by the El Reportero’s news services
Alan García
NEW YORK– Costa Rica stepped up pressure on international mediators to engage in its territory dispute with Nicaragua, after Google Maps was cited in an incident that saw the neighboring countries dispatch forces to their joint border.
The Internet search giant joined the fray after a Nicaraguan commander cited Google’s version of the border map in an interview with Costa Rican newspaper La Nacion to justify a raid on a disputed border area.
The area is hotly disputed by the two neighbors, and Costa Rica has asked the Organization of American States (OAS) to investigate the alleged violations of its territory. OAS Secretary General Jose Manuel Insulza is touring both countries in a bid to mediate the dispute.
Alan García relaunches his scheme for a Pacific seaboard alliance
Peruvian president Alan García has launched a new, slimmed-down but more ambitious version of the ‘Pacific Arc’ initiative he championed four years ago. He is proposing what he describes as an ‘in-depth integration agreement’ with Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Panama and an alternative to the ‘doomed’ existing integration mechanisms.
As with his previous initiative, García is seeking partners among the governments that are closest to the US. Brazil, meanwhile has signalled that it intends to press ahead with Mercosur (and with other ‘variable geometry’ initiatives).
Brazil sabre-rattles over weak dollar
Throughout the past month, Brazil’s minister of finance, Guido Mantega, has made increasingly fierce criticisms of U.S. economic policy and the developing ‘global currency war’. After the US Federal Reserve Board’s decision to print another US$600bn of cash, commentators fear that there will be a showdown between the U.S. and the world’s emerging economies, led by Brazil and China, at the forthcoming G-20 meeting in Seoul, South Korea, on Nov. 11-12.
Santos against “the nucleus of illegality”
On 4 November, General Oscar Naranjo, the head of the Colombian national police, confirmed that records held by the Dirección Nacional de Estupefacientes (DNE, the national drugs directorate) had been tampered with. The revelation of irregularities in top institutions had been expected since President Juan Manuel Santos announced (on 30 October) that the executive would take measures against what he called “the nucleus of illegality”. On Nov. 2 the executive placed the DNE under administration pending an investigation into “administrative corruption”.
The move underlines the high risk of penetration of Colombia’s public institutions by narco-trafficking groups. But it also allows the new Santos administration to demonstrate its stated commitment to confronting criminal interests head on.
Dilma takes Lula’s crown
On Oct. 31, Dilma Rousseff, 62, of the ruling left-wing Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), was elected Brazil’s first female president with a resounding 56 percentof the second round run-off vote, compared to 44 percent for her rival José Serra of the opposition Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB). Her election signals close policy continuity with the immensely popular outgoing administration led by President Lula da Silva, which has been in power since January 2003.
‘Dilma’, as she’s locally known, becomes the 12th female president in Latin America & the Caribbean and joins three incumbents in the region – Argentina’s Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (elected in 2007), Costa Rica’s Laura Chinchilla (2010) and Trinidad & Tobago’s Kamla Persad-Bissessar (2010). Globally, she joins a small club of just 17 female leaders. (EFE and Latin News contributed to this report.)
