The January 21 signing of a narcotics-monitoring pact shows that, while Bolivia’s tense relationship with the United States slowly improves, the Andean country also seeks closer ties with Brazil on drug-enforcement cooperation.

With the Obama administration knocking back the application for the Keystone pipeline from Canada to the United States, Canadian leaders are looking to Asian markets to expand energy exports.

AS/COA hosted Izabella Teixeira, Brazil's minister of the environment and Lisa Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, to discuss the priorities and challenges of the Joint Initiative on Urban Sustainability.

"To help foster important reforms in El Salvador and the region, the United States needs an ambassador in place. And we need someone there now," writes AS/COA's Jason Marczak in an op-ed for the Houston Chronicle.

"We are next to the largest illegal drug market in the world," said Mexican President Felipe Calderón during  AS/COA's 41st Annual Washington Conference of the Americas on May 11.

AS/COA previews major events and key players in the coming year. Crucial elections are taking place in the Americas in 2012, as well as important global summits.

"Why is a position against violence targeting homosexuals and in defense of gay rights a valid reason to reject a nominee to an ambassadorship?" asks AS/COA's Christopher Sabatini, after the Senate's rejection of Mari Carmen Aponte as U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador.