Latin heat

This was meant to be the much-heralded 'century of the Americas'. After all, for Latin America, the year 2000 was a time of hemispheric cooperation, free-trade agreements, investor-friendly legislation, burgeoning democracy, unprecedented freedom and bucket loads of optimism.But alas, in the words of Napoleon Bonaparte, 'From the sublime to the ridiculous there is only one step.'The global market slump hit Latin America hard and the region's exports-based economies are still reeling. To top