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Development: On 25 September the Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (Ipea) said that real GDP growth in Brazil would exceed expectations this year: it forecast a rate of at least 5.2%.

Significance: The same day, the national statistics institute (Ibge) reported that unemployment, at 7.6% in August, was the second best result since records began, while the finance ministry said that tax receipts rose 10.3% year-on-year (to R$452bn, US$248.2bn) in the first eight months. Brazil's domestic economy continues to boom, seemingly oblivious to the unfolding crisis in US financial markets. Latest central bank market expectations (19 September) are for real GDP growth of 5.2% in 2008, easing to 3.6% in 2009.

Brazil is not immune, however. On 24 September the central bank delayed a planned increase in reserve requirements for some financial institutions in order to guarantee local market liquidity, with importers and exporters at the front line of firms feeling the pinch. This followed two foreign currency repurchasing agreement (repo) auctions worth US$500mn a week earlier, also designed to reinforce liquidity and prop up the Real, which had tumbled over the first half of September. A weaker Real would threaten the bank's efforts to combat inflation. It is worth noting that these foreign currency sales were relatively small, particularly in comparison to 2002/2003, when investors, nervous about the new Lula government, caused a massive run on the financial system. The central bank now has total foreign reserves of US$207bn, a reasonably strong shield against global financial market turbulence.

The threat of reduced global liquidity would mainly impinge upon investment flows into Brazil in 2009 - already this year multinational companies in Brazil have repatriated billions of dollars in order to cover financing needs at home. Nonetheless the central bank still expects record foreign direct investment inflows of around US$33bn in 2008, following US$34.6bn in 2007. Notably, fixed investment growth rose 16.2% year-on-year in the second quarter, well over twice the rate of real GDP growth (6.1%).

On the inflation side, the bank may be hoping that falling global growth will help ease high commodity price inflation - a key source of inflationary pressures this year. Since August, inflation has trended downwards: indeed the Ipea report indicated that the fall in global commodity prices since June had had more of an impact on domestic inflation that the central bank's four interest rate increases this year (the benchmark Selic is currently at 13.75%). Most analysts now expect inflation to end the year below 6.0% annually, within the bank's target range of 4.5% +/2.0%. This might allow the bank to take its foot off the monetary brake in early 2009.

In line with falling inflation, average real earnings have recovered. According to the Ibge, the average wage in August was R$1,253.7, up 2.1% on July (and 5.7% on August 2007).

Development: On 29 October, as the 18th Ibero American Summit in San Salvador (El Salvador) got underway, it remained unclear whether President Hugo Chávez would attend.

Significance:  On 26 October President Chávez said he would not attend the summit (of the heads of state of Latin America, the Caribbean, Portugal and Spain) for security reasons, alleging a CIA-backed assassination plot against him. However, he felt secure enough to travel to Ecuador on 28 October to meet his ally, President Rafael Correa.
 
With his usual flourish, Chávez said on Sunday that he had just called off his trip to El Salvador to attend the summit because “my life is not guaranteed safe_ in Central America there are (Venezuelan) military people under the protection of governments, the CIA and FBI". These, he said, were plotting to assassinate him.

His reluctance to attend is unusual, Chávez typically adores these occasions and is always guaranteed to hit the headlines: at the last summit in November 2007, he had an altercation with Spain's King Juan Carlos, who famously told him to “shut up".

Chávez also alleged a domestic opposition plot to assassinate him, and accused the opposition governor of the state of Zulia, of orchestrating the plot.

Last month the government carried out arrests of some low ranking military officers, alleging a similar plot.

It is not clear how credible these accusations are - since the short-lived 48-hour military coup against him in April 2002, President Chávez has routinely suggested there are sinister plans afoot to forcibly remove him from power, usually ahead of an important event, such as an election, or to distract from domestic issues.

What this suggests is that the government is genuinely nervous about next month's municipal elections. On 23 November, 17m Venezuelans will elect 22 state governors and 328 mayors. Polls are suggesting that the opposition is set to make sizeable inroads locally, increasing its representation across several states and town halls.  It currently holds only four of the country's 23 states.

Development: On 1 December the environment minister, Carlos Minc, announced a new plan to cut the rate of Amazon deforestation in half by 2017.

Significance:  The new National Plan for Climate Change was unveiled two days after damming new official figures showed a fresh rise in the rate of deforestation. The plan is the first time Brazil has set concrete national goals for slowing deforestation and reducing its carbon emissions.

Minc unveiled the new plan along with President Lula da Silva, underlining its importance. The Brazilian government has come under increasing international scrutiny for its apparent failure to stem the rate of deforestation, which has accelerated again over the past 18 months amid a rise in global agri-commodity prices (soya, beef). This has encouraged a surge in forest clearances by Brazilian farmers eager for  a bigger slice of the pie.

On 29 November, the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) announced that 11.968 sq km of land had been cleared in the year to July 2008, up 4% on a year earlier. The government had said that deforestation had fallen in each in the three previous years, however the latest INPE data suggested that this trend had come to a halt. In its defence, the government said that the rate would have been much higher had it not been for its actions against illegal logging.

Under the new plan, the government will seek to slow the annual rate of deforestation to 5,850 square kilometres by 2017, half the latest rate.

Minc said the plan would slow destruction by 72% when compared to the 7,330 sq km kilometres lost on average each year between 1996 and 2005.

The new initiative will also boost federal patrols of forested areas, replant 5.5 million hectares of forest, and finance sustainable development projects to give locals alternative work in areas where illegal logging dominates the local economy.

Deforestation releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, it accounts for around 55% of total emissions in Brazil, which along with the rise in industrial and agricultural activity in recent years has propelled Brazil into the ranks of the fastest growing carbon gas emitters in the world. The plan is to reduce these emissions by 4.8bn tons annually. The Brazilian government had previously refused to adopt an emissions reduction plan, arguing that developed countries ought to assume most responsibility.

The government did not say how much the new Climate Change Plan will cost.

Development: On 18 January Salvadoreans vote in municipal and legislative elections.

Significance: The opinion polls are pointing to victory for the left-wing opposition, Frente Farabundo Martí­ para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN). The big question is: will the FMLN win enough votes to gain a majority, for the first time, in congress. If this happens, the result of the presidential election in March, where the moderate FMLN candidate, Mauricio Funes, is well ahead, will be more symbolic than decisive. A FMLN controlled-congress, with or without the presidency, is likely to weaken the country's traditional support of the US, though the FMLN is unlikely to seek an immediate confrontation for two reasons: the first is the importance to the local economy of remittances from Salvadoreans working in the US; the second is that President-elect Barack Obama will be inaugurated on 20 January and the whole of Latin America is waiting to see what he will do.

The most recent opinion poll for the legislative elections published at the end of December 2008 by Universidad Tecnológica (Utec) gave the FMLN 40.6% of the vote compared with 26.2% for the ruling Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (Arena). Earlier polls suggested that the opposition party will, at the very least, improve its position in the unicameral congress but may fall short of a majority. If the FMLN becomes the biggest party in congress, it may be able to cobble together a majority with the help of smaller, left-of-centre parties for moderate reforms. Arena has 34 deputies and the FMLN 32 in the outgoing 84-seat legislature.

The unprecedented popularity of the FMLN and its positive performance in the polls suggests that its presidential candidate, Mauricio Funes, a media-savvy journalist, has done a successful job of winning the electorate over with his promises of a moderate, leftist reforming agenda rather than previous FMLN candidates' orthodox Marxism. Indeed Funes has made a concerted effort to win more foreign investment and court big business, all with the objective of convincing the influential Salvadorean expatriate community in the US, and waverers at home, that an FMLN government will not mean mass nationalisations and a narrow foreign policy focused on supporting Venezuela. Still less will a Funes government slap restrictions on remittances from the US.

Funes's success has forced Arena and its presidential candidate, Rodrigo Avila, on to the defensive, and to meet Funes on the centre ground. Avila has been forced to advocate social-democratic policies but neither he nor party bigwigs were comfortable with this style of campaigning. In previous elections, the FMLN's former guerrillas were much more prominent but they had less appeal to non-partisan voters.  

In the final weeks of the campaign, the traditionalists in Arena appear to have gained control of the campaign and made the unsubstantiated and sensationalist claim, endorsed by President Tony Saca, that the FMLN was in league with the tattooed Mara gangs who are responsible for so much crime and killing in the country.

This claim, condemned by election observers from the European Union, is clearly designed to polarise the election and swing waverers away from smaller parties and the FMLN. The other parties fielding candidates in the congressional elections include the rightwing Partido de Conciliación Nacional (PCN) and Partido Demócrata Cristiano (PDC). In the centre and on the left are the social-democrat Cambio Democrático (CD) and Frente Democrático Revolucionario (FDR).

Luis Yáñez-Barnuevo, head of the EU electoral observation mission, dismissed Saca's allegation. Yáñez-Barnuevo called on the president to provide evidence to substantiate his claim: this has yet to appear. Yáñez-Barnuevo added that he believed that 70% of the media were campaigning in favour of the ruling party and against the FMLN.

The US ambassador to El Salvador, Charles Glazer, ruled out the possibility of fraud taking place, dismissing concerns previously raised by Funes. The US diplomat pointed to the presence of international observers as grounds for confidence. There are 110 observers from the Organization of American States (OAS) and 80 EU observers will monitor the vote, the latter observing elections in El Salvador for the first time. More than 17,000 police officials will also be sent to the 460 polling stations to guarantee security.

Besides the legislative election, the other key election on 18 January is for mayor of the country's capital, San Salvador. The city has been held by the FMLN since 1997, and the incumbent mayor, Violeta Menjí­var, who is seeking re-election, looks set for victory. A Utec poll showed her with 46% firm support compared with 31.3% for Arena's candidate, Norman Quijano.

Development: On 24 February President Raúl Castro celebrates a year as president of Cuba, amid ongoing debate as to direction of policy on the island.

Significance: The disjoint between Raúl Castro's external successes and the disappointment on the ground is palpable, prompting renewed questions about his leadership capacity a year after he formally took over from his brother Fidel.

Raúl Castro's year has been marked by considerable success on the external front. Cuba has rebuilt bridges within the region and restored relations with the likes of the European Union, Russia and China. There have even been suggestions of a shift in US-Cuba policy under the new Barack Obama administration.

On the domestic front, however, despite expectations of reform, little has changed politically, and the economic situation has lurched from bad to worse, exacerbated by two devastating hurricanes in September, which caused US$10bn worth of damages.

Cuba watchers are divided as to the extent of Fidel Castro's current role. Some analysts think he is still pulling most of the strings behind the scenes: orchestrating Cuba's very successful foreign policy efforts, deliberately provoking the new US Obama administration so as to discourage any change in US policy towards the island (which might threaten the survival of the revolution), and micro-managing the government hierarchy, promoting hard core loyalists to top inner circle positions so as to retain control. On this view, it is likely Fidel also signed off on Raúl's limited agricultural reforms.

Others believe that Raúl, who effectively ran the Cuban military as a business for four decades, is a more pragmatic figure whose ambitions for limited reform (modelled on China or Vietnam), also in an effort   to ensure the survival of the revolution, have been stymied by the more dogmatic Fidel. On this view, tensions between the two brothers have prevented Raúl from following through on even minimal reform efforts.

Development:  On 1 April, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) indicated that imports of Venezuelan oil had increased to 1.35m barrels per day (bpd) in January 2009, their highest level since August 2008.

Significance: The figure is also the highest for the month of January since 2006. There are two ways to interpret this. On the one hand, US imports of heavy Venezuelan crude (used for heating oil) typically tend to rise in winter, and it has been a cold winter this year. On the other, the sudden jump may also suggest that Venezuela is flouting the recent production cuts ordered by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) in an attempt to preserve crucial oil export revenues. Venezuela's energy minister, Alí­ Rodriguez has led calls (along with Iran) for Opec cuts in order to put a floor under global oil prices.

Most analysts believe Venezuela is flouting the November 2008 Opec cuts (totalling 1.5m bpd), which oblige Venezuela to reduce output by 364,000 bpd, of which 166,000 bpd corresponds to its US exports.

Venezuelan production figures are notoriously unreliable: the state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) maintains that total national production is about 3.2m bpd, however the EIA and Opec put it at around 2.3m bpd.

In its latest budget adjustment, the government put daily output at 3.17m bpd and cut its oil price assumption to US$40/b, from US$60/b originally, at an estimated the cost to the treasury of BF40.08bn (US$18.64bn).

Development: On 11 May President Hugo Chávez continued his latest assault against his internal opponents, with the opposition cable TV channel Globovisión the focus of his latest diatribe.

Significance: Forcing Globovisión off the air altogether would be a bold and risky move by the president, who was widely criticised at home and abroad for his move almost exactly two years ago (late May 2007) to temporarily shut Radio Caracas Televisión (RTV). His latest rant has to be seen in a wider context: now, as then, Chávez is deliberately ramping up internal tensions, in a well-worn tactic that allows him to consolidate his very personalised control over the domestic political arena.

"_ Don't fool yourselves that I won't dare (to close another station). Believe that, and you could be landed with a little surprise at any minute_you are playing with fire, manipulating, inciting hatred every day", he warned.

The fiercely anti-Chávez Globovisión is currently under investigation by the government-appointed regulator, Conatel, on charges of directly and indirectly inciting “war" and “assassination". The president has long accused the station and its director, Alberto Federico Ravel, of supporting the short-lived 2002 coup attempt against him. Conatel could issue a fine or order a temporary closure of the station. In 2007, it revoked RTV's broadcast licence.

Chávez also yesterday accused Federico Ravel of creating undue alarm over a 5.4 grade earthquake in the Caracas environs on 4 April, saying he was like a “mad man with a cannon" that had to be stopped.

Development: On 16 June yet another high profile Cuban economist, Alfredo Jam, a recipient of Cuba's national economics award, gave a speech highlighting the severity of the economic situation on the island.

Significance: Jam's comments to a Havana economic conference echo recent comments and articles in various state run media about the urgent need for reform. This is unlikely a coincidence: the government of President Raúl Castro appears firmly set on a path of reform, and is not all that subtly signalling to workers and managers alike that they need to pull their socks up.

On that reading, the current energy rationing measures could even be part of a plan to impose greater efficiency on the grossly ineffectual state sector, which accounts for 90% of the economy.

Jam said that Cuba was enduring “a profound and difficult crisis", because of inefficient management, low labour productivity, the demotivation of young people and, lastly, the not insignificant effects of the global economic crisis; which appears to have crystallised the multiple underlying problems in what is essentially a broken system and brought home to the government the stark need for reform.

Jam pointed out that a large percentage of young Cubans are not interested in taking on “unsatisfactory" work and reiterated the need for wage reform.

President Castro decreed wage reform last year but to date it has barely been implemented, amid a general lack of managerial capacity and weak planning and conceptualisation of how a proposed piece work system might operate on the ground.

Jam also cited the need for import substitution, and the urgent need to boost domestic food output.

On Monday (15 June), Granma accused state sector managers and directors of too much “tolerance", “comraderie" and “softness".

Development: On 23 July dissident members of Argentina's largest trade union, the Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT), announced that they were not leaving the organisation after all.

Significance: The fracture of the CGT, after a week of vicious infighting, was avoided yesterday (23 July) following the direct intervention of President Cristina Fernández and a public apology by the group's controversial leader, Hugo Moyano. The government, itself facing splits after its defeat in June mid-terms, is keen to avoid the fragmentation of the group, which under Moyano, has been one of its strongest allies.

In a speech outside the CGT's headquarters Moyano appealed to the group's dissidents - an influential group of traditional union bosses known as “los Gordos" (or 'fat cats') - to remain in the union: “If we have made any mistakes, I apologise". Days earlier Moyano had accused the 'gordos' of leading workers to disaster through their support of the neo-liberal policies of President Carlos Menem (1989-1999).

After a meeting of several hours the dissident leaders confirmed that they had reached a truce with Moyano. The conflict is likely to rumble on, however, unless Moyano agrees to cede some real power to the 'gordos': the union bosses yesterday reiterated their concerns about Moyano's controlling style and called again for a “collegiate leadership".

Development: On 2 September a former Cochabamba prefect and 2009 presidential hopeful, Manfred Reyes Villa, met leaders from the eastern opposition Media Luna regions in search of support for his candidacy.

Significance: It looks increasingly likely that, after months of failing to unite behind a single candidate, the opposition prefects bloc, Consejo Nacional Democrático (Conalde), will back Reyes Villa, whose surprise announcement on 1 September that a jailed former Pando prefect, Leopoldo Fernández, would be his running mate caused a splash in the local media. 

Local analysts remain divided however as to whether the “political tsunami" which Reyes Villa boasted his announcement provoked extends beyond the media. Fernández, who remains incarcerated in a La Paz prison, awaiting trial for his alleged role in the September 2008 Pando massacre, continues to command considerable support in the Media Luna and particularly in the opposition bastion of Santa Cruz.

Fernández's inclusion on Reyes Villa's ticket may discourage a former vice president, Ví­ctor Hugo Cárdenas, and Germán Antelo, an ex-leader of the influential Comité pro Santa Cruz, from running for the rightwing Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR). However both Cárdenas and Antelo declared on 2 September that they would not be withdrawing their candidacies. Candidates have to register by 7 September.  

The Comité pro Santa Cruz has unofficially expressed support for the Reyes Villa-Fernández ticket and is expected to meet its counterparts from the other Media Luna departments (Beni, Pando, Tarija, Reyes Villa's native Cochabamba, and Chuquisaca) at the weekend to make a final decision.

Development: Today (13 October) talks will resume in Tegucigalpa in an effort to resolve the political and institutional crisis resulting from the 28 June coup d'etat against the elected president, Manuel Zelaya.

Significance: Zelaya and the de facto president, Roberto Micheletti, continue to bluster in public but officials from Organization of American States (OAS), on the ground to help mediate in the talks, suggest that the two sides are finally making some progress. The restitution of Zelaya to power, however symbolically, remains the one stumbling block.

Zelaya has set a deadline of 15 October for his restitution.

If that deadline is not met, he argues that the scheduled 29 November general election, which everyone agrees is the single best way out of the crisis, should be called off. The international community had strongly said that it would not recognise the outcome of those elections without a resolution to the crisis, but of late has appeared to subtly backtrack from that position. The OAS is heavily backing the so-called 'San José Accord', put forward in August, which would see Zelaya returned to power along with a national unity government to oversee the elections and hand over to a new administration on 27 January 2010. Both sides would receive a political amnesty.   The heavily politicised supreme court has filed 18 political and criminal charges against Zelaya, which the de facto government argues prevents his return.

Two three-person negotiating teams representing Zelaya and Micheletti last week held a first round of talks, the 'Guaymuras Dialogue', using the 12-point San José proposal as the framework. They agreed on six points, including the establishment of a government of national unity and reconciliation, and the creation of two commissions to oversee the implementation of any accord. Today, following consultations over the weekend, they are set to address the key points - Zelaya's restitution and the question of amnesty.

Zelaya said yesterday he wasn't too confident in progress being made, accusing Micheletti of giving “a slap in the face" to the entire international community. He called on the United Nations (UN) to intervene in the crisis. Interestingly, this was first suggested by Brazil a few weeks ago in an effort to put pressure on the de facto administration.

Development: On 22 November Chile's foreign minister, Mariano Fernández, accused Peru's President Alan Garcí­a of “behaviour unbecoming a head of state."

Significance: Although Chile's government does not want to over-react to Peru's allegations that Chile had been running a spy inside Peru's airforce intelligence service, it is clearly riled by Peru's aggressive comments over the past week. Chile's largely understated reaction has infuriated the Peruvian government, which wants Chile to admit that it was running the spy and to open its own investigation into what had gone on. The Chilean government appears to have leaked part of a dossier Peru sent to Santiago last week, which set out the details of what the alleged spy, Ví­ctor Ariza Mendoza, did. The leaks contain no conclusive evidence.  

The 380-page dossier, which was complied during Peru's judicial investigation into Ariza's activities, contains 66 emails between Ariza and his alleged Chilean controllers. Peru claims that Ariza sent Chile “secret documents and manuals on encrypted CDs" to a PO box in Santiago.

It is not clear when or why Ariza fell under suspicion. The dossier notes that the head of airforce intelligence, General Nicolas Así­an, had enough evidence against him to ask his government for an official investigation on 22 October 2009 and, on 27 October, a Peruvian counter-intelligence officer, known only as “Damian", claimed that Ariza and five other people were involved in espionage.

The main evidence against Ariza consists of regular payments to him of US$3,000 a month, via Western Union. These started in 2004 and came, Peru says, from Chile. The payments were made, the Peruvian investigators claim, by a couple of Chileans, Daniel Márquez Torrealba and Ví­ctor Vergara Rojas. Ariza, as a non-commissioned officer working for airforce intelligence, was officially paid US$500 a month.

Ariza is accused by Peru of selling Peruvian intelligence appreciations of: Bolivia's military strategy; how Argentina was progressing with installing radar coverage of its airspace; and the strengths and weakness of the Chilean airforce.

Fernández said that Peru's domestic politics were driving the Lima's government's over-the-top reaction to the unmasking of the alleged spy. Fernández pointed out that when Chile caught a serving Peruvian military officer spying on the Chile navy in April, Chile simply expelled the suspect. The Peruvian had been arrested after photographing “secret sites" from the naval hospital in Viña del Mar. Fernández also pointed out that Chile had immediately accepted Peruvian government reassurances when it appeared that a private investigator in Peru, Business Track (which has close links to Peruvian naval intelligence) was accused of spying on Chile.  

Fernández re-iterated, on 22 November, that Chilean state institutions “did not use spying_ [because] spying is illegal in Chile."

Pointer: Chile's minister of defence, Francisco Vidal, said on 22 November that the claims by a Chilean, Juan José Soto Vargas, were fantasy. Soto Vargas claimed on 21 November that he was Ví­ctor Vergas Rojas, one of Ariza's controllers. Soto Vargas made this claim in an interview with RPP, a Peruvian broadcaster. Soto Vargas has form as a fantasist, most recently last August when he claimed to be the Chilean consul in Madrid and that a Chilean had been killed in an air crash at Barajas, Madrid. Bizarrely, Soto Vargas said, while posing as the Chilean consul, that the name of the Chilean killed was Juan José Soto Vargas. More seriously, Soto Vargas also claims to have worked for the Chilean secret service during the Pinochet regime.

Development: On 13 January international rescue teams began to arrive in Haiti.

Significance: The extent of the damage wreaked by the 7.0 earthquake that struck the capital Port-au-Prince on 12 January remains unknown. The prime minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, told reporters that the final death toll could be well over 100,000, while Youri Latortue, a senator, said the figure may be as many as 500,000. Both admitted that they had no way of knowing. The UN special envoy for Haiti, former US president Bill Clinton, told the Washington Post the quake was "one of the great humanitarian emergencies in the history of the Americas".

The International Red Cross estimated that three million people - one-third of the population - could need emergency relief, but the emergency services are completely overwhelmed, with no infrastructure in place to manage a rescue operation. Power and telecommunications lines are down, flights have been severely limited at the country's main airport; operations at the main port are also shut down and most of the country's medical facilities have been severely damaged.

Also affected have been international aid organisations already in based in Haiti - including the 9,000 strong UN stabilisation mission (Minustah) whose headquarters were destroyed and whose chief, Hedi Annabi, was confirmed dead yesterday (13 January). Between 100 and 150 UN officials are still said to be missing. Brazil, who leads Minustah, has provisionally said that up to 14 of its 1,300 troops are dead, with others missing.

Along with aid pledged from individual countries such as Canada (US$4.8m) and Germany (US$1.45m), as well as an array of specialists, ships, planes and helicopters provided by the US, the UN is immediately releasing US$10m from its central emergency response fund and mobilizing an emergency response team. The European Union approved EUR3m of fast-track funding; the World Bank is funding US$100m of emergency aid and the World Food Programme is working to supply 15,000 tonnes of food.

Development: On 24 February the armed forces refused to hand over classified documents spanning the dictatorship of general Luis Garcí­a Meza (1980-81) as ordered by a judge on 8 February.

Significance: The issue of access to the archives is proving contentious and exposes resistance on the part of the military, which has hitherto been largely supportive of the leftwing government of President Evo Morales.
 
The military had agreed to handover the files by 26 February, as part of investigations into human rights violations during the Meza dictatorship, in which some 156 people were “disappeared". Now however, the military top brass - who would have been entry-level officers (lieutenants and sub-lieutenants) during the period - now insist that the files can only be consulted on-site (and only those to which it has agreed) and will not be made public. The military claims it is complying with Article 98 of the new Armed Forces Law (Ley Orgánica de las Fuerzas Armadas), by providing “access" to the documents.

Armed forces commanders also reportedly met the newly confirmed attorney general, Mario Uribe, to request that Milton Mendoza, the special prosecutor, be taken off the case.   Mendoza has participated in high profile human rights investigations and is currently a member of the prosecution team working on the case of former president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, his cabinet, and ex-military commanders for their role in Black October' - the army clampdown on anti-government protests in 2003 which resulted in more than 60 dead.  

Finally, the decision by the military high command to attend a meeting with defence minister Rubén Saavedra - who is now proposing a law to declassify the information - in combat uniform was also seen as a form of “sabre rattling".

Development: On 8 April Telefónica Movistar, one of the main mobile operators in Mexico, announced that it would not cut off subscribers who failed to register their phones with the government agency, Renaut.

Significance: The deadline for registering phones with the Registro Nacional de Usarios de Telefoní­a Móvil (Renaut) is 10 April. Around 25m mobiles (of a national total of 83.5m) still have to be registered. Telefónica's move is a clear challenge to the federal government's authority. The whole issue of Renaut illustrates the disfunctionality of Mexican political life. The idea of a national registry of mobile phones, both contract and prepaid, is part of an anti-crime drive. The advocates of the registry argued that it would help the police to trace criminals, particularly kidnappers who used mobile phones to communicate with their victims' families.  

Telefónica's networks are used by about 20% of the country's mobile subscribers. Telefónica Movistar is owned by the Spanish telecoms company, Telefónica. Telcel, the dominant mobile provider in Mexico with about 70% of the market, is owned by América Móvil, part of the business empire controlled by Carlos Slim Helú, the world's richest man. Telcel also wants the deadline extended and hints that it has developed its own systems for helping the authorities in their fight against crime.

What is clear is that mobiles are heavily used by organised criminals. Non Governmental Organisations, studying crime in Mexico, claim that 37% of all kidnap ransoms paid between 2001 and 2007 were “virtual" kidnappings. This is where gangsters frighten other family members, invariably by mobile phone, into paying a modest (US$5,000 to US$10,000) ransom even though the victims are only threatened with kidnapping rather than actually taken.

Under Renaut, all mobile operators have to retain information about all the messages and calls sent from each registered number for 12 months.  

Over the past couple of months the Mexican media has been full of horror stories about the difficulties of registering with Renaut. Columnists and broadcasters have walked their readers and listeners through their own experiences, most of which have ended with the subscriber giving up on any attempt to register their phone. One big problem is that many poor people do not have birth certificates which have to be presented to register phones. Even so 54.7m phones had been registered by 8 April and there has been a surge of registrations in the past couple of weeks.

Political jockeying in congress has not helped the implementation of the registry. The latest idea, advocated by the lower chamber, of extending the deadline for registration, was rejected by an alliance in the senate between the ruling Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) and the leftwing Partido de la Revolución Democrática on 8 April. The dominant party in both houses of congress, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, had advocated an extension of the deadline for 12 months.

Telefónica says that, although it supports registration, it will continue offering its services to unregistered subscribers because, it argues, that freedom of communication is a right guaranteed by the Mexican Constitution. Telefónica says that it will go to court to defend the rights of its subscribers. The law setting up Renaut included the explicit provision that mobile telephone operators could not be sued by customers who failed to register their phones by the deadline.

The government appears to be wavering over its threat to cut unregistered phones off from midnight on 10 April. Héctor Osuna, a former PAN senator, now president of the Comisión Federal de Telecomunicaciones, hinted that texting from unregistered phones might be allowed. He also said that his staff were also working on ways of speeding up the registration of phones.  

Development: On 18 May, opposition leaders in the eastern Media Luna regions of Beni, Tarija and Santa Cruz announced protests in response to the autonomy transition law currently being discussed in congress.

Significance: The law, which is necessary for the recently elected regional governors and municipal officials to assume their posts on 30 May, is proving the latest bone of contention between the government of President Evo Morales and the regional opposition leaders.

Specifically, the opposition is objecting to three articles which prevent officials facing “formal accusations" from taking their posts. This effectively leaves all three governors - Tarija's Mario Cossí­o, Santa Cruz's Rubén Costas and Beni's Ernesto Suárez -, who face legal cases for alleged mismanagement of funds, unable to take office. Unsurprisingly, the three articles have been denounced by the opposition as political persecution while legal experts point out that they are unconstitutional as the new constitution cites, under article 235, a criminal record or pending criminal sentence as the only impediments to those seeking to hold public posts.

The transition law serves as a stopgap until the approval of the autonomy framework law which, under the new constitution, should be approved by 22 July -six months after the new Morales government took office.

Development: On 27 June a local leader of the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), was found dead in Guerrero.

Significance: The PAN claims that Pedro Brito Ocampo was killed by at least 40 bullets. The PAN also claims that the state government said that he was the victim of a traffic accident. The state government did not say this, though it does seem to have been sluggish in sending police to investigate the case. 

The PAN is suggesting that states controlled by the opposition (Guerrero, a violent, southern state is controlled by the leftwing Partido de la Revolucion Democrática) acquiesce in the use of death squads. On 4 July 12 of Mexico's 32 states go to the polls to elect new state governors.

According to the PAN, Brito Ocampo, who was the PAN's candidate in 2008 for the mayorship of the municipality of Heliodoro Castillo, was kidnapped on 25 June and his bullet-ridden body was found a day later.

Mexico: On 3 August, the US government re-opened its consulate in Ciudad Juárez following its closure on 30 July due to a “threat". No further details were given about the threat but P J Crowley, the State Department spokesman, announced that the consulate had been closed while its security system was revised. The city, which borders Texas, has the highest incidence of drug-related crime in Mexico. Three people connected with the consulate were assassinated in March this year.

Guatemala: Deportations of Guatemalans from the US have increased 12% in July 2010 compared with the same month in 2009. Between 1 and 28 July 3,145 Guatemalans were repatriated from the US, bringing the total for the year so far to 13,812. Guatemala's President Alvaro Colom has asked President Barack Obama to suspend deportations for 18 months while the country recovers from tropical storm Agatha but his request has so far been denied. The director of the national roundtable for migration, (Menamig), Marila de Prinz, suggested that the Arizona law SB1070, brought into force in the last week in July, may have caused an increase in the number of deportations as undocumented immigrants attempted to move between states.

Haiti: The US assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), David Johnson, travelled to Haiti on 2 August to meet Haiti's President, René Préval, and the minister for justice and public security, Paul Denis. Johnson announced the upcoming visit of four officers from the New York Police Department to the island to help police there to rebuild capacity.

Nicaragua: On 29 July the US government approved the annual “waiver". This relates to US legislation stipulating the withholding of aid from countries where the property of US citizens has been confiscated - as was the case in the 1980s in Nicaragua following the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship. According to the US Ambassador Robert Callahan, in the past 12 months Nicaragua has resolved another 61 cases. The US embassy press release said 501 cases are still pending in the US.

Development: On 11 September, former president Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) had his second angioplasty of the year after experiencing “severe chest pains".

Significance: The unscheduled operation to insert a coronary stent has again revived worries about Kirchner's overall health and ability to either run a presidential campaign or the country, should he be re-elected in the October 2011 general election. Questions about Kirchner's health add an extra factor to an already tense and convoluted situation inside the ruling Partido Justicialista (PJ), Argentina's largest, where numerous factions are struggling to position themselves within the dominant Frente para la Victoria (FPV) faction's list of candidates.

The Peronistas Federales (PF), the right-wing faction of Peronism, will most likely go to the election separately of the PJ-FPV ticket. However, such a decision would still leave many struggles to be resolved within the FPV itself. For example, Kirchner's public criticisms of the Buenos Aires governor Daniel Scioli last week have put local Buenos Aires mayors on edge, as they are concerned by the increasing power of Hugo Moyano, the head of the Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) and recently appointed by Kirchner as the leader of the PJ in the province of Buenos Aires.

While Scioli has worked with local leaders and has not attempted to build his own support base, Moyano comes with his own political machinery behind him and the backing of the largest trade union in the country, the truck drivers' union, whose de facto leader is his son, Pablo Moyano, (Hugo remains the official secretary general).

For local mayors, the Moyanos' power in the union means that any confrontation with the group could bring the country to a halt (a tactic Moyano has frequently used to pressure the executive) but, more importantly for them, rubbish collection in local districts could be suspended. Covelia, a trash collection company closely associated with Moyano, controls the service in 15 districts in the greater Buenos Aires metropolitan area. A confrontation with Moyano would be politically costly for the mayors. Thus, there is a struggle between those mayors that want their own loyal candidates on the ballot for the provincial legislature, and Moyano, who wants trade unionists included on the blanket list.

Some local commentators believe that now more than ever, Kirchner needs to demonstrate his strength within the party in order to 'control the monster he unleashed'. Equally, some within rightwing Peronism believe that former president Eduardo Duhalde (2002-2003) should be the presidential candidate, deposing the very person Duhalde appointed to run in the 2003 presidential campaign, Néstor Kirchner.

Development: On 21 October the Panamanian government rejected a same day ruling by the Central American Court of Justice (CCJ) stipulating that Panama cannot unilaterally leave the Central American Parliament (Parlacen).

Significance: The wrangling over Panama's protracted efforts to leave the Parlacen looks set to continue. The case has raised questions about the jurisdiction of the various institutions of the Central American Integration System (SICA), of which the CCJ and Parlacen are the judicial and political branches.

Withdrawing Panama from the Parlacen had been a campaign pledge of President Ricardo Martinelli, whose government submitted its formal request to leave in August 2009. Critics of Parlacen argue that it serves as a haven for corrupt politicians fleeing justice, given the immunity enjoyed by its deputies. Martinelli has argued that the regional entity, established in 1991, is both wasteful and ineffectual, dubbing it a “den of iniquity" - the same reasons cited by Costa Rica for refusing to join. However, Martinelli's likely underlying motive for leaving Parlacen is the prospect of being able to prosecute members of the now opposition Partido Revolucionario Democrático (PRD).

While the CCJ ruled that Panama's withdrawal cannot be unilateral but must be agreed by all the Parlacen members (El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua - all of which have opposed the move), Panama is now arguing that it is not obliged to recognise the jurisdiction of the court (established in 1994) as it never ratified the court's founding statute.