The week at a glance...Americas

Havana

One coin for all: Cuba is scrapping its widely resented two-tiered currency system. Since 1994, the communist country has had a convertible version of the peso pegged to the dollar, which is used in international trade and the tourism sector, and another version for ordinary Cubans that is worth practically nothing. Goods such as DVD players have been available only to those who can pay in convertible pesos. The two currencies will be merged into one peso for all uses, the official newspaper Granma reported this week. The merger will “not, in itself, resolve all of the economy’s current problems,” Granma said, “but its implementation is indispensable to re-establishing the value of the Cuban peso and its function as money.”

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Clowns kill drug lord: An alleged drug kingpin was killed at a children’s party last week by gunmen dressed as clowns in wigs and red noses. Francisco Rafael Arellano Félix, 63, was the eldest of the Arellano Félix brothers and former head of the Tijuana drug cartel, featured in the movie Traffic. Arellano Félix spent 15 years in prison in Mexico and the U.S., and was released in 2008. Another brother was killed in a shoot-out in 2002, while three more are in U.S. prisons. The assassins struck during a family event at a luxury resort in the Baja California peninsula.

Santos, Brazil

Sugar blaze: A huge fire swept through Brazil’s largest port this week, burning up some 180,000 tons of raw sugar and sending sugar prices surging toward one-year highs. All six warehouses where the Brazilian cooperative Copersucar stores sugar were damaged. Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of sugar, and its export capacity will be greatly diminished for at least 18 months while it rebuilds. “We’re still not sure how Brazil’s sugar will be shipped,” shipping analyst Nicolle Monteiro de Castro told The Wall Street Journal, “since there isn’t enough capacity at other ports.”