The world at a glance . . . Americas

Ottawa

Save the seal hunt: Canada said it would appeal to the World Trade Organization to overturn the EU’s newly enacted ban on the import of seal products. While Canada’s largest markets for seal fur—Russia, China, and Norway—are outside the EU, the ban, which was passed this week, is expected to hurt fashion industry demand for seal fur. The economic downturn has already hit Canada’s seal hunters, who are mostly Inuits. A harp seal pelt that brought $105 four years ago now fetches just $14. “It is definitely going to impact the lives of the Inuit in the very near future,” said Joshua Kango, head of the Amarok hunters association. “We don’t have any other way to survive economically.” Animal-rights activists have long campaigned against the seal hunt, in which baby harp seals are clubbed to death.

Caracas, Venezuela

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Honeymoon with Obama ends: President Hugo Chávez ended his brief détente with the U.S. this week, delivering a speech railing against President Obama. Chávez said the U.S. State Department’s characterization of Venezuela as uncooperative in fighting terrorism was an example of “Obama’s infamy,” and that Obama’s “speeches and smiles” might hide sinister intentions. If the U.S. does not end the embargo against Cuba, he said, “it will all be a great farce, and the U.S. empire will be alive and well, threatening us.” The Venezuelan president had seemed to be softening his anti-American stance when he met Obama last month at the Summit of the Americas.

Panama City

Conservative wins: Bucking the Latin American trend toward the far left, Panama this week elected a conservative as president. The U.S.-educated Ricardo Martinelli, who owns Panama’s largest chain of supermarkets, ran a campaign emphasizing his business acumen. It’s a trait the new president will need: He must oversee the ongoing $5.25 billion project to expand the Panama Canal even as the global economic crisis has reduced Panama’s revenue from canal traffic. Martinelli said a top priority for his new administration would be finalizing a free-trade pact with the U.S. The pact was signed in 2007 but has been stalled in the U.S. Congress because of concerns that Panama could harbor American tax evaders.

Asunción, Paraguay

Accused torturer returns: The notorious interior minister during Paraguay’s dictatorship has suddenly returned to the country, where he faces multiple charges of murder. Sabino Montanaro, who headed policing and interrogation under longtime dictator Alfredo Stroessner during the 1970s and ’80s, is accused of ordering the abduction, torture, and killing of thousands of people who disappeared during the period known as the “dirty war.” He fled to Honduras in 1989, when a military coup took down the Stroessner regime. Now 86, Montanaro suffers from Parkinson’s disease and is being treated for a fractured hip in a police hospital. His lawyer, who announced his return, did not say why he had decided to come home. Stroessner died in exile, in 2006.