Sanctions, east and west

American sanctions against Cuba have had more than fifty years to work, but haven't. Sanctions against Russia, however, are doing unexpectedly well.

Four elections in one day

A summary of yesterday's four elections, in Brazil, Ukraine, Tunisia and Uruguay.

Tomorrow sees the first round of an interesting three-way contest for president of Brazil, which seems to have been transformed by a plane crash.

Colombia's president gets the renewed mandate that he sought to pursue peace for his troubled country.

Colombia's president is up for re-election, but his plans for peace with the country's FARC guerrillas are not universally popular.

Latin America's rightwards shift continues, as the centre-left can manage only third place in Panama's presidential election.

The populist candidate Luis Guillermo Solís wins Costa Rica's presidency in a landslide, after his opponent threw in the towel a month ago.

This week in our semi-regular roundup: news from Serbia, Slovakia, El Salvador, Maldives and Algeria.

Very different elections in El Salvador and North Korea, yet each in its way signals the triumph of democracy.

A former guerrilla leader has a wafer-thin lead as El Salvador's presidential election turns out to be a quite unexpected cliffhanger.