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BRAZIL: According to the official statistics agency, the Ibge, the 2005 harvest will be 13.29% bigger than last year's, growing from 119 m t in 2004 to 134.9 m t this year. 

BRAZIL: According to figures from the trade-union-linked Seade-Dieese, unemployment in the metropolitan region of São Paulo in December 2004 fell to 17.1% from the 17.4% registered in the previous month.

BRAZIL: According to the central bank, the interest rate charged by special cheques increased 2% between November and December last year, to 144% annually. In the same period, the interest rate charged by banks for personal loans increased by 4.4%, to 66.9% annually. 

BRAZIL: According to the NGO NoVox, there are 6.2m homeless in Brazil.

Development: On 2 March President Lucio Gutiérrez sent a letter to the UN, inviting the special rapporteur on the independence of judges and magistrates, Leandro Despouy, to visit the country to investigate suspected irregularities in the composition of the supreme court.

Significance: Since the pro-government majority in congress replaced 27 of the supreme court's 31 judges in December 2004, the country has become effectively ungovernable. Despite the widespread anger at the reconstitution of the court, the opposition has been unable to muster a majority to get the decision overturned. Consequently, some of the opposition are threatening to set up a congress-in-exile.

The judicial sub-secretary of the presidency said that Despouy will receive all the support of the government and the institutions dependent on the executive so that he can carry out his task. The unusual intervention of the UN on a judicial matter follows the complaints of various Ecuadorean opposition groups to a number of international organisations. In the next few days a special commission will travel to Washington to explain the judicial situation in the country to the Inter-American commission of human rights.

Gutiérrez says that his move to replace the magistrates merely "depoliticised" the supreme court, which he says had been controlled by opposition groups for the past 20 years.

Development: The senate ruled on 7 April that as the press distorted what was said in debates over the controversial hydrocarbons law it should be excluded from future debates on the issue.

Significance: The decision was taken by the economic development committee which had become angry at the press's coverage of its debate over the way the hydrocarbons law should be reformed and the oil and gas industry should be taxed. On 5 April the press reported that the committee's decision to restructure the capitalised (ie privatised) oil companies would mean that the money to pay the pension (Bonasol) was no longer guaranteed. The committee also said that the energy minister, Guillermo Torres, should not comment on its work. It is far from clear that senate committees have the constitutional right to go into private session.

The reform of the hydrocarbons law started in November 2004 in the lower chamber. On 6 April, the senate committee was haggling over whether it should be "obligatory" to alter the terms of the 76 gas exploration contracts or whether the wording should be more neutral, and read merely that the contracts should be changed.

Separately, the minister of the presidency, José Galindo, announced that the government was planning to publish a new decree which would call for the first direct elections for departmental governors probably on 14 August. Previously the government wanted to hold these elections on 12 June.

Development: On 15 May the Renovación Nacional (RN) party, the junior partner in the rightwing opposition coalition, Alianza por Chile, nominated Sebastián Piñera as its presidential candidate.

Significance: Piñera's candidacy casts the presidential elections, due in December, in a new light. Prior to yesterday's decision, Joaquí­n Laví­n of the larger Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI) party, was running unopposed against the ruling Concertación, which is in the process of deciding between which of its two candidates, Michelle Bachelet or Soledad Alvear, will run for the presidency. However, as Laví­n slipped behind in the polls murmurs of discontent from the RN grew louder. Intriguingly, the election of Piñera may fundamentally alter the political map of Chile, with some commentators suggesting that the RN might unite with Alvear's Demócrata Cristiana (DC) party, in a bid to claim the centre ground, and banish their respective rivals to the fringes.

Since the return to democracy in 1989, the UDI, the party set up to legitimise the Pinochet regime, has always fielded the right's candidate. However, the historically difficult relations between the UDI and the RN have worsened over the past year or so; a long-running sex scandal poisoned the atmosphere for most of 2004 and then in November the UDI lost its status as the largest party in the country, while the RN made significant electoral gains. At the start of this year, Piñera indicated that he might like to stand for presidential election, but in March the RN's political commission appeared to rule out that possibility and throw its weight behind Laví­n. Subsequently a number of RN leaders have been actively participating in Laví­n's campaign.

In a meeting on the evening of 15 May, 73% of the RN's advisory board voted that Piñera should represent the party in a presidential bid. "The party has begun an historic phase," RN president Sergio Diez said. "For the first time a man from our ranks, an ex-president of the party is a presidential candidate. I hope everyone realises that we have given the country the best candidate we could." Recent polls may have prompted the RN's decision; one published on 25 April showed that 33% of those questioned wanted Piñera to be the Alianza's candidate, while only 10% were in favour of Laví­n. All the opinion polls also show that Laví­n would be beaten comfortably by either Alvear or Bachelet. Bachelet, backed by the Partido Socialista-Partido por la Democracia, is way out in front of her DC rival.

Despite the right's poor showing in the polls, its main strength appeared to be that it was not going to be subject to any potentially damaging primaries, unlike the Concertación. With Piñera's candidacy, that unity has gone. Laví­n tried to put a positive gloss on the news and announced his willingness to hold primaries, but there remains the possibility that Piñera could hold out until December and even join forces with the DC if Alvear is beaten, as appears likely, in the Concertación primary on 31 July. If this happens, Chile's coalitions will have to be reconfigured and Bachelet's chances of winning the presidency, previously a fairly safe bet, will be considerably lessened.

When asked about Piñera's presidential bid, Alvear's reply was revealing, observing that his outlook was more akin to that of the Concertación than the Alianza por Chile. "I don't know what Sebastián Piñera is doing in the Alianza," she said. "I feel they don't like him very much. And they don't like him very much because they feel he is different from them." Piñera, a promoter of the "No" campaign in the 1988 referendum on whether Pinochet should remain in power, is a successful businessman from the progressive wing of his coalition. He is the majority shareholder in LAN airlines and recently bought the national television channel Chilevisión.

Development: The presidency's troubled chief-of-staff, José Dirceu, resigned on 16 June.

Significance: Dirceu has been implicated in the post office and vote-buying scandals that have rocked the government and congress in recent weeks. According to the leader of the allied Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro (PTB), Roberto Jefferson, Dirceu orchestrated the bribing scheme by which the ruling Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) paid allied congressmen monthly allowances to support the government in congress. Jefferson also insinuated that Dirceu was behind a conspiracy to denigrate the PTB's image and that he ordered the recording of a videotape which triggered the Post Office corruption scandal.

Evidence given by a former agent from the National Information Service (SNI), José Fortuna Neves, to the federal police following his arrest last week suggests that Dirceu ordered Brazil's intelligence agency (Abin) to investigate Unisys, a private firm which supplied the post office and social security services, at the end of 2004. According to Neves, Dirceu wanted to terminate Unisys' contracts with the government.

This is not the first time Dirceu is involved in a scandal. In February 2004 Dirceu was implicated in a scheme to collect donations for the PT from an illegal gambling ring. At the time, the government managed to hold an investigation without examining Dirceu directly.

Dirceu will leave the government to re-take his seat in congress. From there Dirceu is expected to conduct his defence and provide support to the government. During a short speech, Dirceu promised to "mobilize Brazil against those who oppose democracy".

Together with Dirceu, Aldo Rebelo, the political coordination minister, Ricardo Berzoini, labour minister, and Eduardo Campos, science and technology minister, are expected to leave office and go back to congress. The move would open space for the allied Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB) and Partido Progressista (PP) in the government. The current finance minister, Antonio Palocci, and the justice minister, Márcio Thomaz Bastos, are rumoured to be the favourites to take over Dirceu's post.

According to sources in the Planalto Palace, President Lula da Silva is convinced that a wide-ranging cabinet reshuffle, as well as cutting down the size of the executive, is necessary to show society that the government is in control. The priority now is to save Lula's image, since the measures will also aid his campaign for next year's presidential election.

Since the crisis began, the president has seen his support amongst voters dwindle. According to a survey published by DataFolha on 17 June, the distance between Lula and his closest adversary, São Paulo's mayor, José Serra, from the opposition Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB), has shrunk to only 6%. Considering that the survey works with a 2% error margin, Lula's advantage could be very small indeed going into next year's election.

With his campaign already in mind, Lula sanctioned a law creating the National Popular Housing Fund. The launching of the fund was the first in a series of measures aimed at re-connecting the government with its social base. The government's emphasis now will be on implementing effective social programmes.

The move was welcomed by PT congressmen, who wrote a public letter in support of the president. In the letter, the congressmen proposed Lula use the crisis to "renovate" his administration, form a new parliamentary support base and change the route of the government's economic policy.
Meanwhile, the opposition has also started to act. The former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso used the PSDB's national advertisement space on TV, aired on 16 June, to ask for the investigations into the post office and vote-buying scandals to be carried out "honestly".

Cardoso said that the investigations can create a "climate of political instability", but that they will serve to "re-build and give continuity to the democratic rules". The leader of the opposition Partido da Frente Liberal (PFL), Jorge Bornhausen, declared that Lula should not be re-elected.
Also on 16 June, the Ethical Council of congress approved the request to call 10 congressmen accused by Jefferson of receiving the monthly allowances paid by the PT. The council has also asked for the magazines Veja and IstoÉ to hand over copies of the videotapes used in their articles denouncing the post office and vote-buying schemes to congress.

On 21 June the council will meet again to vote a request to call the PT's treasurer, Delúbio Soares, and the party's general-secretary, Sí­lvio Pereira, to give testimony in congress. Next in line are Dirceu and the PT's national president, José Genoí­no. The council is also expected to request details of two bank accounts in Banco Rural and Banco do Brasil supposedly used for the payment of congressmen.

Development: The political chief of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), Ernesto Báez, announced on 21 July that the paramilitary organization intends to turn itself into a political party.

Significance: This is the first time the paramilitaries have made their political ambitions explicit. The AUC already claims to have a third of Colombia's legislators in their pockets but the group appears set on emerging from the shadows and assuming political influence by their own right.

Báez, whose real name is Ivan Roberto Duque, told Reuters news agency that the AUC “is not going to disappear" once the peace process with the government is brought to a conclusion. The paramilitaries are scheduled to demobilise its estimated 15,000-strong force by the end of this year, at which point Báez says the AUC will “transform [itself] into a democratic movement which will offer voters an alternative".

Judging by the paramilitaries' past rhetoric, this alternative will take the form of at best a nationalist party and at worst an ultra-rightwing organisation. The AUC emerged in the 1980s as an assortment of vigilante groups established by farmers to protect their land from leftwing guerrillas belonging to groups such as the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) and the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN). The paramilitaries' political outlook is at the opposite end of the spectrum from their avowed enemies' but is no less extreme for it.

However, the AUC's overriding motivation in establishing a political party is not changing the face of Colombian politics so much as holding on to the power the paramilitaries have achieved as a military organization. As Báez told Reuters, “We have penetrated, in a permanent way, the political process, building local and regional power structures_This will not end with the peace process."

If the government does adhere to the paramilitaries' demands to establish a political party, its focus is likely to be on maintaining influence at a local level, competing in municipal elections rather than launching a nationwide campaign. Next year's general election will offer a good indication of the AUC's ambitions.

The government's response to Báez's comments is likely to be that the issue is moot until the peace process is brought to a successful conclusion. The paramilitaries have so far disarmed some 5,900 fighters, a long way short of the AUC's total number. Moreover, membership of the AUC is rising steadily at present due to the fact that common criminals are enlisting in the organisation in order to benefit from the legal framework for the demobilisation passed by congress in June.

The peace process received a major boost on 21 July when the US Chamber of Representatives voted in favour of offering financial support for the AUC's demobilisation. Earlier in the week the senate had decided to restrict assistance, which would form part of the State Department's budget for 2006.

The issue will now be debated by a congressional reconciliation committee, but US sources suggest that the Colombian government will receive US$40m a year for the paramilitary peace process. This will be in addition to the funds Colombia will receive for its war on drugs and the interconnected war against the Farc and the ELN. The AUC is still included on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organisations.

Development: On 23 August the protesters from the Amazonian provinces of Orellana and Sucumbí­os attending talks in Quito with the government and foreign oil companies expressed themselves optimistic over the progress of negotiations.

Significance: Although the strike leaders maintain that their protest action, which has resulted in the suspension of the country's oil exports, has merely been suspended, rather than lifted, the talks seem to be addressing some of the protesters' concerns. One big issue has yet to be dealt with, however; the renegotiation of the US oil company Occidental's contract.

All of the negotiators are keeping quiet on the substance of the talks, for fear of placing any progress in jeopardy. One concession on the part of the oil companies is known; they have agreed to asphalt 200km of roads in the region. The protesters are demanding greater investment by the oil companies in the region, in the form of improved infrastructure, schools and hospitals as well as more jobs. They are asking that 16% of the profits the oil companies make should be redirected into the region.

In its first sitting after the holidays, congress debated whether to lift the state of emergency in the provinces, in place since 17 August. Ricardo Ulcuango, from the indigenous Pachakutik party said that it was "impossible that we should get out of one 'dictocratic' government and fall straight into another."

Development: On 26 September the finance minister, Nicolás Eyzaguirre, had his proposal to keep ministers on the boards of public companies rejected by a congressional committee.

Significance: This could be the first step on the road to the privatisation of Codelco, the state copper company; Enap, the state energy company, and Enami, the state mining company. Any further move in that direction is likely to be a long way off; a survey in May found that 86% of Chileans wanted Codelco to remain a public company.

Although the committee ruled out installing ministers on the companies' boards by right, it did not eliminate the possibility of them doing so. There will still be a certain amount of government influence in the companies. For Codelco, there will be nine directors; five chosen by the system council for public companies; two chosen independently by the president after internal elections held by public sector managers; a trade union representative and one supervisor. Enami and Enap will have similar management structures.
In the first quarter of 2005, Codelco recorded pre-tax profits of US$1.08bn.

Development: Nicolás Curi Vergara was elected as the new mayor of Cartagena on 30 October.

Significance: The most surprising aspect of Curi's victory is that he received the support of less than 10% of potential voters. Out of a total of 548,952 registered voters, only 54,583 backed Curi after 78% of the electorate stayed away. Luckily for Curi, he defeated the second-placed candidate - abstention in the ballot box - by just over 10,000 votes.

Curi has already been mayor of Cartagena twice, losing the job in 2000 amid charges of corruption. His decision to run again outraged voters in the city but they were unable to find a decent alternative candidate and mounted a campaign calling for a mass abstention in the election to highlight the corruption endemic to the city's polity.

If the number of people who voted for no candidate had exceeded those who voted for any of the candidates, the election would have been reheld, with none of the original contestants allowed to compete. Although the abstention campaign ultimately failed, voters are confident the campaign will ensure Curi's actions will be under the microscope from here on.

Development: The Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) killed Jaime Lozada, a conservative senator, on 3 December.

Significance: Lozada's murder will make any hostage exchange between the government and the Farc almost impossible. Alfonso López Michelsen, a former president who has been one of the strongest advocates of a hostage exchange, pointed out that Lozada himself had strongly supported the hostage exchange idea.

In June 2004 Lozada paid a ransom to get his two sons back from the Farc: they had been kidnapped in 2001. Lozada's wife, Gloria Polanco, is still held by the Farc. Lozada was a former senator for the Partido Conservador and governor of Huila, a mountainous southern department.

Among the other hostages held by the Farc who could be exchanged for senior Farc officials in government prisons are: a former presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, who was kidnapped in February 2002, and three US contractors, Thomas Howes, Keith Stansell and Marc Gonsalves. Besides these politically high profile hostages the Farc also holds 22 other politicians and 34 police and military officers. Some have been in Farc hands for eight years.

Lozada was killed and his elder son, Jaime Felipe, who was just starting to take over from his father in Huila politics, was wounded in the attack by a Farc mobile column, the Teófilo Forero. Lozada was not particularly popular in Huila because of his support for moves to sell state assets such as the Betania hydro-electric project and a local distillery.

Development: The nationalist candidate Ollanta Humala took a three-point lead over Lourdes Flores of the conservative Unidad Nacional in April's presidential race, according to the latest Apoyo opinion poll released on 15 January.

Significance: It is the first time that Humala has established a definite lead in the polls. He climbed six points on December's poll to 28%; Flores stayed put on 25%. The leader of the Partido Aprista Peruano, Alan Garcí­a, fell one point to 15%. Flores continues to lead in Lima, with 32% against 20% for Humala, but even here Humala is eating into her lead. His support increased five points on December's poll, while Flores was up two points. Another poll published by the Peruvian daily La República put Flores on 22.1% against Humala on 17.4% in Lima.

Humala made a massive jump in the central highlands, climbing 13 points to 41%, while Flores fell 14 points to 22%. He is also steadily closing the gap in the north of the country. Importantly, the poll showed that Flores would win in the event of a second round by 46% to 39% but this too is closer than previous polls have suggested. Also, the poll does not take into account the rural vote, which is far more likely to go to Humala than Flores, who cannot shake the image of being a candidate for the wealthy and business elite.

Another interesting poll by Apoyo gives an indication of the likely composition of congress: Flores's UN on 17%, Garcí­a's PAP on 15%, Humala's Unión por el Perú on 12%. Only two other parties, the Frente de Centro of former interim president Valentí­n Paniagua (7%) and the pro-Fujimori Movimiento Sí­ Cumple (6%) would get seats. It is a sad indictment of President Alejandro Toledo's performance that his Perú Posible will not come close to winning the 4% of the national vote required to return seats, according to the poll.

Development: On 19 February the Caribbean Community, Caricom, congratulated president-elect René Préval on his victory in Haiti's elections and invited Haiti to rejoin the 15-member group.

Significance: The recognition of Caricom is good news for Préval, whose mandate could be dogged by charges of illegitimacy because of the manner in which he was elected. The interim government and the provisional electoral council agreed to disregard suspect blank ballots to enable Préval to obtain the absolute majority required to win in the first round. Haiti was suspended by Caricom in 2004 when former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was removed from power. Caricom refused to recognise the interim government of Gérard Latortue in spite of strong pressure from the US. 

The secretary general of Caricom, Edwin Carrington, said that there was every chance that Haiti would be back within the fold in time for July's regional summit. He said that Caricom was already looking into how to supply financial and social assistance to Haiti. Carrington did not mention what position Caricom now took on Aristide. South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki speculated on 19 February that Aristide would speak to Préval, who served under him in the 1990s, about his return. “I think it will be determined largely by an assessment by René Préval, and by President Aristide as to the timing of it, so that it doesn't produce unnecessary problems," Mbeki said.<

Development: The political situation in the country remained unsettled as students tried to seize control of the centre of the capital on 23 March.

Significance: It is far from clear what will happen next. The Confederación de Nacionalidades Indí­genas (Conaie) denies that it is ending its protests, principally against the government's negotiation of a free-trade deal with the US. Conaie is not the only group protesting against the FTA: students, who are also against the FTA, fought running battles in Quito with the police for most of the morning of 23 March, and even on one occasion threw a stick of dynamite, as they tried to breakthrough to congress and the presidential palace.

The police were heavily reinforced and repelled the students with batons and teargas. Business in the centre of Quito, which has been slow for the past couple of weeks as the protests gathered momentum, was negligible yesterday. The students' only success was to kidnap a policeman, strip him and then turn him loose.

The final round of negotiations over the free-trade agreement started in Washington on 23 March and is due to finish by 27 March.

Conaie's supporters in Quito launched a protest in the afternoon of 23 March that was also broken up with teargas. Around 2,000 indians have been camping around the Escuela Politécnica Nacional and the Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana since 21 March. Late on the night of 23 March Conaie issued orders for these supporters to leave Quito. A Conaie spokesman, Jorge Guamán said that the protesters withdrawn from Quito would be used to protect other Conaie supporters who were being "brutally repressed." The government declared a state of emergency in six of Ecuudor's 22 provinces on 21 March.

Guamán said that Conaie would wait to see what emerged from the negotiations in Washington before making its next move. He said that there was no chance of negotiations with the government. The government has withdrawn its tentative offer to allow a referendum on the FTA. President Alfredo Palacio said that congress, as the representative of the nation, would decide on the FTA. President Palacio has also refused an offer by the Roman Catholic Chruch to mediate.

Conaie's president, Luis Macas, raised the stakes further in an interview with Radio La Luna, the radio station which was instrumental in forcing President Luico Gutiérrez out of office a year ago. In this interview Macas said: "We do not recognise the government; we definitively do not recognise it and we are not going to talk with it; we're going to call an assembly" to discuss the current situation.

Outside Quito, Conaie is still blocking the Panamerican highway in Imbabura province. The government seems to have reopened most of the main roads in the other provinces under a state of emergency.

Development: President Lula da Silva had to listen to tough criticism during the inauguration of the new supreme court president, Ellen Gracie, on 27 April.

Significance: The first criticism came from the president of the Brazilian Attorneys' Order, Roberto Busato, who said "political agents should have a moral determination to cut their own flesh", a clear reference to one of Lula's promises that the government would not intervene in the corruption investigations that have shaken his administration.

Busato went on, demanding that the 40 people implicated in the scandal - including former members of the government and Lula's close allies - should be judged "promptly" by the supreme court and without interference from other powers.

Next was the turn of the public-prosecutor general, Antonio Fernando de Souza, who said that "in a democracy all authorities are subject to the rule of law". He also said that some "institutions" are "resisting" change to make them more transparent. He also defended a rapid prosecution of all those implicated in the scandals.

Gracie declined to criticise anyone in her speech, saying that she would work hard and "within the limits imposed by [her] position". She promised to make the work of the supreme court more transparent and faster. Gracie was the first woman appointed to the court and the first one to reach the top job. She was appointed to the supreme court by former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso and chosen by her peers to take on the court's presidency.

Development: President Evo Morales launched the land reform programme on 3 June in Santa Cruz after negotiations with agribusinessmen broke down on 2 June.

Significance: Land reform, just like the “nationalisation" of oil and gas on 1 May, is popular with the poor whose support Morales wants in the elections for the constituent assembly. The elections for the constituent assembly, that will rewrite the constitution, are due on 2 July. 

On 3 June Morales issued seven decrees and reallocated 2.2m hectares of government land to people who either had no land or small amounts. The president also issued title deeds, covering 3.1m hectares, to indigenous people and peasants in the eastern departments of Pando, Beni, Santa Cruz and Tarija. Around 60 indigenous leaders were given the deeds to their ancestral lands: Chiquitanos and Tentayapis got land in Santa Cruz and Tarija and Chacobos got land in Beni.

The land reform has elements of collectivisation. The federal government plans to offer each municipality 10 tractors which will be used communally.

Development: Colombia's ambassador to the US, Andrés Pastrana, made an unscheduled return to Bogotá on 10 July, almost certainly to convey Washington's annoyance at the appointment of Ernesto Samper as the new ambassador to France.

Significance: President Alvaro Uribe's announcement last week that Samper is to be rehabilitated with a high-profile overseas posting threatens to turn into an argument with the US. Samper, president between 1994 and 1998, has been tarnished by the accusation that he received funding for his presidential campaign from the Cali drugs cartel. The former president was never convicted despite a supreme court investigation, but there was enough evidence against him to prompt the US to refuse him a visa.

The daily newspaper El Tiempo suggested that Pastrana returned to Colombia to pass on the US government's displeasure at Samper's appointment to Uribe. "Of course we don't like it, and we will make that very clear," the newspaper quoted a State Department official as saying. Washington was already believed to be irritated by Interior Minister Sabas Pretelt's announcement over the weekend that paramilitaries who comply with the terms of the peace process with the government will be exempt from extradition to the US.

The appointment is also controversial in Colombia. As ambassador to France, Samper will be responsible for overseeing the combined efforts of Colombia and France to secure a prisoner swap with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc). France's chief motivation for the swap is to secure the release of Ingrid Betancourt, the presidential candidate with joint French and Colombian citizenship who has been held by the Farc since 2002. However, Betancourt was an avowed enemy of Samper and deeply critical of his links to the Cali cartel.

The foreign minister, Carolina Barco, said on 10 July that Samper's appointment was nothing to do with the US, and that the government had received no comments from Washington. She described Samper as "a person with many qualities who can be an excellent representative of the country in France".

Uribe's motivation for appointing such a controversial figure is unclear. Some sectors of the Colombian press reckon it was out of solidarity with the stigmatised former president; others believe it was another step in Uribe's campaign to diminish opposition to his government by wooing a high-profile predecessor from the Partido Liberal. Over the past couple of years Samper has been particularly critical of Colombia's human-rights record under Uribe, a concern also shared by the European Union.

Development: On 10 August Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez said that Cuban President Fidel Castro "is fighting for his life" in the most negative public assessment yet of his state of health.

Significance: It seems increasingly unlikely that Fidel will return to power, regardless of whether he is actually dying. His "provisional" successor Raúl has still yet to be seen in public. According to some analysts, this is to prevent the Cuban public from thinking that the Fidel regime is really over. Chávez 's departure from the upbeat party line, along with the curious withdrawal, last week, of Venezuela's ambassador to Havana (Hugo's brother Adán), may suggest some degree of Venezuelan disquiet at the transitional leadership of the island.

Previously Chávez , and other sympathetic leaders, had given only optimistic statements on Castro's condition. On 10 August, however, the Venezuelan president said, "From here we are accompanying you, every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every night of this great battle for life that you are fighting with your heart, with your soul, with your innards, with your greatness."

Meanwhile, also on 10 August, Ricardo Alarcón, the president of the Cuban national assembly condemned the "ignominious and infamous" decision of the US federal appeals court to reject the petition for a retrial of "the Cuban five", five Cubans imprisoned in the US on charges of espionage. Exile groups based in Miami said they were pleased with the decision. They also urged their compatriots on the island to begin a campaign of civil disobedience to initiate a process of political change.

Development: On 17 September Senator Hilda "Chiche" González de Duhalde, the wife of former president Eduardo Duhalde, called for the opposition to unite in "a patriotic front" to oppose President Néstor Kirchner at the presidential election in October 2007.

Significance: González de Duhalde is the first heavyweight figure to call for the opposition to bury its ideological differences and come together to contest the elections. In an interview with the Argentine daily La Nación she said that former economy minister Roberto Lavagna would be the ideal candidate to lead the anti-Kirchner front, which she said should include all those prepared to stand up to the president, such as Mauricio Macri of the centre-right Propuesta Republicana (PRO) and Elisa Carrió of the centre-left Afirmación para una República Igualitaria (ARI). This would mimic Kirchner's cross-party coalition building.

González de Duhalde and her husband were the high-profile losers in legislative elections in October 2005, which saw Kirchner's wife Senator Cristina Fernández emerge triumphant and Duhalde's Buenos Aires powerbase smashed. González de Duhalde said that the current government was not Peronist but lived by creating a culture of fear and chequebook politics. Without a united front, "it will be very difficult to fight an authoritarian power" in 2007, she said.

It will also be very difficult to forge a united front. The main opposition Unión Cí­vica Radical (UCR) is divided and Carrió has already announced her intention to stand in the elections for the ARI. Speaking at a seminar on political ethics in Asunción on 15 September Carrió said that the Kirchner administration was increasingly modelling itself on that of Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez ; a model, she said, that dangerously divided society.

Development: The government of President Tabaré Vázquez faces its biggest protest yet, as 20,000 truck drivers and 5,000 taxi drivers went on indefinite strike on 23 October to show their opposition to rising fuel costs.

Significance: The government's decision to subsidise public transport fares by raising the price of petrol by US$0.048 per litre has angered taxi drivers who complain that a third of their profits is already spent on fuel, and that they are not granted any special rates on petrol. The protest has also been prompted by the government's decision to start making taxi drivers pay employment taxes from January 2007.

Victor Rossi, the minister for transport and public works, said that the indefinite strike was very worrying for the government because of predicted shortages. The president of the transport workers union, Diego Valverde, said that the only service to be provided during the strike would be the transport of milk and the delivery of fuel to police, ambulance and fire services.

Development: President-elect Felipe Calderón announced another four members of his cabinet on 28 November.

Significance: Despite pressure from the opposition parties, Calderón stuck to his decision to make Francisco Ramí­rez Acuña his interior minister. This unyielding approach drew heavy criticism from the Mexican media who said that Ramí­rez Acuña's appointment was Calderón's first big mistake. Ramí­rez Acuña developed a reputation as a brutal and partisan governor of Jalisco, a heartland state for Calderon's Partido Acción Nacional. Calderón said that he would announce his law and security ministers and other ministers later this week.

Calderón sprang a minor surprise by, effectively, splitting the foreign ministry. Patricia Espinosa Cantellano, a career diplomat is the new foreign minister but Calderón's long-term foreign adviser, Arturo Sarukhan, will be responsible for relations with the US. 

Germán Martí­nez, a former deputy gets the anti-corruption brief, Función Pública. More controversially, a Spanish-born chum of Calderón's, Juan Camilo Mouriño, becomes the gatekeeper to Calderón as head of the president's office. The xenophobic Mexican press has been quick to label Mouriño “another Córdoba". José Córdoba was President Carlos Salinas's (1988 to 1994) sinister chief of staff: he was born in France. Worryingly for Calderón, Salinas, almost certainly did not win the 1988 election fairly. The leftwing opposition said that Calderón only won in July 2006 because of electoral fraud.