The week at a glance...Americas

San Salvador, El Salvador

Left nears victory: Salvador Sánchez Cerén, who commanded Marxist guerrillas during the country’s bloody civil war, secured 49 percent of the vote in this week’s presidential election, giving his left-leaning Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front party an edge heading into the March 9 runoff. Sánchez will face Norman Quijano, a former mayor of San Salvador, who drew 39 percent of the vote with a plan to deploy the army to crack down on powerful street gangs. Costa Ricans also went to the polls over the weekend. Luis Guillermo Solís of the progressive Citizen Action Party surprised many voters and the ruling National Liberation Party when he came from a distant fourth to win 31 percent of the vote and become the favorite in an April runoff.

Humaita, Brazil

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Tribesmen arrested: Five members of an indigenous Amazonian tribe were arrested last week and accused of murdering three government contractors in a revenge killing related to a dispute over land use. The three contractors, who went missing on Dec. 16, were last seen on a road that crossed the Tenharim tribe’s land reserve. Tribe members are alleged to have killed the men in retaliation for the death of indigenous leader Ivan Tenharim two weeks earlier; police say he died in a motorcycle accident, but tribe members suspect he was assassinated. The Tenharim tribe has clashed with townspeople for years over the tribe’s practice of setting up roadblocks and demanding money from drivers crossing its lands.

Buenos Aires

Rocketing prices: The collapse of the Argentine peso has led to sharp price increases and bare store shelves across the country in recent weeks, and many Argentines are growing frustrated over President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s refusal to address the crisis head-on. The peso fell by 19 percent in January, with economists saying Fernández’s generous social spending has eroded the country’s hard currency reserves. The once-popular president has been curiously absent from the public eye, leaving economic policy to a new team of inexperienced officials. Fernández had surgery in October to remove a blood clot in her brain, apparently caused when she hit her head leaving the presidential jet.