But which one will succeed the president? Although he is barred by the constitution from seeking a third term in the presidential election in May, Álvaro Uribe’s influence over Colombia will remain great. As votes were slowly tallied in an election for a new Congress on March 14th, it became clear that parties which formed part of his centre-right coalition will retain a clear majority. Who will command these legislators is less so. The vote seemed to strengthen the claims of Juan Manuel Santos, a former defence minister who more than anyone else embodies the continuation of Mr Uribe’s “democratic security” policy. Mr Santos’s U Party (that’s U for Uribe) won 25% of the valid votes, and increased its representation in the 102-seat Senate to 28, from 20.

Just when we were all celebrating that Latin America had come out relatively unscathed from the world economic crisis, a new threat could endanger the region's growth: its increasingly strong currencies. On the surface, the steady appreciation of most Latin American currencies has a feel-good domestic effect: Once again, many Latin Americans will find it easier to import luxury goods, vacation in Miami or Madrid and perhaps even go back to the good old times when they were known by Florida store keepers as ``dame-dos'' (give-me-two,) because they used to buy two sets of whatever they purchased. But, at the same time, strong local currencies will hurt the region's exports.

Chile’s President Sebastian Pinera said the South American country will face power shortages for another seven days after an outage left 80 percent of the population in darkness for more than two hours yesterday. “We are going to have an unstable electric system for the next seven days,” Pinera told reporters in Santiago today. Power lines “that may have been damaged during the earthquake” will be checked and repaired in coming days, he said. The power cut, the result of grid damage from last month’s earthquake, affected a 2,000-kilometer (1,243-mile) stretch of the country and struck at about 8:43 p.m. local time yesterday. The outage extended from the Atacama Desert in the North to the Chilean lakes in the South, plunging locals into darkness and forcing mines to switch on emergency generators.

In a move that could bring an end to the $40 cup of coffee, Bank of America said on Tuesday that it was doing away with overdraft fees on purchases made with debit cards, a decision that could cost the bank tens of millions a year in revenue and put pressure on other banks to do the same. Bank officials said that effective this summer, customers who try to make purchases with their debit cards without enough money in their checking accounts will simply be declined. Debit purchases account for roughly 60 percent of overdrafts at Bank of America, the nation’s largest issuer of debit cards. Banks are bracing for a new federal rule that will require them to get permission from account holders before providing overdraft services for debit purchases and A.T.M. withdrawals. That change was already expected to wipe out billions of dollars in overdraft revenue for the banks.

A simple typo gave Michael Ivey the idea for his company. One day in the fall of 2008, Ivey’s wife, using her pink RAZR phone, sent him a note via Twitter. But instead of typing the letter d at the beginning of the tweet — which would have sent the note as a direct message, a private note just for Ivey — she hit p. It could have been an embarrassing snafu, but instead it sparked a brainstorm. That’s how you should pay people, Ivey publicly replied. Ivey’s friends quickly jumped into the conversation, enthusiastically endorsing the idea. Ivey, a computer programmer based in Alabama, began wondering if he and his wife hadn’t hit on something: What if people could transfer money over Twitter for next to nothing, simply by typing a username and a dollar amount?