The Buenos Aires Herald reported that two of Brazil’s most popular opposition leaders have joined forces in an unexpected alliance that could have a big impact on next year’s election, perhaps presenting a major challenge to President Dilma Rousseff in the context of a weakening economy. 

Alejandro Gertz Manero wrote of “hurricane corruption”  in El Universal of Mexico City.  He noted the old Mexican political saying that if there is someone to blame, then any scandal can be survived. 

El Mercurio of Santiago noted that the presidential candidate of Chile’s New Majority Party, former President Michelle Bachelet, issued a call to her followers to make an effort to win the election in the first round on November 17. 

Joaquin Samayoa, in La Prensa Gráfica of San Salvador, assigned Salvadoran voters “some homework.”  The “exam will be on February 2nd” and the only question is: who should be the next president of El Salvador?

In Fohla de São Paulo Sergio Malbergier proclaimed that socialism’s “good intentions of creating a just and equal society in an unjust and unequal world is the siren that seduces many mariners and invariably leads, sooner or later, to disaster.” 

In La Jornada of Mexico City Arnaldo Córdova notes that “nationalism in Mexico has never been a defining feature of the political and social forces of the right, conservative or reactionary.” 

So argues Nelson Motta in O Globo of Rio de Janeiro.  History “confirms,” he says, that “compulsory voting” is “a way to legitimize the illegitimate and give an appearance of democracy.” 

The consensus around the region in early October 2013 was that trouble is brewing in Venezuela.  According to stories in the Venezuelan media, the country was recently turned down by China for a loan.  Also, despite roughly $90 billion a year in oil revenue, Venezuela has trouble importing basic consumer goods.  And

O Globo of Rio de Janeiro noted that two months before the first anniversary of the death of Oscar Niemeyer, who died on December 5, 2012, an admirer of his work has produced a tribute. 

In Prensa Libre of Guatemala City Frank La Rue Lewy told of attending the VI International Human Rights Film Festival in Mexico, organized by a major movie theater chain and twenty other businesses, which he believes demonstrates “a commitment to citizenship, personal fulfillment, and a better future” for Mexico.