President Hugo Chávez faces mounting difficulties at home and abroad. The defeat of constitutional reforms in a December 2007 referendum, a year after re-election, was his worst setback since winning the presidency in 1998. It was not primarily the divided opposition, which lacks a broad social base, that dealt this blow but the abstention of three million Venezuelans, including many former government supporters.

On July 2nd, we witnessed a new dawn for Colombia.We witnessed the release, thanks to a splendid and clean operation carried out by the Colombian Armed Forces, of fifteen of our fellow countrymen held kidnapped for years by the narcoterrorists of the FARC.We witnessed the release of Ingrid Betancourt and were able to congratulate our Armed Forces, our intelligence services and our Government on a rescue mission where not a single shot was fired. We witnessed a new dawn in which Colombia, like all the great democracies of the world, was able to defend its determination to overcome terror, regain its freedom and be very proud of it.

President Evo Morales’s efforts to consolidate sweeping reforms on the basis of a controversial new constitution have steered Bolivia into a cul-de-sac. On 8 December 2007, his supporters in the Constituent Assembly (CA) provisionally passed the text by running roughshod over procedures and virtually excluding opposition delegates. Weak attempts to bridge the deepening divide have failed, increasing potential for a violent confrontation both sides still seem to wish to avoid. Openly defying Morales in May 2008, however, Santa Cruz massively approved the department’s autonomy statutes by referendum.

Almost six years of intense security operations against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) by the administration of President Álvaro Uribe are beginning to produce tangible results. Government forces killed several important rebel field commanders in 2007 and two members of the central command in March 2008, including second-in-command Raúl Reyes, and have severely disrupted insurgent communications, prompting a loss of internal cohesion and decreasing illegal revenues.

The UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy (UN Strategy), which was adopted unanimously by the UN General Assembly on 8 September 2006 includes a broad range of measures aimed at addressing conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism; preventing and combating terrorism; building States. counterterrorism capacities, strengthening the role of the UN system in the provision and facilitation of capacity building assistance; and ensuring respect for human rights for all and the rule of law as the fundamental basis for the fight against terrorism. The Strategy identifies national governments as having primary responsibility for its implementation, while highlighting the supporting role that different parts of the UN system, regional and sub-regional bodies, and civil society should play in ensuring its effective implementation. By enumerating a holistic approach to addressing the terrorist threat, the Strategy represents a convergence of the global North.s post-11 September...