade Democratic Party senators to drop the conditions. Mexico argues that they are infringement of its sovereignty and demonstrate that the US blames Mexico for what are joint problems.

Negroponte said that US senators and congressmen were now much more aware of the problems caused in Mexico by the language used in their amendments. He said that the proposals were being changed but admitted that he had yet to see a final draft.

On 15 June President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa told the influential Spanish newspaper El Paí­s that there were conditions and terms which were unacceptable in the original proposal but now the terms were much more acceptable. Calderón's problem is that Mexico's congress is also objecting to the terms. Like President George W Bush, Calderón does not have a majority in either house of congress.

Development: On 19 July at 18h00 a near-complete draft of Ecuador's new constitution was published on the internet by the national constituent assembly for inspection by assembly members and citizens.

Significance: The constituent assembly, which has been dogged with problems and delays since it was created last November to write the country's twentieth Magna Carta, finally seems to be drawing its work to a close.

The assembly, which has supreme powers and has also been acting as a legislative body, has been working around the clock for the past two weeks to ensure that the final draft is completed and approved in time for the (extended) deadline of 25 July. After being given formal approval by the assembly on 25 July, the new constitution will be voted on in a referendum on 28 September.

However, concerns have been expressed over the pressure assembly members have been working under - some sessions reportedly lasting 17 hours and going on until the early hours of the morning - and some fear that the rush to approve articles may have compromised on quality. Cordero has made an appeal to citizens and assembly members to read the constitution before it is voted on later this week and to point out any mistakes for correction.

Indeed, on 20 July after publishing the document online the previous evening, 50 articles were removed at the suggestion of the small editing team, made up of five assembly members, which has been put in charge of checking the document for grammatical and spelling errors, omissions, contradictions or repetitions. It is also meant to render the text both consistent and meaningful from a legal point of view.

The removal of the 50 articles apparently did not affect the topics covered by the document in any way, since they duplicated points already made elsewhere in the nine chapters of the constitution. This brought the total number of articles down to 444, which assembly president Fernando Cordero described as “a magic number" rendered even more “magic" by the fact that the text was corrected, recompiled and republished at 04h44 on (Sunday) 20 July.

As yet the Magna Carta, which is 60% bigger than the previous 1998 constitution, is still missing both the preamble and the 'Régimen de Transición', which - assuming the constitution is approved by popular vote in September - will lay out what is to happen during the time between the referendum and the elections which are to be held next year. It has been suggested, amid some controversy, that a 'mini-congress' may be formed of 39 assembly members to legislate during the interim period and that a new national court of justice will be formed to replace the current supreme court.

Development: On 21 August President Fernando Lugo made sweeping changes to the military's top brass.

Significance: Lugo, who took office on 15 August, has appointed new heads of the armed forces in order to make a clean break with the country's past and to address the public's negative perception of the military caused by accusations of corruption and abuse of power.

The head of the army, Catalino Roy, has been replaced by Juan Gómez. Navy chief Cí­bar Bení­tez has been replaced by Vidal Villalba, while the head of the air force, Roberto Marecos, has been replaced by Gregor Pacher. Fifteen other high-ranking military personnel were relieved of their positions.

On 18 August Lugo also appointed a new head of police: Federico Acuña replaced Fidel Isasa.

Lugo has vowed to reform the country's military and says that the armed forces will now perform humanitarian tasks for the country's poor.

FRIDAY
Cuba: The Congress of the Comités de Defensa de la Revolución (CDR) will be held for three days in La Habana.

Venezuela: President Hugo Chávez will conclude his two-day visit to Russia, which is expected to reinforce the bilateral cooperation between the two countries.

Uruguay: The mayors and representatives of the Unión de Ciudades Capitales Iberoamericanas (UCCI) will be discussing issues related to youth, migration, sustainable development, social cohesion, and violence in Montevideo. 24 cities of Latin America, Spain, and Portugal will participate in the event.

SUNDAY
Ecuador: Referendum on a new constitution.

Colombia - Paraguay: Paraguay's President Fernando Lugo will arrive in Colombia in his first official visit to the country.

MONDAY
Bolivia: Argentinean human rights expert Rodolfo Matarolo will arrive in La Paz as head of the special mission designated by the Unión de Naciones Suramericanas (Unasur) in order to investigate the massacre occurred on 11 September in Pando, in the north of the country.

MEXICO: Telecommunications company América Móvil, owned by Mexican magnate Carlos Slim, made net profits of M$ 43.84bn (some US$4.18m) in the first nine months of the year, up 15.1% on the same period last year.

VENEZUELA: Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said during a visit to Ecuador on 28 October that the international price of oil should fluctuate only within a limited scale, ideally not exceeding US$100 per barrel but not falling below US$70 per barrel. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) recently agreed to cut production to 1.5m barrels per day to help bring up oil prices. On 28 October, the OPEC crude basket was still down, trading at US$56.8/barrel. The Venezuelan basket (published weekly) was trading at US$61.09/barrel in the period 20-24 October, down from a peak of U132.5/barrel in July 2008.

Development: On 1 December some 2,000 members of social and indigenous groups brought the centre of the capital Asunción to a standstill.

Significance: Over the past month Asunción has been paralysed by over a dozen protests against the government. Groups representing the country's poor and “landless" are fast losing patience with the slow speed of reform under President Fernando Lugo, the self-proclaimed “bishop of the poor", who took office on 15 August amid high expectations for change. 

Indigenous protesters are pressing Lugo to dismiss the head of Paraguay's Indigenous Institute (INDI), Margarita Mbywangui, claiming she has not done enough to answer their claims for land rights. They clashed with riot police yesterday (1 December), after protesters attempted to cross a barrier protecting a presidential residence in the capital. 

A leader of the “sin techo" (homeless), Blas Vera, threatened to stage further road blocks if the government's social action ministry does not heed its demand for some US$8.1m to finance social housing programmes.

Development: On 14 January local authorities confirmed that six people had died as a result of a mortar attack on a police station in the south-western Nariño province.

Significance: The attack on 13 January has been attributed to Front 29 of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc), which operates in the area. Local authorities reported that the rebel group fired homemade mortars at the police station in the town of Roberto Payán, some of which hit neighbouring homes. 

Three of the six killed in the attack were children. On 14 January the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) roundly condemned the attack which, it said, "shows a disregard for the life, integrity and freedom of the population of Roberto Payan, and total ignorance of the norms imposed by international humanitarian law".

The Nariño province, which borders Ecuador on Colombia's south-western Pacific coast, is an important zone for drug and arms trafficking.  

The attack comes just as the battered rebel group is trying to regain political ground with its pledge to release six hostages unilaterally early this year. It is yet to supply details of when or where the releases will take place.

Development: On 23 February, Mexico City newspapers claimed that the country's criminal gangs had already killed 973 people this year, up 146% on the same period of 2008.

Significance: The rapid rise in the rate of gang killings is frightening prominent Mexicans and politicians alike, with 20 senators from across political parties submitting an application to the ministry of defence to be allowed to bear firearms. There are growing fears that gangs are preparing more assassination attempts on senior officials ahead of mid-term elections in July.

William D. Newell, the Arizona and New Mexico director of the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), said on 23 February that over the past 18 months his agency had seen an increase in the acquisition of armour-piercing weaponry by two of Mexico's main criminal organisations, the Sinaloa and Golfo gangs.

Newell concluded that the gangs were preparing more assassination attempts on senior officials.

On 22 February gang members apparently tried to assassinate José Reyes Baeza Terrazas, the governor of the state of Chihuahua, though federal investigators claimed that there was no evidence to suggest that the governor was the specific target. The investigators maintained that the attack appeared to have been just a traffic incident. One of the governor's bodyguards was apparently machine-gunned to death.

Newell, who has extensive field experience of Mexican gangs' activities in the US, was speaking at a press conference at the US embassy in Mexico City. He said that the gangs were now interested in buying 50mm weapons, which are armour-piercing and against which body-armour gives little protection.

Newell suggested that this was a reaction to the Mexican government's strong offensive against organised crime. Newell, a key figure on the US side of Operation Gunrunner, launched in April 2005, reiterated that the US government was committed to reducing the flow of weapons from the US to Mexico. He noted that since the start of the initiative there had been a 450% increase in arrests; a 300% increase in convictions for gun running and a 400% increase in investigations.

Mexican gangs appear to have increased their killing again after a lull in December and January. On 23 February the Mexico City newspaper El Universal reported that 973 people had been killed in the first 50 days of 2009, compared to 395 in the same period of 2008.

According to the Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos (CNDH), 10,500 people have been killed in the two years since President Calderón launched his offensive against crime and deployed the army against the gangs. The unofficial (i.e. press) count for those killed in 2008 came to 5,600.

Chihuahua is the most violent state in Mexico. Between 1 January and 19 February, 477 people were killed by gangs. In the whole of 2008, 2,206 people were killed in the state.

Besides being well-armed, the gangs are also well-trained. One of the gang members wounded in the attack on the governor of Chihuahua is a former soldier. The press reported that he was dismissed from the army in 2003 for insubordination.

While at least 20 senators have applied for a firearms licence, the media claims that several legislators in the lower house already carry guns. The only restriction is that they hand their guns in before entering the chamber.