by the El Reportero’s news services
Juan Manuel Santos
It is almost as if Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos and his Venezuelan peer Hugo Chávez are competing with each other over who can make the biggest gesture of goodwill.
Fresh from the announcement by Santos that Colombia would extradite the alleged Venezuelan drug kingpin, Walid Makled, to his native country rather than the U.S. [WR-11-16], Chávez complied promptly with a request from Santos to arrest and hand over a man described by Santos as the arch propagandist of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) in Europe, as soon as a commercial plane carrying him touched down in Caracas.
The weak dollar problem
Most of the region from Brazil and the Southern Cone to Mexico is suffering from the unusual problem that their currencies are still appreciating against the US dollar. The Real hit R$156 against the dollar after Easter while the Mexican peso hit M$11.6.
In the past couple of years, the Real has appreciated 40 percent against the dollar while the Mexican peso has returned to the level it last reached in 2008. The main reason for the surge in the region’s currencies is that capital is fl owing into the region. There are major differences, however, in the sort of capital that is flowing into different parts of the region.
Martinelli’s crucial US meeting
Today (April 28) Panama’s President Ricardo Martinelli will meet US President Barack Obama in Washington to discuss trade and security. This is the first meeting between the two since Martinelli took offi ce in July 2009. The meeting is the latest test of US policy towards the region. Panama was the last country to see US direct military intervention in Latin America with the capture in 1989 of General Manuel Noriega (1983-1989).
The U.S.’s current relations with Martinelli, a rightwinger, are delicately poised. There are signs that U.S. Congressional approval of the bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is only a matter of time, yet U.S. embassy cables published by ‘WikiLeaks’ have revealed U.S. concerns about Martinelli’s anti-democratic tendencies and his government’s corruption.
Mexican Senate approves re-election for law makers
MEXICO CITY—Mexico’s Senate approved constitutional changes Wednesday that would let lawmakers run for re-election and permit independents to seek offi ce, part of a bid to make the political system more accountable to voters.
The changes, passed by the Senate in a 95-8 vote with eight abstentions, must still be approved by the lower house of Congress, at least 16 of Mexico’s 31 state legislatures and the president. Under Mexico’s current system, candidates for all local, state and federal offices must be endorsed by a political party and no publicly elected offi cial at any level can seek re-election.
The constitutional proposal would allow independent candidates for any offi ce, but the re-election change would apply only to federal legislators. Critics say the current system makes politicians who don’t have to worry about seeking a second term less beholden to voters. Instead, offi cials spend time currying favor with their own parties in a bid to seek nominations for other posts.
The proposed changes will create “a more democratic system, one closer to the people that represents the interests of society,” said Sen. Graco Ramirez of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party. (Latin News and Associated Press contributed to this news report.)
