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In this 200th anniversary year of the abolitition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the governments of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) are, commendably, singing from the same hymn sheet. At their 18th inter-sessional meeting held last week in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, they unanimously agreed to request from the ex-European colonial powers both an apology and reparations for profiting from the abominable crime of African slavery.

The leftist government of Rafael Correa has moved assertively in its relations with the United States during its first month in office. The Minister of Foreign Relations, María Fernanda Espinosa, in a meeting with the Foreign Press Association in Quito declared that Ecuador intends to close the U.S. military base located at Manta. “Ecuador is a sovereign nation, we do not need any foreign troops in our country,” she said. The treaty for the base expires in 2009 and will not be renewed.

President Evo Morales’s policies on the cultivation, sale, and manufacture of coca leaf are inspiring a variety of economic opportunities in Bolivia’s rural areas on the eastern slope of the Andes Mountains. Coca is an ancient crop valued in Bolivia for its medicinal and nutritional properties, as well as for its deep historical roots in Aymara and Quechua traditions. As it is also the source of cocaine, coca policy draws constant public scrutiny.

Even in safe and serene Denmark, Luiz Urquiza could not shake off the trauma inflicted by his ex-colleagues. His new line of work, taxi driving, caused the daily aggravation of his most painful wound, sustained when his tormentors fired several bullets into his left leg. Danish doctors and psychologists did what they could, but recovery was never more than partial. For two years in the 1970s, Urquiza had been jailed, mocked, beaten, suffocated and, on one occasion, taken before a fake firing squad—all because he dared study at a university before entering the Argentine police force, and was, therefore, considered “subversive.”