The administration of President Luis Guillermo Solís has set an ambitious goal to create 217,000 jobs and integrate more workers into the formal sector during the next four years.  The business community, however, does not share the president’s enthusiasm. 

A peace deal is unlikely by the end of year, according to the FARC’s top commander; President Santos thinks the war on drugs has failed, and that former President Uribe doesn’t want peace. 

In Colombia a murdered journalist’s body guards had been pulled, and another was killed in Honduras, while mayors were killed in Peru. 

A private jet carrying candidate Eduardo Campos, who was running third in polls for Brazil’s presidential election in October, crashed in the city of Santos, killing him and throwing the country’s election into confusion. 

The Lower House voted to replace the Pinochet-era electoral system. 

Social and political organizations protested against the government of President Horacio Cartes with a massive march through the downtown of Asunción. 

The government expects to raise $100 million dollars a year with measures affecting the tax code. 

Ceviche is a delight that conquered the Guayaquileños. 

Senator Prim Pujols said that Samaná province (northwest) would receive “a fatal blow” to its tourism without the presence of humpback whales, an endangered species that gives birth to their young in Dominican waters but are then hunted off the coast of Greenland.  

Businesses in the region agree on the need for joint efforts to promote sustainable tourism, and part of the plan is to organize a chamber of tourism and a festival during the turtle nesting period.