According to one of the rapporteurs of Colombia’s Comisión Histórica del Conflicto, both the government and FARC agree that “armed struggle was futile.” 

The government of El Salvador is looking to finance an ambitious effort to reduce “the high delinquency rate in the country, especially that caused by gangs.” 

Uruguay will attempt a new approach to human rights and disappeared persons, an ongoing legacy of the military dictatorship; it will replace “truth and justice” with “truth and memory,” along the lines of the South African experience. 

Ecuador’s popular cartoonist, Xavier Bonilla, known as “Bonil,” has once again come in for harassment by the authorities, who don’t like the “tone” of his satire and say that it has “gone beyond the limit imposed by law.” 

As Latin America’s commodity boom has slacked off over the last year, presidents in the region have watched their popularity decline. Despite the damage attributed to corruption scandals, presidents across the political spectrum have suffered growing unpopularity that seems to be driven by economic issues. 

Nicaragua’s proposed trans-oceanic canal could be “the scenario for a slightly implausible summer blockbuster movie” with darkly powerful business interests, environmental dangers, social upheavals and “and even global intrigue.” 

The Comisión Internacional Contra la Impunidad en Guatemala (CICIG) has caused political polarization in the country since its creation, especially because powerful interests connected to the military governments of yore have convinced conservatives that it was the “creature of the leftists.”  Yet it is still needed.  

El Salvador has worked to reduce “extreme rural poverty,” but the numbers are squishy.  About 14 percent of the Honduran population does not have electrical service, mainly in rural areas and poor neighborhoods.  In Panama neglect of the rural sector has worsened since 2009, cutting the number of people working in agricultural production. 

Critics say the rapid deterioration of the Venezuelan economy, marked by distressing levels of scarcity that keep the shelves of supermarkets empty, is pushing the Maduro government towards a new stage of political instability. 

Hundreds of Indians, members of the Achuar community, disrupted production in 16 oil wells operated by Pluspetrol; Peru is one of the countries of Latin America that most reduced its poverty.