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Development: On 18 December the Consejo Nacional de Población (Conapo) claimed that there were 29.3m people of Mexican extraction in the US.

Significance: Mexicans dominate the Hispanic community in the US, but they have had much less political clout than the Cuban-Americans. This is because the Cuban-Americans cluster together in Miami and southern Florida, where they form a decisive lobby in one of the most important states, electorally, in the US.

The government of President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa has become increasingly concerned at the anti-immigrant tone of the debate in the US presidential primaries. The Conapo report is an attempt to warn candidates that they risk alienating a significant bloc of voters if they persist in blaming immigration for the US's ills.

BRAZIL: The government posted a record R$101.6bn primary budget surplus in 2007, equivalent to 3.98% of gross domestic product. The figure was above the central bank's 3.75% target.

BRAZIL: The government paid RS101.6bn in interest rates to bankroll its debt in 2007, a figure equivalent to 6.25% of gross domestic product. The ratio was the lowest since 1997, when it reached 4.61% of gdp.

Development: The Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) announced on 4 March that Joaquí­n Gómez will replace Raúl Reyes in the guerrilla group's secretariat (its high command).

Significance: Gómez, whose real name is Milton de Jesús Toncel, will not fulfil as prominent a role as Reyes, who was the Farc's spokesperson and second-in-command. His promotion is logical insofar as he is a key military commander of the Farc's forces in the south of Colombia, which were previously under Reyes' control. The so-called Bloque Sur is the Farc's strongest front.

It is not clear who will replace Reyes as spokesperson or as deputy leader to the Farc's ailing chief, Manuel Marulanda. Iván Márquez remains the most likely candidate, but the statement released by the Farc made no mention of the issue. The Farc's statement, which was dated 2 March and is the guerrilla group's first response to Reyes's death, focused on Reyes' achievements, particularly the progress he had made in negotiating the release of the Farc's hostages.

Development: On 7 April Cristina Fernández de Kirchner committed to helping Europe deal constructively with Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez during her 36-hour official trip to Paris.

Significance: As Argentine daily La Nación remarked: "If Hugo Chávez is sometimes a cause for concern for the majority of EU countries, to France he is a constant headache". This, since Paris has been crusading to free French-Colombian ex presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, held hostage since 2002 by the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc). France has realised that the solution must pass through Chávez , who has acted as a privileged interlocutor with the Farc since November last year.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been trying to diversify his allies in Latin America in an attempt to exert influence over Chávez - and thereby the Farc - in the hope of securing Betancourt's release. In this context, Fernández could be a valuable ally to France, especially given the close relationship her husband and former president, Néstor Kirchner, maintains with Venezuela.  

As soon as the Argentine president touched French soil on 6 April, she headed a protest to free Betancourt; Sarkozy publicly valued her gesture.  

Fernández seemed to have less success in dealing with her own agenda, however. Although one of the main aims of her visit was supposed to be the negotiation of the US$3600m default debt Argentina still owes the Paris Club, the issue was apparently not discussed in her meetings with Sarkozy and prime minister François Fillon.

Despite this, Cristina managed to find time while in the French capital to meet supermodel Naomi Campbell and UNESCO director general, Koichiro Matsuura.

Development: On 13 April Argentina's most-read daily, Clarí­n , blamed the government for the fact that two senior figures at the newspaper, Ernestina Herrera de Noble and Héctor Magnetto, have received threats.

Significance: President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has repeatedly criticised Clarí­n and other leading newspapers, which the president blames for the rapid decline in her government's approval ratings. Fernández's predecessor and husband, Néstor Kirchner, came under intense criticism both at home and abroad for his attempts to bully the media, and Clarí­n believes the present administration is doing just the same.

Herrera de Noble, the director of the Clarí­n group, and Magnetto, the chief executive officer, were threatened in an email (which also contained photos of their families) that circulated around the media group's offices. The newspaper said that the email “bears the signature" of La Cámpora, a youth wing of the ruling Partido Justicialista (PJ) which is led by Máximo Kirchner, the son of Cristina and Néstor Kirchner.

The newspaper has demanded a full investigation by the government. “The government's confrontational policy and its ever-increasing pressure on economic and political figures have created a climate which encourages trouble-makers who make threats either directly or by virtual means," Clarí­n declared in its editorial.

COLOMBIA: Industrial production rose 9.82% in April compared with the same month a year earlier.

COLOMBIA: Retail sales rose 1.19% in April this year compared with the same month a year earlier.

MEXICO: Industrial output fell a seasonally adjusted 1.81% in April compared to the previous month.

Development: On 21 July a poll in a Mexico City newspaper, Milenio, found that 51% of Mexicans believed that the drug gangs were winning.

Significance: This is the second poll which has found that Mexicans do not believe that the government is winning its increasingly gory battle against the drug gangs. What should worry the government is that less than a quarter of those polled (24%) believed that the government was on top. The others either did not know (12%) or thought that the two sides were about even (13%).

So far this year, over 2,300 people have died in gang violence. The government has, to be fair, managed to confine the killing to only a few states. The worst are Sinaloa and Chihuahua which, put together, account for about half the killings this year.

The Milenio poll found that voters (only 500, and polled by telephone), were less confident that the government was now attacking the gangsters “where it hurt". Only 38% said that this was happening now, down from 52% in April 2007. There was also a substantial drop in the percentage of people who thought President Felipe Calderón should carry on with the current policy. In April 2007 73% did but now only 55% do. There was an almost identical drop in support for the use of the army (75% down to 54%).

ARGENTINA: The trade surplus widened to US$1bn in July.

CHILE: The economy grew 4.3% on-year in the second quarter.

MEXICO: Retail sales rose 1.6% in June.

MEXICO: The current account deficit rose to US$2.018bn in the second quarter according to the central bank.

MEXICO: The trade deficit stood at US$1.081bn in July.

VENEZUELA: Inflation may reach 27% this year, Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez admitted on 22 August.

Development: On 25 September the government and the opposition prefects failed to sign the deal that they had expected to clinch.

Significance: The sticking point is the new constitution. Both sides are still talking and making optimistic noises. The talks are likely to resume on Monday. The risk for the opposition prefects is that the delay could enrage the radicals, who have so far been held at bay by the government of President Evo Morales.

Both sides seem to be pretty close to a deal. Mario Cossio, the prefect of Tarija who is leading the prefects' negotiating team, said that the prefects would not sign a deal until everything had been agreed: this is rather different from what Rubén Costas, the prefect of Santa Cruz, was saying earlier this week when he talked about signing a framework deal. Even the apparent agreement on the Impuesto Directo a los Hidrocarburos (IDH) seems to be dissolving: the prefects say that the government is backing away from the proposed deal. This deal held that the increased state pensions (which are currently paid for by the IDH) could be financed from next year on by dividends from “capitalised" (ie, privatised) state companies and taxes on oil production. This would allow the prefects access to most of the IDH (as they had before).

On autonomy, the prefects say that the two sides have agreed on the powers the departments should have, but not as to how these mesh with municipal and indigenous peoples' rights. The prefects have agreed, apparently, that the central government should set fiscal policy; be the only issuer of debt (both domestic and foreign); and run the justice system. The government argues that other questions - such as municipal and indigenous peoples' issues - either have been, or will be, resolved in the new constitution. What the government wants is the prefects to agree that congress should approve a law calling for a referendum on the new constitution. 

Government sees Farc behind mass indigenous protest

A protest march by indigenous peoples in Colombia grew into an angry gathering of more than 30,000 after clashes with the police left a toll of two dead and about 100 injured. The atmosphere has been soured further by government claims that the march had been 'infiltrated' by the Farc guerrillas, and by President Álvaro Uribe's failure to turn up at a scheduled meeting with the Indians.

The march, led by the Organización Nacional Indí­gena de Colombia (Onic) set out on 13 October from La Marí­a, in the southwestern department of Cauca, with some 7,000 participants mainly of the Páez and Guambiano peoples. Over the following days, as they made their way along the Pan-American highway through Cauca, Valle del Cauca and Risaralda, erecting the occasional roadblock, they clashed with police. It was in Cauca that two marchers were killed. According to Onic president, Luis Evelis Andrade, one was struck down by gunfire, the other by machete blows. By 15 October indigenous groups in 16 of Colombia's 32 departments had joined the protest. Just over a week later, when the march reached Cali, an estimated 22,000 more had swelled their ranks.

The protest was about two things: the demand for the restitution of ancestral lands, and a call for government action against what Onic has described as genocide — the displacement and killing of indigenous peoples as a result of the internal conflict. Onic reports that 1,226 members of indigenous communities, many of them in leadership positions, have been killed since 2002 (20 of them since the beginning of this year). According to Onic, “75% [of the murders were] the responsibility of paramilitary and government forces, [as well as] many others murdered by the guerrillas." Another 300 disappeared and 1,600 were imprisoned.

In the same period, just under 54,000 members of indigenous communities have been displaced from their homes by the conflict. The result, says Onic, is that 18 communities with fewer than 200 members are at risk of extinction (10 are down to fewer than 100 members), and another 32 are on the very threshold of long-term viability, with fewer than 500 members. Colombia has 102 known ethnic groups, with a combined population of about 1.6m. This accounts for only 3.6% of Colombia's total population, though their high concentration in some areas has made them a political force to be reckoned with in recent decades, winning mayoralties and even a departmental governorship as well as representation in congress over and above their guaranteed quota.

The protest also claimed a casualty on the government side: a police officer who lost two hands when he handled a satchel containing a rudimentary explosive device, similar to others the police reported being hurled at them. On 15 October President Uribe proclaimed that he would not accept “traps" set by the Indians, when “terrorists infiltrate [their protests], massacre the police and carry out all kinds of violence." General Óscar Naranjo, director of the national police, claimed that he had evidence that the protest had been infiltrated by the Farc's 6th 'front'. Social protection minister Diego Palacio and Marí­a del Pilar Hurtado, director of the DAS (secret police), have conflated this with protests staged by cane-cutters, portraying the whole as the work of “dark forces" intent on destabilising the government. President Uribe has underlined that since 2006 at least three law-enforcement officers have been killed and at least 70 have been injured in incidents involving Indians.

Onic's response was to produce a soldier from a counterinsurgency unit seized by protesters for having infiltrated the march carrying a rucksack that contained camouflage uniforms, communications equipment and a manual on the use of arms and explosives. These materials, said Onic, “were meant to be found by police in order to claim that the march had been infiltrated by illegal armed groups."

Uribe only acknowledged on 22 October that at least one police officer had fired his gun after video footage of the episode was shown on CNN. However, he insisted that forensic evidence showed that the two dead protesters had been killed by the accidental detonation of “low-powered explosive devices" which they had been handling, not by gunfire. The police officer involved in the shooting claimed that he had fired over the heads of the protesters; the broadcast image is unclear about this.

President Uribe had agreed to meet the protesters in Cali on 26 October, but at the last minute chose to first attend to the escape from captivity of the hostage who had been held for the longest period (eight years) by the Farc. He offered to reschedule the meeting for 2 November in Popayán, capital of Cauca, but Onic turned him down, demanding instead that the meeting take place in La Marí­a, where their march had started. At time of writing, the indigenous leaders were pondering a march on Bogotá in which, they said, great care would be taken to offer the police no grounds to act against them.

Development: On 1 December an opinion poll indicated that support for the immediate re-election of President Alvaro Uribe in 2010 is at 54%, down from 63% in October.

Significance: Uribe is feeling the effects of the crisis caused by the collapse of numerous fraudulent pyramid schemes across the country, which has affected thousands of Colombians (and their wallets). In July, following the high profile success of the military operation which freed Ingrid Betancourt and 11 other hostages from the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, support for a third term for Uribe in 2010 was at 74%.

The poll comes on the back of the surprise defeat in Colombia's lower house last week of a bill for a referendum which, if it had passed, would have allowed Uribe to run for a third term in 2010, should he wish to. The bill was narrowly defeated when two of Uribe's supporters failed to back the motion, at the request, they said, of those affected by the fraud crisis in their departments. The defeat is, however, unlikely to prove categorical. Uribistas are pressing for a new debate on the grounds that the vote did not achieve the absolute majority required to pass or reject constitutional reforms.

The poll, carried out by Invamer Gallup for weekly news magazine Semana, indicates that in the south of the country - one of the areas worst hit by the pyramid fraud - the President's approval rating is below 50%, and some 77% of respondents believe that the situation in the country is getting worse under his leadership.

Nevertheless, the “teflon effect" - the nickname given by the Colombian media to Uribe's enduringly high levels of popularity - is still in evidence: according to the poll, which has a margin of error of 3.5%, Uribe's overall approval rating has fallen slightly but remains high - at 70%, down from 75% in October. According to Semana's analysis of the results, “Colombians still want Uribe, but increasingly they only want him until 2010".

Development: On 15 January President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua persuaded his neighbours to back him at a regional summit.

Significance: The regional endorsement of his administration is a major setback to the rightwing opposition which argues that the Ortega government rigged the municipal elections in November. In the final declaration of the XXXIV summit of presidents of the Sistema de la Integración Centroamericana (SICA), the signatories called on aid donors not to make conditions on aid for “certain" countries in the region _and to respect government programmes and development decisions".

Nicaragua is the only country in the region facing such conditions on US$120m in aid after donors backed opposition claims that the municipal elections were rigged. The European Union has suspended US$37m in aid and the US halted all aid to Nicaragua in December. The IDB has also said that it cannot make a loan of US$20m to Nicaragua unless the Nicaraguan congress approves the borrowing: the congress has been inquorate as both the government and the opposition have boycotted it to make their differing points about the validity of the November elections.

The SICA consists of: Belize; Guatemala; El Salvador; Honduras; Nicaragua; Costa Rica; and, Panama. The XXXIV summit was held in Managua, Nicaragua. Ortega currently holds the six month rotating presidency of the SICA. 

Development: On 23 February electoral watchdog Ética y Transparencia (EyT) released its final report on the November municipal elections which showed that fraud took place in 40 of the country's 146 municipalities.

Significance: The release of the report lends further weight to demands by the opposition that the elections be nullified. It also ups the pressure on the government of President Daniel Ortega, which is currently facing the suspension of nearly US$37m in budgetary assistance from the European Union and US$64m from the US Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) programme over transparency concerns. Ortega is due to meet MCC representatives next week to discuss whether the funding will be suspended indefinitely.

The government had refused to allow EyT (along with other national and international watchdogs) to oversee the elections, which gave the FSLN 105 of the 146 municipalities in which elections took place, while the opposition Partido Liberal Constitucionalista (PLC) was awarded victories in only 37 municipalities.

However, despite the lack of authorization, EyT sent 30,000 volunteers to polling stations.

According to the report released yesterday, the municipalities in which fraud was alleged to have taken place include the capital, Managua, as well as six provincial capitals - Chinandega, Jinotega, Juigalpa, León, Masaya, Ocotal and Rivas.

Key findings include the fact that in Managua, where defeated opposition candidate Eduardo Montealegre continues to contest the victory of the FSLN's Alexis Argüello, the supreme electoral court (TSE) has failed to publish results from 31% of polling stations, all of which were opposition strongholds.

Other anomalies flagged up include the lack of election observers; the early closure of 10% of the country's polling stations, of which 20% were in Managua and the expulsion of opposition officials from at least 10% of polling stations.

Development: On 1 April the attorney general, Washington Pesántez, said that the government may prosecute people spreading rumours about an end to dollarisation.

Significance: The latest round of wild rumours, which originated in the opposition, indicate its desperation ahead of an expected heavy defeat by the government of President Rafael Correa in the 26 April elections.

The rumours have multiplied this week for four reasons. The first two are economic. The others are speculative.

The principal economic reason for ending dollarisation is the collapse of central bank reserves. Over the past six months, the central bank's net foreign currency reserves have more than halved since peaking at over US$5.68bn in September 2008.

The second is that Ecuador's local trade partners, Colombia and Peru, have seen their currencies weaken against the US dollar in the past six months and so their products have started to undercut domestically-produced goods in the Ecuadorean market. As Ecuador cannot devalue without abandoning the dollar, which it adopted in 2000, the Correa government has had to respond by jacking up import tariffs and imposing quotas.

The first speculative reason is that that President Correa himself suggested on 31 March that Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and other countries in the region should introduce a new currency, the Sucre, to settle bilateral transactions (an idea previously floated by Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez ). Currently, these countries settle their bilateral trade in dollars. Correa argued that like the European Union, South America should create its own currency, though he admitted that this was a long-term scheme.

The third reason for the surge in rumours is that opposition-supporting newspapers, notably Expreso, have reported that a ship arrived in Guayaquil with containers full of the new currency for Ecuador, printed in Iran, dubbed the Condor.

Anonymous sources claimed to have seen the Condor notes which, they said, were printed with images of Correa above those of the national hero, Eloy Alfaro, and President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. The opposition press even speculated that the Condor would trade at three to the dollar.

On 1 April, the central bank announced, in conjunction with the national customs service, that indeed a ship carrying currency had docked at Guayaquil on 8 March but it was carrying 11 containers full of US quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies. The government agencies said that the 42m pieces of small change were worth US$1.28m.

The economic argument in favour of devaluation is now weakening. Central bank's reserves are recovering from a 13 March low, according to its data. On 13 March reserves stood at US$2.46bn, while the central bank's actual cash deposits held in foreign banks were under US$600m.

On 27 March, reserves stood at US$2.53bn. More importantly, cash deposits were up to US$896m.

The Andean Community also ruled this week that Ecuador's tariffs were allowable, at least for the time being.

Development: On 11 May three policemen were killed in an ambush in Michoacán.

Significance: The gangs have started to increase their rate of killing again, after a bit of a lull in March and April. In the first full week of May, Reforma, a Mexico City newspaper, reckoned that 135 people were killed by gangsters. This brought the total for gang deaths to 2,139 between 1 January and 8 May.

Equally worrying for the government was the reappearance of Narco banners (narcomantas) which were draped in prominent places in cities in Guerrero and Morelos. All the banners read the same. They were a garbled warning to security officials not to persecute the families of alleged gangsters. The banners had a political tinge, alleging that the political class in Mexico has no honour. The banners appear to be the work of the La Familia gang which is powerful in Michoacán.

Development: On 16 June, Bolivia's nationalised natural-gas pipeline operator, Yacimientos Petrolí­feros Fiscales Bolivianos-Transporte (YPFB-Transporte) fired its president, Gildo Angulo.

Significance: The move points to ongoing problems within Bolivia's state oil company, the development of which is essential to President Evo Morales's plans for economic growth. Bolivia's gas sector is highly lucrative, with gas sales contributing US$3.4bn to state coffers in 2008, equivalent to a third of GDP and half of total exports.

Angulo was only appointed on 12 May and while the official explanation for his dismissal was “incompetence", four days earlier he had accused the president of YPFB, Carlos Villegas, of “irregularities" and of running the state oil company as if it was “his private business".

Angulo's allegations of corruption at the top are nothing new - the firm is struggling to recover credibility after the worst scandal to hit the Morales government broke in February and saw the departure of YPFB president, Sergio Ramí­rez, a key ally of Morales.

Specifically, Angulo's accusations came as Villegas was completing a deal with the foreign companies Royal Dutch Shell and Britain's Ashmore - which had held a combined 50% stake in YPFB-Transport (formerly Transredes) - to assume their debts in exchange for dropping an arbitration process.

Although Morales nationalized Transredes in May 2008, subsequent talks with the foreign firms failed to yield an agreement on appropriate compensation.

Under the latest deal, YPFB will pay YPFB-Transporte's US$50m tax bill as well as US$120m each to Shell and Ashmore for their combined share.

Development: On 25 July Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Paraguay's President Fernando Lugo signed an agreement which will triple the amount Brazil pays Paraguay for energy from the jointly-owned Itaipú hydroelectric dam, and allow Paraguay to sell its excess energy directly to the Brazilian power market.

Significance: The deal is a significant political victory for Lugo, who is facing dwindling popular support and the rupture of his ruling coalition. The feeling in Brazil is that Lula decided to compromise on the renegotiation of the treaty in order to throw Lugo a political lifeline, with the aim of avoiding future instability in its smaller neighbour.

“It's of no interest to Brazil that it develops, if our partners don't also grow and develop," Lula said following the signing of the agreement in Asunción . “We bigger countries have the obligation to help smaller countries achieve a qualitative jump in their development and competitiveness".

Under the 1973 Itaipú treaty, Brazil and Paraguay are both entitled to 50% of energy generated from the Itaipú, the world's largest hydroelectric dam by output. In practice, Paraguay only uses around 5% of the dam's output and, barred from selling the energy to third parties, has to cede the rest to Brazil at well below market prices. The new agreement stipulates that Brazil, which gets around 20% of its energy from Itaipú, will triple its annual compensation payment to Paraguay starting in 2010, from around US$120m to US$360m.

The agreement will also allow Paraguay “gradually" to bypass Brazil's biggest power utility company Eletrobrás and sell energy directly to other operators in Brazil. Negotiators were given a 60 days to agree on a timetable for Paraguay's entry into the Brazilian energy market.

The 31-point deal states that Brazil will contemplate the possibility of allowing the future sale of excess power from Itaipú to third countries Brazil will also finance various infrastructure projects, including two border bridges and a transmission line from Itaipú to Villa Hayes, near Asunción , which Lugo said was worth some US$450m.

Development: Today (3 September) the deposed president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, will meet the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, for the second time since he was ousted in coup d'etat on 28 June.

Significance: With the entire region growing increasingly impatient with the US for its apparent reluctance to take a tougher stance on the Honduras crisis, the state department spokesman, Ian Kelly, was again non-committal in the 2 September daily press briefing, saying that the US had still not 'determined' whether Zelaya's removal was a military coup, which could automatically trigger the suspension of all aid for the government of Honduras.

This equivocation is wearing thin. In today's Los Angeles Times, Howard L. Berman (D), a chairman on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, retorted, “This one looks, walks and quacks like a duck. It's time to stop hedging and call this bird what it is".

Kelly pointed out that the US had already (informally) suspended US$18m in aid, and so was complying with the law. If the State Department formally declares a military coup, this suspension will become legal, along with a further US$215m in aid under the Millennium Challenge Corporation (of which US$80m has already been disbursed). The ace card in this crisis is on the trade side. The US could, as already suggested by the Dominican Republic's President Leonel Fernández, expel Honduras from its Central America-Dominican Republican Free Trade Agreement (Cafta-DR).

He evaded a question on whether the US would recognise the outcome of the scheduled 29 November general elections if held by the de facto administration, stressing that “we're still focused on our main goal, which is the restoration of the democratic and constitutional order; in other words, the return of President Zelaya."

And, in response to Zelaya's claims that the de facto administration led by Roberto Micheletti is simply ignoring the US administration, Kelly parroted “we continue to believe that by calling on all the various actors involved in the political life in Tegucigalpa, by using the leverage such as the kind of the leverage that we have and by acting multilaterally through the Organization of American States, by starting to apply some other diplomatic means of pressure such as suspending aid to the government and reviewing all of our visa procedures and revoking some visas, but by using all of these forces that we can help the de facto leaders come to the right decision, and that's accepting the San José accord. In other words, we haven't given up yet on this."

Development: On 12 October El Nacional, an opposition newspaper, reported that a partial reform of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces Law will allow foreigners (military or civilian) to serve in the country's armed forces.

Significance: The law was rushed though the unicameral congress last week at the request of the executive headed by President Hugo Chávez . The first debate was on 1 October and the law was approved on 6 October. The new law modifies Article 50 to remove the stipulation that all members of so-called 'combat bodies' be Venezuelan. The controversial fifth unit of the Fuerzas Armadas Nacionales Bolivarianas (FANB), the Bolivarian Militia, in which these 'combat bodies' sit, has also been given legal status under the reform.

There have always been foreigners allowed in the Venezuelan military (mostly via exchange programs with allies) but the traditional Right in Venezuela shudders at the idea of armed Bolivians, Nicaraguans or, more notably, Cubans serving in any section of the FANB.

The Bolivarian Militia is defined as “a special body integrated by territorial militia and combat units aimed at complementing the FANB and will depend directly on the president as commander-in-chief". The opposition press pointed out that the militia's function is “to orientate, coordinate and support communal councils acting in an advisory capacity to council integral defence committees aimed at strengthening civilian-military unity".

The opposition Podemos voted against the bill, stating that the reform would open the way to "uniforming the Chávez government's political force", grouped under the ruling Partido Unido Socialista de Venezuela (PSUV). It also pointed out that congress does not have the legal capacity to add a fifth unit to the FANB, which consists of the army, national guard, navy and airforce.

Development: Over the weekend the Venezuelan government continued a campaign of inflammatory rhetoric and unfriendly actions against neighbouring Colombia.

Significance: After Venezuelan soldiers on Thursday (19 November) blew up two foot bridges on the border, alleging they were used by drug trafficking Colombian paramilitaries, the interior minister, Tarek El Aissami, announced the arrest, also on 19 November, of a 39-year old woman he alleged is a Colombian paramilitary leader (Magaly Janeth Moreno Vega) wanted by Interpol.

The woman was arrested in Maracaibo, the capital of the large oil-rich Western border state of Zulia, the site of some the recent violent incidents along the border that have been seized upon by President Hugo Chávez to ramp up tensions with Colombia. This is in retaliation for a new military agreement giving the US military expanded access to bases in Colombia.

The Colombian government, which only last week sent a diplomatic note to the UN in protest against President Chávez 's inflammatory rhetoric, is doing its best to avoid any further escalation of the spat. It thanked the Venezuelan authorities for the arrest.

On Saturday (21 November), Chávez declared that over 300 armoured vehicles and tanks on order from Russia, including T-72 combat tanks, as well as radars and air defence system, would arrive shortly, and he again exhorted his followers to join the so-called 'Bolivarian militias' in order to prepare the country's defences for a possible a joint Colombia-US attack.

Chávez also said that he would not talk directly with Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe and would only accept mediation by the 12-member Union of South American Nations (Unasur),whose defence council is due to meet in Manaus, Brazil on Friday (27 November). Last Saturday (21 November) Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, who holds the pro tempore presidency of Unasur, expressed concern about the situation, but stressed that the fundamental problem was not Chávez 's inflammatory rhetoric, but the fact that there are "seven North American bases in Colombia" and that, he said, "is a worry for the entire region".