The United Nations adopted a resolution decreeing that the Venezuelan government should immediately release Leopoldo López, the opposition leader who has been imprisoned for almost nine months in connection to the violent protests in Caracas in February. 

Observers call U.S. Federal Judge Thomas Griesa’s contempt of court ruling against Argentina “absurd,” while an Ecuadorian diplomat calls on Latin Americans to unite in resisting groups like the so-called “Vulture Funds.”

Venezuela would request an urgent meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries amid a drop in global oil prices, Foreign Minister Rafael Ramírez said. 

Costa Rica headed the ranking of infrastructure investment by using 5.4% of its GDP on infrastructure projects. 

Small producers change their production decisions to minimize the costs generated by the armed conflict.  

In the Panama Canal, freight tonnage and toll revenues are growing this year;  Guatemalan business owners hope to create a strategy to combat extortion through the Coalición por la Seguridad Ciudadana (Coalition for Citizen Safety), promoted and directed by the Fundación para el Desarrollo de Guatemala (Fundesa).

Reforms to the law on exploration and exploitation of geothermal resources were approved in the National Assembly. 

The dumping of oil waste into the waters of the Marañón, Corrientes, Pastaza and Tigre rivers, and the Amazon forest is producing fatal consequences for the local population, mostly to the Kukama ethnic group.  

An agreement over oil clean up with ENAP (Empresa Nacional del Petróleo) the Chilean state-owned hydrocarbon company, has divided fishermen in Quintero. 

A five-year moratorium has been proposed on pineapple production in Costa Rica; climate change scenarios include intense droughts and floods, as well as a rising sea ​​level on the coast.