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The economy and finance minister, Luis Arce, said that the economy should grow in 2009 and that Bolivia would be one of the few countries in the world that would not fall into a recession.

Arce expects growth of around 4% in 2009, though if oil prices continue to rise, he implied, the growth rate could be higher. The government had based the 2009 budget on an average oil price of US$73 a barrel. In February the price of oil hit US$33 but was nudging US$61 a barrel by the end of May. Arce said that the government had factored in a 17% fall in hydrocarbon revenues in 2009, but now reckoned that this would be a worst case scenario. In 2008 the economy grew by 6.1%, though inflation was almost 12%. The government's original forecast for 2009 had been for growth of 4.5% and inflation of around 6%.

Arce's forecasts look optimistic. Exports are suffering from the weakness of the price of oil. In the first four months of 2009, total export receipts were down by 29%, (or US$630m in cash terms) year-on-year, at US$1.56bn. Hydrocarbons exports were down 33% at US$731m. Thanks to its demand for gas, Brazil is Bolivia's most important export market. It spent US$518m on gas and US$531m on Bolivian products in total during this period.

Brazil's appetite for Bolivian gas is falling as industrial demand weakens. In the first four months of 2009, industrial demand for gas fell by 28%. Overall Brazil's demand for gas fell by 35%. In the first four months, exports of hydrocarbons fell by US$356m. This category still accounted for 46% of total exports. The next biggest category was manufactured products (24%), followed by minerals (23%). Agricultural products accounted for 4% of total exports.

In the first four months Bolivia ran a trade surplus of US$210m, down from US$760m in the first four months of 2008. What is encouraging for Arce's forecast is that imports have barely skipped a beat. In the first four months of 2009 they fell by 6% to US$1.35bn. Crucially, imports of capital goods actually increased from US$290m in the first four months of 2008 to US$311m in the first four months of 2009.

Bolivianisation: The government and the Asociación de Bancos (Asoban) agree that the replacement of the dollar with the Boliviano is helping the economy. When President Evo Morales took office in 2006, 95% of the financial sector's transactions were in dollars. Now the figure is down to 45%.

Tin: The state-owned companies Corporación Minera de Bolivia and Huanuni are investing US$40m in projects to double the country's tin production to 3,000t a day. Currently the country produces about 1,200t. In 2007, the government of President Evo Morales nationalised Vinto, a smelter owned by Glencore, and also took control of the Huanuni tin mine which was being operated by cooperatives.

Inflation:  In April the consumer price index fell by 0.43%, much the same as the 0.49% fall in in March. For the first four months of 2009, the index has fallen 0.64%. This means that inflation in the 12 months to April was 5.32%, about half that of calendar 2008 (11.85%).

The central bank believes that the fall in remittances is starting to level off. In February, inflows fell 2.1% year-on-year.

In cash terms, the inflow was US$269m, down from US$275m in February 2009. The bank argues that inflows are recovering gradually, because the size of the year-on-year fall is diminishing every month. Nonetheless for the first two months of 2010 the inflow came to US$502m, down 4.2% on the same period of 2009. In 2009 remittances came to US$3.45bn in total, down 8.5% on 2008. In January 2010, the year-on-year fall was still running at 6.5%.

Remittances have been falling year-on-year since August 2008. However, they still represented about 18% of the economy's GDP in 2009. Three-quarters of remittance inflows now come through the banking system, the central bank reported.

The key issue for remittances is what happens in the US labour market. In February 2010, unemployment amongst Hispanics stood at 12.4%, though there is anecdotal evidence of more jobs in the construction and service industries, two key areas of Salvadorean employment in the US.

The central bank points out that Salvadoreans are doing better than other Latin Americans. In Guatemala the inflow of remittances in February was down 9%, year-on-year, while in Mexico it was down 15.8%. Colombia saw an 18% fall while in Honduras the fall was a steep 16.8%.

Inflation: In February inflation was 0.1% month-on-month, down on 0.4%. in January. The annual rate was 1% in February.

In December 2010 arabica coffee prices hit their highest level since 1994. Unlike most commodities produced in the region, the coffee industry is much more labour-intensive than capital-intensive, so rising prices should help small farmers.

Latin America's two big coffee producers are Colombia and Brazil. What is unusual is that arabica coffee prices are nudging over the US$2 per pound level even though Brazil, the world's biggest producer, is preparing to harvest another record crop. Compared with their averages in 2009, the calendar 2010 year prices of Colombian Milds, Other Milds and Brazilian Naturals (the coffees grown in the region) increased by 27.1%, 36.2% and 33.3% respectively. Prices of Robustas (which are mostly grown in Africa and Asia) increased by only 5.6%.

The International Coffee Organization (ICO) notes that prices have been rising even though production has increased. This is because world coffee consumption remains relatively buoyant, particularly in emerging countries. The ICO reckons that global coffee production in the 2010/11 coffee year (which runs from 1 October to 30 September) will be 10% higher, at 134.6m (60kg) bags. In the 2009/10 crop year, production was 122.8m bags, down from 128.5m bags in the previous crop year.

In 2010/11, Brazil expects to 48m bags, a 23% increase on the 39m bags it produced in the 2009/10 crop year. As well as a high production level in Brazil in crop year 2010/11, the country's domestic consumption has continued to grow. For the Brazilian crop year 2011/12, the first official estimates published by CONAB, the government agency responsible for agricultural estimates in Brazil, indicate a crop of between 41.9m and 44.7m 60kg bags, the highest level ever recorded for a low production year in the biennial coffee cycle. Traditionally a bumper year (2010/11) is followed by a smaller crop.

Colombia, however, is finding it hard to get coffee production back into the double digit million bag levels it last achieved in 2007/08 when it produced 12.5m bags. Since then its crops have been 8.6m, 8.1m and 9m bags, according to the ICO. Colombia's big problem is that many of its coffee bushes have succumbed to coffee-leaf rust, a fungus. Despite the rising prices, growers have been loath to spend cash on the comparatively high cost inputs needed to control the disease.

Colombia's  Federación Nacional de Cafeteros (FNC) reported that the country produced 8.9m bags of coffee in calendar 2010 and exported 7.8m bags. The FNC said that the country's output was 14% up on the 7.8m bags it produced in 2009. The FNC noted that the industry had got off to a good start in the current coffee year: in December  2010 it harvested 1.16m bags, 42% more than in December 2009.

Luis Genaro Muñoz, the FNC's general manager, forecast that 2011 would be a good year for the industry but argued that growers should use FNC support more to combat rust. He argued that it would be possible to eradicate the disease if growers worked more closely with the FNC. Genaro Muñoz admitted that the heavy rains which buffeted the country in the second half of 2010 and turned violent in December and January are likely to increase the spread of rust. He also admitted the heavy rains would also affect flowering and thus the setting of the fruit in 2011.

On exports, the FNC reported that in calendar 2010 Colombia's exports were 1% down on 2009 at 7.8m bags. The FNC has not given figures for the value of coffee exports. Despite the run up in prices, coffee exports were outshone by oil exports in the first 11 months of 2010, according to the statistics agency, Dane. The FNC did report that exports were up strongly in December, compared with December 2009.

The third big coffee producing region in Latin America is Mexico and Central America. The ICO  expects an increase of 7.5% here, thanks to increased
production in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico. Costa Rica,  which is now the smallest coffee producer in Central America, however, expects its output to fall in 2011.

Ronald Peters, the president of the Instituto Costarricense del Café (Icafé),  said in mid-January that the country's coffee crop would be 15% down in the 2010/11 coffee year. He blamed poor weather. Costa Rica, which like the rest of the Central American region uses 46kg bags to count its production, is on course to produce 1.9m (46kg) bags, 300,000 fewer than it managed in 2009/10, Peters said.

Peters noted that the country's coffee industry had been in decline for the past decade because increasing costs had encouraged growers to move into other businesses, notably pineapples. Peters said that the poor weather had come at a bad time for coffee growers because an increasing number of the country's 55,000 coffee growers had decided in 2010 to give the crop another chance. Lots had been enticed by the rising international price.

Icafé wants to move the country's coffee upmarket, by giving it regional identities (a bit like the way wine producers around the world brand their premium products by region and by estate). Despite its decline, coffee is still the country's third biggest agricultural export after bananas and pineapples. In 2009 coffee exports were worth US$198m to the country.

El Salvador is the next smallest coffee exporter in Central America. Its producers have stepped up production to benefit from higher prices. In December 2010 coffee exports were up 128% in cash terms, compared with December 2009 at US$31.2m. In volume terms, coffee exports were up 82%, year-on-year at 181.3m (46kg) bags. Germany is the country's biggest market, accounting for 35% of exports. The US is second at 27%.

The Consejo Salvadoreño del Café (CSC) is trying to take the industry upmarket and has introduced nine categories of specialty coffees. Just under a third of the country's coffee is sold under one of these nine brands.

The CSC reports that since the start of the current coffee year in October 2010 until 11 January, the country has shipped 1.34m (46kg) bags of coffee and the industry has earned US$242m in export revenues. Exports in volume terms are 112% higher than for the same period of the previous coffee year.

Argentina's lower chamber will meet today in order to decide how to reopen cases against the military government that ruled Argentina between 1976 and 1983. The deputies will deal with two cases in particular: the '450 case' pertaining to the actions of Army Corps I, and the 'ESMA' case relating to the infamous Naval Mechanics School. The debate follows congress's decision earlier this month to rescind the amnesty laws protecting former members of the military.

Although discussions are likely to last some weeks, a consensus already appears to have been reached on certain issues. Most importantly, the lower chamber looks set to pass on responsibility for judging those implicated in the cases to federal judges rather than carrying out the proceedings themselves. The deputies are empowered to take over the judicial process under a 1984 law aimed at preventing any unjustified delay in bringing those responsible for the dictatorship's repression.

Also, the cases will not be dealt with on a massive scale as happened in 1984 and 1985, but rather will be split up as far as possible. The lower chamber will still have to decide exactly what crimes will be tried.

There are still a number of problems facing the process. The legality of any future proceedings is far from assured, as the supreme court is yet to rule on whether the amnesty laws are constitutionally viable. If the court decides they were legitimate then the congress cannot overturn them. There is also the question of the presidential pardons offered to those already convicted for their part in the dictatorship.

Meanwhile, in Spain proceedings are just beginning against the Argentine Ricardo Miguel Cavallo, alleged to be one of those in charge of head of the ESMA centre. Cavallo was extradited to Spain from Mexico by the Spanish human rights lawyer Baltasar Garzón. Garzón yesterday heard the testimonies of four witnesses who claim to have seen Cavallo at ESMA, where they were tortured and people they knew were `disappeared'.

Argentina's former president Carlos Menem finds himself in the spotlight once more after an investigation into the 1994 Amia bombing again threw up the so-called 'Syria path'. 

The theory that the car-bomb attack on the Jewish mutual association, in which 85 people were killed, was planned and carried out by Damascus-backed Syrian militants, was revived by Antonio Stiusso, the number three in Argentina's intelligence agency, Side. He was testifying yesterday at a tribunal investigating the local connection to the bombing.

The Syria path directly implicates Menem, himself of Syrian descent, in hushing up the Syrian role in the attack. A former Syrian spy who testified in Germany said that in return for his complicity, the Syrian government paid US$10m into a Swiss bank account in Menem's name. Stiusso said yesterday that he was removed from the case when the inquiry into the bombing started to point to the Syrian connection.

The initial investigation found members of the Buenos Aires police force to have been involved in the attack. However, this is now in doubt after it was confirmed this week that the Side, which answers directly to the president, effectively paid off the key witness who subsequently implicated the police.

Fernando Londoño Hoyos yesterday resigned from the post of interior and justice minister in the cabinet of Colombia's president Alvaro Uribe. It seems he was forced out; earlier the same day he told reporters that he had no intention to step down, and that if he lost his position it would be because 'Uribe wanted someone else'. He has been replaced by Sabas Pretelt de La Vega, formerly leader of the Federación Nacional de Comerciantes (Fenalco) the retailers' association.

Londoño's departure comes after he caused chaos on 5 November by suggesting that Uribe was ready to step down from the presidency and call a general election if the Partido Conservador did not back him in congress. He was subsequently ordered to take back the comments, but the episode proved the final straw for the President. Londoño had already been blamed in part for the failure of the 25 October austerity referendum, and his high-handed approach to congress during his 15-months in office had made him few political allies. Uribe could not risk more mini-crises at a time when his power is at its weakest since he came to office.

Pretelt's appointment came as more of a surprise, however. Although an ally of Uribe's from the PC, he is more associated with the private sector than he is with public office. He has, however, held the post of director of social security, and he was an active member of the National Reconciliation Commission. As such he was involved in negotiations with Colombia's two largest armed rebel groups, las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) y el Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), during the peace processes instigated by former president Andrés Pastrana Pretelt's major responsibilities will be to continue Uribe's 'democratic security' programme (his hardline policy on militancy and drug-trafficking in Colombia).

The second will be getting an extensive reform of the tax system through congress in order to safeguard government finances in the wake if the referendum's failure. There is also the issue of the government's proposed restructuring of congress which Uribe had hoped would be achieved through the referendum. reform of the tax system through congress in order to safeguard government finances in the wake if the referendum's failure. There is also the issue of the government's proposed restructuring of congress which Uribe had hoped would be achieved through the referendum.

As expected, President Alejandro Toledo plumped for the perennial second-choice to replace popular outgoing Prime Minister Beatriz Merino. Carlos Ferrero, the former president of congress and a member of the ruling Perú Posible (PP) party, is the new cabinet chief.

'I only have words of gratitude and respect for Beatriz Merino,' Toledo said. 'History will record her achievements as Prime Minister'. Toledo's approval rating fell sharply after the departure of Merino, the most popular figure in his cabinet, who successfully brokered an agreement with opposition parties to pass a crucial tax reform bill during her six-month stint in the position.

With Merino gone, Toledo was free to go against her recommendation to recruit independent politicians on merit, bowing instead to party politics. The PP's presence in his new cabinet has been bolstered by the addition of several party stalwarts in addition to Ferrero: Manuel Rodrí­guez replaces Allan Wagner as foreign minister; José León picks up the agriculture portfolio; Alfredo Ferrero comes in for Raúl Diez Canseco (who resigned on influence-peddling allegations) as foreign trade and tourism minister, and Nidia Puelles is the new minister for Advancement of Women and Social Development. Retired General Roberto Chiabra takes the defence portfolio from Aurelio Loret de Mola.

Ferrero, 62, studied law at the Pontifica Universidad Católica del Perú. In 1993 he was elected as a legislator for the Alianza Cambio 90-Nueva Mayorí­a. In 2000 he joined Toledo's PP. He served as first vice-President in the interim government of Valentí­n Paniagua and between 2001 and 2002 served as president of congress.

Rodrí­guez, 54, was director of planning in the foreign ministry (1991-1992). He served as a principal advisor in the 1992 peace mission to El Salvador and as Peru's permanent representative to the UN (1998-2000). He was ambassador to the Organisation of American States (OAS) in 2000 and served as deputy foreign minister under Wagner since 2001.

The rest of the cabinet remains unchanged:
Carlos Malpica (Education), Alvaro Vidal (Health), Jesús Alvarado (Labour), Jaime Quijandrí­a (Economy and Finance), Fernando Rospigliosi (Interior), Fausto Alvarado (Justice), Hans Flury (Energy and Mines), Carlos Bruce (Transport, Communications and Housing), Javier Reátegui (Production) and Eduardo Iriarte (Transport and Communications).

The level of unemployment in Chile fell to 7.4% in the last quarter of 2003 - the lowest level for five years. According to data released yesterday by the state statistics department INE, there are 453,060 unemployed in Chile out of a workforce of 6.13bn.

INE also announced yesterday that industrial production in Chile increased 2.7% in 2003, while industrial sales were up 3.5%. Production of capital goods led the way, rising 45.4% over the year, while output of everyday consumer goods rose 4.4%.

Copper production, meanwhile, rose 6.3% in 2003 from the previous year, to 4.9m tonnes, as mines expanded their output. Chile, the world's largest copper producer, owes much of the current robustness of its economy to the metal, which is currently trading at record highs.

Colombia posted a trade deficit of US$12.3m in 2003 against a surplus of US$47.7m in 2002, according to figures released on Friday by the national statistics department DANE. Exports rose 8.98% in 2003 to US$13.010bn, while imports were up 9.51% to US$13.022.

Largely responsible for the disappearance of Colombia's trade surplus was the economic collapse suffered by Venezuela in the first quarter of last year. As a result, exports to fell 38.2% in 2003 and Colombia's trade surplus with the Andean community (CAN) fell 52% last year to US$456m. Ecuador has now replaced Venezuela as Colombia's second largest trade partner after the US.

Colombia registered deficits with Brazil (of US$625.4m), China (US$550.3m), Japan (US$405.8m), and Mexico (US$351.6m). It enjoyed a trade surplus of US$1.9bn with the US, US$384.6m with Ecuador, and US$331.7m with Puerto Rico.

The Venezuelan foreign minister, Jesús Pérez, dismissed the resolution by the senate in Colombia that Venezuela should immediately call a recall referendum on President Hugo Chavez as an insultingly gross interference in Venezuelan affairs. The Venezuelan national assembly, dominated by Chavistas, has tabled a debate on the Colombian resolution for today.

The resolution was passed by the Colombian senate on Tuesday evening. It argued that the Venezuelan government was ignoring democratic principles and respect for human rights. The senate resolution called on the government to adhere to the Democratic Charter of the Organization of American States, and also called on the Venezuelan government "to avoid the definitive installation of a dictatorship which would have incalculable consequences for our brother country and for the continent."

Tarek William Saab, the Chavista who chairs the Venezuelan national assembly's foreign relations committee, argued that a debate was warranted because the Colombian resolution was an attack on the Venezuelan government and an unacceptable interference in Venezuala's domestic affairs. It also, he said, insulted the President. He added that the Colombian senate resolution was a breathtaking display of ignorance, demonstrating a simple inability to understand international law and the way the Democratic Charter works.

Pérez gave a more measured response. He wondered why a legislative chamber, such as the Colombian senate, which should be primarily concerned with domestic laws, was tabling and approving such resolutions. He also dismissed suggestions that Venezuela should reply in kind and ask Colombia to adhere to the OAS Democratic Charter. He said that there was no reason to do this.  

The answer to Pérez's question is probably that hardliners in the Venezuelan opposition, based in the US, egged the Colombians on. It is probably significant that the spat has blown up while senior US policymakers are distracted by events in Iraq and the US response to the Israeli proposal on Gaza and the West Bank. US policy in Latin America seems increasingly to be to work through local proxies: Honduras is tabling the (US-drafted) resolution at the UN Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva today criticising human rights in Cuba. The Colombian senate resolution, tabled by the president of the senate and a member of the foreign relations committee, Enrique Gomez, who comes from the Partido Conservador, which tends to back President Alvaro Uribe, is on similar lines. US policymakers have demanded that the Chávez government adhere to the OAS Democratic Charter.

The opposition in Venezuela is cock-a-hoop at the Colombian senate resolution. Delsa Solórzano, a legal adviser to the Coordinadora Democrática claims that the Colombian decision shows that the eyes of the world are on Venezuela. She confirmed that the CD wanted the OAS Democratic Charter applied in Venezuela. Separately, a bunch of opposition lawyers are threatening to prosecute Chávez at the International Court of Justice in the Hague.

Two other CD leaders, AsdrÅ“bal Aguiar and Américo Martí­n, point out that the Colombian senate declaration is just a statement of intent. They concede that it does not commit the Colombian government to taking any action, but indicates that it is bothered.

Patricio Garbacho, the OAS chief representative in Venezuela refused to comment on the Colombian resolution yesterday. He indicated that he did not regard it as helpful by stating that all the OAS accords, agreed last May and designed to end the political confrontation in Venezuela in a peaceful, constitutional, electoral and democratic way, are being observed.

President Ricardo Maduro has named Luis Enrique Garcí­a, Honduras's deputy chief of police, as the new director of San Pedro Sula prison, where 104 inmates died in a fire last week. Maduro has come under intense pressure to reform the creaking national prison system, which has been under increasing strain since the passage of his tough new law last year to clamp down on the mara street gangs.

Garcí­a's remit will be to investigate the causes of the fire and make plans to improve the safety and conditions of prisons. The fire has excited considerable controversy at home and abroad as the victims were all members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang. A similar fire in a prison near the Caribbean coastal town of La Ceiba last April claimed 68 lives, the bulk of them maras. Survivors say that the prison guards did nothing to help them and actually responded to their cries with gunfire.

The Roman Catholic Church has called for a sincere investigation into the causes of the fire, which it says was not the result of a dreadful accident but human negligence. There are some 10,500 inmates in Honduras's 23 prisons, all of which are overcrowded. The prison in San Pedro Sula, for example, is built to hold 900 inmates, but more than twice this number were being held when the fire broke out.

Development: Manuel Cova, the number two in the independent trade union movement, the CTV, called for the opposition to hold primary elections to pick its presidential candidate almost as soon as the recall referendum on President Hugo Chávez is out of the way. Cova suggested, on 29 June, that the primary should be held on 22 August. The recall referendum is scheduled for 15 August.

Significance: Cova's call is likely to annoy his fellow opponents of President Hugo Chávez . The one thing the opposition agrees about is that Chávez should go. The various elements in the anti-Chavista alliance all disagree, often vehemently, about who should replace him.

Cova's line is that if the opposition sets a date for its primary now, the government will have more difficulty in delaying the recall referendum. The opposition fears that the government will deliberately delay the recall referendum because after 19 August, under the constitution, if Chávez is recalled, the current vice president José Vicente Rangel, will automatically take over and serve out the remainder of Chávez 's term until 2006.

Development: President Carlos Mesa of Bolivia said that he would be happy to sell gas to Chile provided Chile granted Bolivia sovereign access to the sea.

Significance: Mesa's statement represents a slight softening of Bolivian policy towards Chile. Mesa said that it was clear that Bolivia had something Chile wanted and Bolivia would be happy to provide the gas, provided it achieved access to the Pacific. Mesa called for the three way summit, involving President Lagos of Chile and President Toledo of Peru to sort out the issue. 

Bolivia and Chile have met at the deputy minister level about the issue of Bolivian access to the Pacific. Chile's line is that it will not allow its national territory to be divided by a corridor linking Bolivia to the sea. 

Chile's preferred option is for a corridor along the border with Peru. Another possible option would be the Koeningsberg/Kallingrad option in which Bolivia had sovereignty over a port and the area around it but did not have sovereignty over the access from Bolivia to the port.

Mesa's government recently agreed to export gas to North America via the Peruvian port of Ilo.

ECUADOR: Exports were up by US$697m between January and August this year compared with the same period of 2003.

EL SALVADOR: Remittances from Salvadorean expatriates totalled US$1.6bn for the first eight months of the year, according to the central bank.

PERU: Economy minister Pedro Pablo Kuczynski forecast a trade surplus of US$2.4bn this year.

Development: The US criticised supporters of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on 12 October for destabilising the country and preventing international emergency relief convoys from getting through to the flood-devastated areas of north-western Haiti.

Significance: The latest toll of victims is 46 since 30 September, when pro-Aristide loyalists launched 'Operation Baghdad', so named because they are intent on converting Port-au-Prince into a Caribbean twin of the Iraqi capital. Aristide supporters, known as chimí¨res, are demanding that the former president is allowed to return from his exile in South Africa to complete his term, which was curtailed in February when he was overthrown in a violent uprising.

'Over the past two weeks, pro-Aristide thugs have murdered policemen, looted businesses and public installations, and terrorized civilians. On 11 October, pro-Aristide gunman killed three people in random attacks; there are reports that one parent was killed while walking his child to school,' said the spokesman for the US State Department, Richard Boucher. This is part of 'a systematic campaign to destabilize the interim government,' he said, adding that the violence was reminiscent of 'the worst days of Mr. Aristide's rule, which was characterized by the criminal use of street gangs to spread violence and political repression.'

The UN stabilisation force in Haiti, Minustah, is patrolling the streets of Port-au-Prince and conducted its first joint operation with Haiti's national police on 8 September. The head of Minustah, Augusto Heleno Ribeiro Pereira says that his force is being overstretched because various countries have failed to deploy the troops they promised: 'We are operating at just 40% strength, nearly 2,800 men. When a crisis situation arises, it is obvious that we are very few for the needs of this country. [...] It is difficult to work in these conditions,' he said.

Development: The government appealed for calm on 15 November ahead of today's nationwide strike.

Significance: The strike has called by the Frente Nacional para la Soberaní­a y la Vida (FNSV) to protest against the presence of regular troops in the Paraguayan police, and the imprisonment of peasants who, pushing for land reform, have invaded estates. The strike will take place in Asunción and other main cities and in rural areas.
A spokesman for the FNSV, Hugo Rí­cher, said that the strike will be 'historic'. He said that he hoped that the government would as a result be persuaded to continue talking to the FNSV and fulfil its commitment to land reform.
The interior minister, Nelson Mora, said that between 8,000 and 14,000 policemen will be responsible for monitoring the strike, and he called for calm from 'everyone, and especially the peasants'. Mora said the government would respect legal protests but would not allow roads to be blocked.

ARGENTINA: The economy grew 8.3% year-on-year in the third quarter, giving an expansion of 8.8% for the first nine months of 2004.

ARGENTINA: Industrial production rose 8.3% year-on-year in November and was up 0.7% from October's level.

BRAZIL: The trade and industry minister, Luiz Fernando Furlan, said that exports in 2005 would grow more slowly that they had in 2004. In the first 11 months of 2004, Brazil's exports were up by 30%. If this continues in December the country's exports would come to US$95.2bn for the year. 

MEXICO: The government agreed to increase the minimum age by 4.5% from 1 January. This is below the likely rate of inflation in 2004. 

VENEZUELA: The planning and development minister, Jorge Giordani, said that growth in 2004 would be between 15% and 16% and that inflation would be under 19.5%.

Development: Peru and China agreed to become "strategic partners" on 27 January. The vice-president of China, Zeng Qinghong, signed a series of agreements on trade, investment and tourism with Peru during his official visit to the country.

Significance: The agreement cements China's position as an increasingly important trade partner for Peru. China agreed to take a more active role in developing Peru's gas and oil resources and invest in mineral extraction projects. It also recognised Peru as an official tourist destination and set export and import standards for Peruvian grapes and Chinese apples.

Trade between Peru and China increased 51% in 2004 to over US$2bn and represented 16% of Peru's total foreign trade. Peru is the fifth-largest producer of copper in the world (and the third-largest producer of zinc). Although China accounts for 22% of world copper production it produces only 20% of what it needs. President Alejandro Toledo will visit China in May.

Zeng, who visited Mexico before Peru, will move on to Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago, where oil and gas will figure prominently in discussions. China is keen to invest in large-scale oil- and gas-exploration projects there. Zeng will attend the first ministerial-level meeting of the China-Caribbean Economy and Trade Cooperation Forum 2005 in Kingston, Jamaica, on 2 February.

Development: The general strike that started in El Alto on 2 March drew only limited support.

Significance: The strike, organised by the Federación de Juntas Vecinales, was called to get the government to take over the water and sewage company, Aguas del Illimani, but most people in the conurbation which sprawls around La Paz ignored the call. The police said that access to the airport was secure and that most routes into La Paz were open. The strike has received far less support than the strike on 10 January which led to the government agreeing to cancel the Aguas del Illimani contract. 

There are other, separate protests around the country which are blocking some highways. The road to Argentina and southern Brazil remains closed at Camiri (because protesters want the state oil company to set up a regional headquarters there) and the road to the Pacific ports is blocked at Oruro. All the roads from Sucre, the constitutional capital of the country, are currently blocked. 

The second biggest party in congress, the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), led by Evo Morales, the coca growers' leader, is backing the roadblocks in the east of the country. The MAS wants to put pressure on congress to increase the tax take from hydrocarbon companies and to authorise a constituent assembly to reform the constitution. 

The road from Santa Cruz to Morales's heartland, around Cochabamba, remains blocked at Yapacani. The protesters here want the hydrocarbons reform, which is still winding through the lower chamber of congress, to provide areas which produce hydrocarbons with a bigger slice of the revenues. They want 10% of the royalties to go to the producing municipalities while other municipalities would get only 3%.

Development: On 7 April thousands of Guatemalans from across the country protested against the US-Central American free trade agreement (Cafta), which was ratified by congress on 10 March.

Significance: The leader of the Movimiento Indí­gena, Campesino, Sindical y Popular (MICSP), Daniel Pascual, who coordinated demonstrations against the ratification of Cafta in March is determined not to allow the protests to fizzle out. He claims that more than 10,000 protesters took part in the protests countrywide and blocked several important roads in the interior. It looks, however, very much like the umbrella social organisation is engaged in a futile fight. Later in the day on 7 April Guatemala's top tribunal, the constitutional court, ruled that there is nothing unconstitutional about Cafta.

There may yet be problems for Cafta further south in Central America. Although El Salvador and Honduras have already ratified Cafta, Nicaragua's opposition Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, the largest bloc in the national assembly, is opposed to Cafta. Cafta is also the subject of fierce political debate in Costa Rica. On 16 March the foreign trade minister, Manuel González Saenz, ruled out ratification of Cafta in the immediate future due to pressure from social organisations. The Dominican Republic, a late addition to the Cafta negotiations, seems likely to approve the agreement.