Journalists of the world! Chile offers respite!

Recently

• Colombia: Will he or won't he?No more important short-term question faces Colombia now than whether President Alvaro Uribe will seek an unprecedented third term in 2010. Most political analysts think that he would win handily. Colombians pushed his approval rating above 80 percent after the July hostage rescue netted Ingrid Betancourt and the others.
• Bolivia: more convulsionThe electoral court is now saying that President Evo Morales overstepped his authority when he called a Dec. 7 referendum on the new Socialist-leaning Constitution that he is pushing. Not surprisingly, Evo doesn't agree.
• Peru: Signs of changing timesI was scheduled to go to the home of Enrique Zileri in Lima for lunch on Sunday, August 24, when I got word that his elderly mother had died. Doris Gibson had founded Caretas magazine, which Enrique had now headed for years before turning it over to son Marco this year. I never met Enrique's mother, but obituaries like this one show that she was an incredible woman.
• Good food newsI must admit that I feel guilty a bit when I order salmon in South America. I love the fish, but I've seen too many articles about the ecological problems it causes in Chile's southern region where salmon are raised.