Eugene Malthouse wrote in The Santiago Times that Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru aim to eventually phase out all tariffs, while Costa Rica wants in on the deal.  President Sebastián Piñera met with heads of state from Colombia, Mexico and Peru for the eighth Pacific Alliance summit in the Colombian city of Cartagena on Monday,

DominicanToday of Santo Domingo recounted that President Danilo Medina said the Government’s push to bring 10 million tourists within 10 years isn’t a crazy idea and vowed to invest all the needed resources to achieve that goal. 

The Buenos Aires Herald reported that Argentina’s incoming tourists declined 7% last year.  The statistics bureau uses airport and port data to calculate the number of visitors.  The number of Argentines going abroad rose 6.2%, though “the Argentine tourism deficit,” which represents a growing strain on the Central Bank’s foreign reserves, “clocked in at US$553.5

Susana González wrote in La Jornada of Mexico City that although well over half of its working population goes without access to health services, Mexico ranks second globally in what the tourism industry calls “health tourism.” 

In La Tercera of Santiago Valentina Mery wrote of the most likely things that can go wrong on a Chilean beach trip.  These include falls in rocky areas, attacks by jellyfish, children that go missing, and swimmers who exceed the limits. 

El Comercio of Quito reported that in mid February the Tungurahua volcano was very active.  There were explosions that generated clouds of steam with moderate loads of ash that rose 2.5 kilometers above the crater.  

MercoPress of Montevideo reported that Uruguay, Ecuador and Malta were named the best three countries in the world when it comes to climate.  Their temperate weather throughout the year, moderate rainfall and little risk of natural disaster saw them rise to the top of the Climate category, one of eight categories in the Index, which

Camilo Mejía Giraldo wrote in Colombia Reports of Medellín that Colombia’s Inspector General has submitted a request to meet with the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) to explain his office’s decision to remove and politically sanction the Mayor of Bogotá. 

DominicanToday of Santo Domingo reported that the Dominican government has assured the Human Rights Council in Geneva that the Constitutional Court ruling doesn’t strip Dominican nationality from those who have it ,and reiterated that it will seek legislation which makes the offspring of undocumented immigrants eligible for naturalization, thus debunking accusations of creating “stateless” people. 

O Globo of Rio de Janeiro noted that the former marketing director of the Bank of Brazil, Henrique Pizzolato, is part of a list that continues to grow: those who are wanted by the police and the Brazilian justice system and have fled abroad.