As the Mexican Congress prepares to come back in session, President Felipe Calderón unveiled a new bill aimed to strike at the heart of organized crime by stemming the flow of illicit cash that funds cartels. But some wonder how the new law might affect legitimate business.

NASA helps with rescue mission of Chilean miners, Mercosur’s beef exports surge, and Ecuador revokes Juan Manuel Santos’ arrest warrant. Read these stories and more in the Weekly Roundup.

"If done carefully, further reforms hold the promise of breaking the policy and human rights stasis that has gripped Cuba, and U.S. policy towards Cuba, for more than half a century. That is a prize worth grasping," writes AS/COA's Christopher Sabatini in the Financial Times.

Access blogging of our August 26 Buenos Aires conference at www.as-coa.org/argentina2010. Speakers included Economy Minister Amado Boudou, Chief of Staff Aníbal Fernández, and U.S. State Department Under Secretary Judith McHale.

Caracas and Bogota are taking steps to bury the hatchet in what could lead to economic benefits for both sides.

Brazil’s discovery of a massive undersea deposit of natural gas could potentially alter its long-term energy strategy and also adversely affect neighboring Bolivia’s lucrative supply of hydrocarbons to its biggest customer.

"Any and all changes to the U.S. embargo must first and foremost be geared toward strengthening the hand of the island’s independent sectors," says AS/COA's Christopher Sabatini in this report published by the Woodrow Wilson Center's Latin America Program.

"If the President wants to meet his export goals and have sustainable growth, [Latin America] is a region that has largely felt the cold shoulder of Washington for decades, but is willing to take business relations to another level," writes AS/COA President and CEO Susan Segal in The Huffington Post.