The ITUC Global Rights Index ranks 139 countries against 97 internationally recognized indicators to assess where workers’ rights are best protected, in law and in practice. 

The United Nations welcomed today a decision by Costa Rica’s public health and pension system, CCSS, to grant gay couples coverage on the same terms as heterosexual couples. 

The Canadian government reported that 50% of Mexicans traveling there could receive their visas in less than ten days, thanks to the CAN + program that streamlines the process in some cases. 

President Otto Pérez Molina has said that “Latin America is a land of opportunity.” 

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Director for the Western Hemisphere Department Alejandro Werner has once again called for the region to embark upon economic reforms, claiming that the “least difficult” phase of economic growth is now over. 

Russia intends to promote cooperative programs in the areas of telecommunications, space technology, remote sensing, space medicine, and biology in Nicaragua. 

The Chinese Foreign Minister has underscored the “strategic” significance of Brazil for Beijing, Chinese companies are looking to Guatemala, and President-elect Luis Guillermo Solís of Costa Rica says ‘no deal’ to an agreement his predecessor cut with China. 

Cuba and the European Union are now negotiating over new agreements regarding political dialogue and economic cooperation. 

On his first trip to Central America in the 1980s, the now sainted Pope John Paul II blithely disregarded the bloody deeds of his hosts in Guatemala and El Salvador as well as those of the U.S. supported Contras attacking Nicaragua. 

The government of President José Mujica in Uruguay offered his country as a refuge for Syrian child victims of war in that country, shortly after becoming the first South American nation to accept a U.S. proposal to host Guantanamo detainees.