The percentage of the world’s population living in societies with a fully free press has fallen to its lowest level in over a decade, according to a Freedom House report released today.

The study, "Freedom of the Press 2013," found an overall downturn in global media freedom in 2012 "punctuated by dramatic decline in Mali, deterioration in Greece, and a further tightening of controls in Latin America."

In Latin America, 15 countries were ranked with a "free press," 14 had a "partly free" press and six had "not free" press.

Among the Latin America highlights are:

St. Lucia ranked among the top for press freedom coming in at 12 out of 196 on the list.

Costa Rica came in at  23 (tied with the United States.)

Peru came in at 89

Bolivia and Panama tied at 94

Argentina 109

Colombia 112

The nations ranked "Not Free" were:

Mexico, Ecuador, Paraguay tied at 134

Honduras 140 

Venezuela 168

And at the bottom of the barrel was Cuba at 191. It's tied with Iran. 

See the full Freedom House list here

I spent election day on Colombian naval base on the Pacific. Military men are pretty circumspect when it comes to politics, but everyone said it wouldn't have mattered who won the vote, because US-Colombia relations are so institutionalized and far-reaching that they're immune to politics. I'm not sure that's completely true, but thought it was an interesting sentiment.

My colleagues Mimi Whitefield and Tim Johnson take a deeper look at the Latin American reaction to the US vote in today's Miami Herald.  

MEXICO CITY -- There’s agreement across the region that Latin America wasn’t a priority during the first term of President Barack Obama but analysts say there are issues that might raise the profile of Latin America and the Caribbean during the president’s second term. Among them: trade, potential political change in the region, the potent voting bloc U.S. Hispanics have become, immigration, changing U.S. attitudes toward drug policy and security. But, in general, regional expectations for meaningful change in U.S. Latin American and Caribbean policy during Obama’s second term were muted. The campaigns of both Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney “proved that Latin America is not a priority for the United States,’’ said Simon Pachano, a political science professor at the Latin American Faculty for Social Sciences in Ecuador. “Latin America existed when they were looking for Hispanic votes, but it wasn’t present in their foreign policy proposals.”

Read the full story here.

Mexico's Consulta Mitofsky just put out their regional leadership list. The ranking is based on approval ratings so they're not strictly comparable nation-to-nation, but let's not let that get in the way of a good list.

Approval ratings are usually a good indicator of a candidate's election chances, so we'll have three opportunities in coming months to test that thesis. Hugo Chavez (ranked No. 4) is facing reelection Oct. 7, Rafael Correa (ranked No. 1!) faces reelection in February, and, of course, Barack Obama (ranked No. 10) has his chance Nov. 6. 

Without further ado: 

Top 5 Leaders in the Region based on approval ratings

#1 Ecuador - Rafael Correa 80%

#2 El Salvador - Mauricio Funes 72%

#3 Guatemala - Otto Perez 69%

#4 Venezuela - Hugo Chavez 64%

#5 Brazil - Dilma Rousseff 62%

...And the Bottom 5:

#16 Canada- Stephen Harper 37%

#17 Paraguay - Federico Franco 36%

#18 Chile - Sebastian Pinera 36%

#19 Honduras - Porfirio Lobo 14%

#20 Costa Rica - Laura Chinchilla 13%

To see the full list click here.

It's day seven of the Olympics and time to see how Latin America is faring in the medal race. While none of the nations have broken the Top 10, there's plenty to be proud of. Colombia's Rigoberto Uran came out of nowhere on day one to win a silver in cycling and trounce the hometown favorites. Venezuelan Fencer Ruben Limardo (seen biting his medal below) won that nation's first gold since 1968. And as usual, Cuba is doing very well considering its size. With a population of 11 million and 5 medals so far, that works out to 1 medal for every 2.2 million residents. Unless I am missing something, that's the best per capita showing save New Zealand (six medals and a population of 4.3 million, or 1 medal for every 716,66 people).

Here's the Latino per captia breakdown:

Cuba            1 medal per 2.2 mln

Colombia     1 medal per 15 mln

Mexico         1 medal per 16 mln

Venezuela   1 medal per 28 mln

Brazil           1 medal per 34 mln

And here's the medal breakdown

Nation  Gold    Silver  Bronze  Total    

Brazil    1        1         4            6

Cuba     2        2         1            5

Mex.     0       3         1             4

Col.       0       2         1            3

VZ.        1        0         0            1     

And here's the medal biter:

The rumble over Venezuela's consulate in Miami continues. On Sunday, President Hugo Chavez insisted that his decision to close the office had to do with the safety of the staff there, and not any desire to hamstring the Feb. 12 opposition primaries. 

If you're unfamiliar with the spat, check out this story. 

"Now that we closed the consulate because of threats to our personnel, they accuse me of trying to sabotage the primary elections and that it's an abuse of the Venezuelans that live in Miami," he said during his Sunday television show. "Now they say we're the ones being abusive."

South Florida exiles are concerned they will have nowhere to cast their ballots as the coalition of opposition groups vote for a single candidate to face-off against Chavez in October. 

Chavez has said that Venezuelan exile groups were threatening the staff - a charge those groups deny. 

But during a US Department of State briefing last week, the spokesmen did acknowledge there had been...something.

Here's the Jan 17 exchange with Deputy Department Spokesman Mark C. Toner

MR. TONER: Well, I mean, obviously we take the security of all foreign missions very, very seriously. This is something, as you’re well aware, that we talk about in terms of other governments around the world, that we ask – urge them to uphold their obligations under the Vienna Conventions. We hold ourselves, obviously, to those same standards. If a Venezuelan official in the U.S. did receive any threats, those threats should be reported to the Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, who also works with relevant law enforcement agencies to take appropriate steps to address them.

Obviously, the --

QUESTION: Have you received any reports of threats?

MR. TONER: Well, I’m – let me finish, Kirit.

QUESTION: Go ahead.

MR. TONER: The decision on how to manage its consulates and how to provide consular services to Venezuelan citizens is ultimately that of the Venezuelan Government. Now specifically to Kirit’s questions, we did previously assist the Venezuelan Consulate in Miami to address some minor security concerns in December, but since then we’ve not received any reports of any new threats against the consulate or its employees, nor any additional requests for security support.

QUESTION: Can you describe what those threats --

MR. TONER: I can’t. I can’t get into the details.

QUESTION: But you described them as minor. I mean, what is minor?

QUESTION: (Off-mike.)

MR. TONER: Not significant.

QUESTION: Thank you.

Hmmm.

Venezuela celebrated its bicentennial today, and thousands of people poured onto the streets to watch a very impressive military display. 

One person not at the show was President Hugo Chavez, who watched the event from the presidential palace, where he is convalescing from cancer. 

It's still unclear how bad the disease is, or whether or not he's headed back to Cuba to complete his treatment.

According to a few papers, Chavez will only stay in town long enough to shuffle his cabinet. By those accounts - and a few people we talked to - one person on their way out is VP 
Elias Jaua.

Apparently he's deemed to radical by the military - which is actually far more business-friendly and pragmatic. 

With few officials talking about the process, only time will tell. Check out that story here. 

On election day, former army officer Ollanta Humala invited the media to watch him eat breakfast. Local TV tried to browbeat him into downing some of the cuy, or guinea-pig, that sits in the bottom-right corner of the picture. He refused. 

Just hours after he narrowly won Sunday's race, analysts and investors were again trying to browbeat him - this time into naming his economic cabinet.

The pressure only increased on Monday, when the local market was open just one minute and twenty-five seconds before plummeting stocks triggered an automatic halt to trading. By the end of the day, the market had plunged almost 13 percent - the largest single-day drop in Peru's history. 

Like many news organizations, I got caught up in the dip because it seemed to capture the mood of investors - particularly those in the mining sector. But a question from a former colleague had me wondering if Peru's market is a good indicator of anything. 

Peru's stock market has a capitalization of $122 million - or about 7 percent of the nation's GDP. By comparison, the capitalization of the New York Stock Exchange is at about 114 percent of U.S. GDP. In Mexico, the stock market is 38 percent of GDP.

In short, Peru's stock market is tiny. Still, it's a barometer for how investors feel and the first signal of what might happen to foreign direct investment in this commodity-rich country.

On Tuesday, Peru's main index was up 7 percent.

Does it matter? I'm still not sure. 

But, so far, Humala's keeping his mouth shut.

 
BOGOTA -- Homer Simpson would feel at home in Latin America. His favorite beer, Duff, is available in Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Chile.

The lager has the same logo as the brew that Homer guzzles at Moe’s, his local bar in the Fox cartoon series. In South America, the beer’s motto is “Yes it does exist!” But nobody seems to be willing to discuss Springfield’s finest.

The makers of Duff in South America say they aren’t allowed to talk to the U.S. media. Duff Mexico — which started the Latin American trend — would not respond to interview requests. And 20th Century Fox, which owns the rights to - Simpsons, said it would not comment on the story and would not say if it has a licensing agreement with any of the Duff producers.

Read the full story here

Preliminary results are in from Ecuador's controversial referendum on Saturday and - as expected - President Rafael Correa won on all 10 points. You can read about the refrendum here. 

The opposition was strongest on the question of a judicial independence, where 43 percent voted against giving the government the power to establish a new technical commission that could name judges over the next 18 months. But Correa prevailed and many worry he'll use the new body to stack the courts.

Another issue that was hotly debated was the question that makes it illegal to kill animals for sport. That effectively brings Ecuador's 300-year old bullfighting tradition to an end.

You can listen to a radio piece about it here. 

In this picture, Efrain "Elvito" Moreno, on the right, prepares to put the traje de luces on bullfighter Diego Rivas. It takes Moreno and six helpers six weeks to make a single suit. They cost about $900 each. When I talked to him a few months ago, he said he didn't know how he'd make a living if bullfights were banned.

El Comerico has a breakdown of the vote here.