With just weeks to go before Colombia’s presidential elections, polls show President Juan Manuel Santos maintains a comfortable lead, but a second round is almost certain.  Meanwhile the continuing episode of ousted Mayor Gustavo Petro hangs over the political scene. 

The governor of Miranda state, Henrique Capriles, addressed the opposition’s view of the effectiveness of talks with the embattled government of Nicolás Maduro. 

The Ashaninka indigenous leader Ruth Buendía received the Goldman Prize and Lima’s Mayor Susana Villarán launched her re-election campaign. 

The new, leftist president of El Salvador looks to bring former dissidents in from the cold. 

Leaders of the Kirchnerista wing of Peronismo are eying post 2015 scenarios. 

The Latin American right faces a critical situation.  With just two governments securely in their column, and no real chance of winning a new country for their cause in elections this year, the debate has turned to how to address the new scenario of political and ideological dominance by the left.  

The ongoing political turmoil in Venezuela continued on a low boil, with more efforts to find a working agreement between the government of Nicolás Maduro and the country’s well-heeled protestors.  Yet there was still plenty of drama with the kidnapping and subsequent release of an opposition journalist. 

In the most dramatic hour of the Kirchner era, Senate majority leader Miguel Angel Pichetto looked at Vice-President Julio Cobos straight in the eyes and quoted the Bible.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s popularity has dipped five percentage points ahead of October’s presidential elections, revealed a new poll published on Sunday.

President Michelle Bachelet aims to move decisively on 56 measures she promised to enact within the first 100 days of her government, which have been overshadowed by the massive earthquake that recently struck off the coast.