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Colombia's 2018 presidential election has  a young right wing candidate Duque, 41 years who worked as economist at Inter American Development Bank and supports Alvaro Uribe, a strong critic of the 2016 peace agreement with guerillas that ended the drug and guerilla violence. On the other side is a former guerilla Mr. Petro, who was mayor of Bogota from 2012 to 2015. Petro says he supports rules of democracy. About 5000 refugees leave Venezuela each day, most of them coming to Columbia, according to the United Nations. This poses a major problem for the next government.

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New estimates of the coronavirus cases and deaths show Peru having twice as many than estimated before. Peru has the world's highest mortality rate per capita in the world. Most of the jobs were pushed into the informal sector in the last 2 decades. This is also true of Columbia and other Latin American countries. During the first and second wave of the coronavirus these people in informal jobs were the hardest hit having little access to health care. In Colombia the result of the stress from the pandemic and the other problems have led to street demonstrations and violence. The president Ivan Duque lacking public support faces violent street protests. Duque who is from former president Uribe's party won the electon in a runoff with a former leftist guerilla leader Gustav Petro who was Mayor of Bogota. Uribe and Duque had not supported the peace agreement with the rebel left movement in Colombia negotiated by presiddent Santos.  In Peru the election is between Mrs. Fujimori from the Fujimori family and a Marxist politician Castillo. The problems in the informal economy during the pandemic have led to the election of Castillo as the next president. Many of Latin America's problems from Brazil to neighboring countries remain unresolved even as Asian countries have moved forward, with lack of basic access to sanitation, tap water, health care and education, and lacking basic infrastructure. The pandemic has shown the weakness in decades of development in Latin America.   ...

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Alberta referendum of October 19 2026 for separation from Canada. Alberta with oil and gas, Saskatchewan and Manitoba with agricultural production provide Eastern Canadian provinces such as Ontario and Quebec with food and energy,  Sepratist sentiment in Alberta comes from a sense that Alberta is being exploited by Eastern Canada for the last 100 years. An independent Alberta would be aligned with the US, more likely, though it could be part of the US states. Canada says Sir Ivor Jennings in his book Commonwealth of Nations, if it had joined the US in 1776 would have trade patterns north to south with trade between Vermont and New Hampshire to Ontario, Birtish Columbia with Washington state, instead of the east to west trade of the last 250 years with western Canadian product shipped to the more populated east. Alberta has 12 % of the population of Canada of 40 million or about 5 million people and contributes 15% of the Canadian economy.

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This editorial in the NYT praises the effort to bring peace to Colombia after years of conflict. President Santos of Colombia met U.S. president Obama at the White House in Feb 2016, following successful peace talks in Havana between the Santos government and the FARC guerilla group. The U.S. will provide $450 million in assistance for legal institutions, education and the economy. A new approach will have to be developed for the anti-drug effort.

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Jacobs and Richtel of the NYT give this exceptional story of how Mexico changed between 1980 and 2016. Following the joining of NAFTA free trade zone the Mexican diet and food ecosystem began to more closely resemble the food diet system in the U.S. bringing with it severe health consequences. Soda and coke are now more entrenched in Mexico, as are fast food outlets. In 1980 only 7% of Mexicans were obese, compared to 20% in 2016, according to Institute for Health Metrics at the University of Washington. And diabetes kills 80,000 people a year, becoming the top killer according to the World Health Organization. A trade expert at Tufts University, Timothy Wise, says Mexico took on the worst aspects of a first world country like the U.S., with few protections. A similar problem is taking place in India and China as obesity grows, according to the T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard, as low nutrient highly processed foods of large food companies with huge advertising budgets take a prominent place in diets. This is a growing problem for countries from Colombia to Ghana and Nigeria. ...

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Cuba needs 100,000 gallons of fuel a day. It produces 40,000 gallons a day on the island. The shortfall is leading to a humanitarian crisis with the dererioration faster than expected. Reports from Le Monde, El Pais, and other media show adire situation unfolding. To provide about 10,000 private companies with enough fuel to operate as they import $1 billion of food and goods each year the US government is allowing the flow of some oil to Cuba. This is about 100,000 gallons in small containers as a step to avoid a economic catastrophe. For Cuba, as in Venezuela, and Colombia, and also in Mexico, central America, thirty years of experimenting with ideological movements has led to unmitigated disaster with drug trafficking, drug cartels, migrant trafficking, economic mismanagement on a massive scale. The result is repercussions across the continent and disturbing the social, political and economic fabric of the United States.

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Lally Weymouth of the Washington Post talks to Vivian Morales, Attorney General of Colombia. During the seven months in office she has vigorously prosecuted high officials in the DAS agency and other ministries for misuse of funds, including the chief of staff of former President Alvaro Uribe, and the Minister of Agriculture. See her interview with Juan Manuel Santos, President of Colombia, who assumed office in 2011. Santos was Finance Minister and Foreign Minister under the Uribe administration.

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The role played by diplomat Bernard Aronson in the Havana, Cuba peace talks between the Santos government in Colombia and FARC guerilla group. Aronson's diplomatic efforts helped bring peace to Salvador and Nicaragua after years of conflict.

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With over 35,000 deaths the deaths in Mexico from pandemic exceed that in Italy. Mexico now has about 300,000 cases. Brazil. Mexico and Colombia are hit hard.

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Mexico, Chile, Columbia and Peru will sign an agreement in Cali, Columbia, eliminating tariffs on 90% of merchandise trade between their countries and set a 7 year timetable for the remaining 10%. Visa requirements for citizens of these countries have been removed and plans are being developed for a common market. These countries have a private sector that plays a major role in their economies compared to Brazil and Argentina where the state plays an important role. The combined GDP is as large as Brazil's in the Latin American region- about 35%. The regional stock exchanges of these countries have created a single bourse. Their is potential for more regional trade- the Economist estimates intra-regional trade in South and Central America at a low of 27%, compared with 63% in the European Union and 52% in Asia.

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Toronto Blue Jays George Springer's $150 million contract, owner Rogers of Rogers Communications, and Canadian fans from British Columbia to Ontario that power the Blue Jays to the World Series in 2025.

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Cordoba and Gurman cover the Justice Department case against Raul Castro, 94 years, of Cuba who runs the country. Jim Ratcliffe of the US government visited Cuba recently to let the Cuban government know that it had to make changes and there was a limited window. Raul Castro was defense minister, and is brother of Fidel Castro, the revolutionary who fought to overthrow the government of dictator Batista, made some short term improvements, but failed badly for the Cuban people with a policy that confronted the US and brought foreign powers to the western hemisphere. China could remain communist, keep Mao's memory, and adopt the market system, to develop the modern economy it has because of adopting western ideas, science and technology. And build what is otherwise a free market economy, and became a key trade partner, briefly an ally of the US as the Soviet Union collapsed- nothing like this happened in Cuba. Tourism was used simply as a way to protect the rest of the completely centralized economy and a state within a state built through an elite that ran a separate section of the armed forces under Raul Castro, kept a regimented society. Even that has failed. Nowhere in Latin America is there so many signs of failure, and it has also brought down societies that copied the rhetoric and nationalist slogans such as Venezuela and Colombia. In some parts of Mexico the Cuban rhetoric still sounds good but the reality is starkly different, Mexico itself is run on a model closer to that in the US, and Mexico has serious problems in civil society relating to immigration and drugs in its relationship with the US. ...

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The US midwestern states depend entirely on imports from Canada of as much as 3.5 million barrels a day. In 2018 the Canadian government bought an unfinished pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia, the Transmountain pipeline for $18 billion. This is now finishing completion in 2024. For years the pipelines bringing oil from the north to midwest states reduced the cost differential between Canadian crude and US crude to $18 for a price of $47 a barrel. The Transmountain pipeline will take some of that oil and move it to British Columbia ports where it can loaded onto tankers heading to Asia. This will increase the cost of Canadian crude into the midwest and be reflected in prices at the pump.

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This report in the WSJ provides details on the groundwork that was laid by the Trump administration as it worked to find a solution to the problems facing Venezuela with refugees and economic crisis, and months of protests. The plans were set in the days before Nicholas Maduro took office for the second term as president. The night before Juan Guaido, head of the National Assembly, declared himself president, U.S. vice president Mike Pence stated that the U.S. would support him if he took the reins of government from Maduro by invoking a clause in the Venezuelan Constitution that makes the head of the National Assembly take the office of president if the existing president is declared illegitimate taking office unlawfully. About 60 nations did not recognize the elections that gave Maduro a second term. On Jan 2 Mr Trump who feels deeply about the collapse of the Venezuelan economy and rising poverty, the suffering of the Venezuelan people, met with presidents of Brazil and Colombia. Colombian president Ivan Duque and Trump hinted at a plan to cooperate to help people fleeing Venezuela and respecting its democratic heritage. Mr Pompeo spoke to allies of the U.S. The National Assembly laid out its plans on Jan 15, for using a constitutional mechanism that allows the head of the Assembly to lead an interim government till new elections are held if the existing president is declared illegitimate. A leading Republican senator of Cuban origin Mr. Rubio supported the move. On the eve of protests in Venezuela Rubio and two other senators from Florida met Mr. Trump and Pence at the White House. Also present were Bolton, Pompeo, Ross and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin. Mr. Trump then decided to do it. He placed a call to Mr. Guiado  to tell him that if the National Assembly invoked Article 233 the U.S. president would back him.  The U.S. believes the rank and file in the military are with the opposition even though its leaders back Maduro. After the U.S. action, the governments of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, backed the move for an interim government. The European Union called for free and credible elections. Russia and Mexico supported Maduro.  The State Department instructed the U.S. Federal Reserve about Guiado government as the sole representative for Venezuelan assets in banks. Sanctions could be placed on Venezuelan oil exports as backup efforts proceed to support the interim government. ...

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The Pacific Alliance Trade Agreement signed in Jan 2014 will make 92% of products tariff free for trade between Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Peru. The Pacific Alliance region's combined GDP for 2012 was about $2 trillion and it exceeds the population of Brazil. Experts, including Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank, say the alliance's aim to decrease trade barriers in goods and services, coordinate policy on currency issues, but it does little for the critical needs of infrastructure building and improving productivity. Colombia and Peru especially have very poor infrastructure that severely impacts transportation and trade for the region. China's focus on infrastructure development financing and execution gives it more credibility in this vital development field, and the U.S. has to create financing and project execution capabilities to fill this vital need to build credibility.

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Egan Bernal, 22 year old from Colombia is the expected winner of the Tour de France. He and last years winner Geraint Thomas are from the same team. Colombians have consistently done well at the high altitudes in the Alps where part of the race is run.

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The influence of Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez on a generation of Chinese writers after the stifling of culture and personal expression by the Cultural Revolution.