The first hotel specializing in the music of Cuba, the Blue Salsa Club, will open its doors in November with a new idea in cultural tourism in the resort community of Varadero, the most famous on the island, local media reported Sunday. The project hatched by Spain’s Blue Bay group and Cuba’s Paradiso cultural tourism agency will promote musical genres like salsa, guaracha, bolero and the Caribbean island’s traditional dances.

A few months ago Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos was on a roll. Two out of three Colombians approved of the Santos government—a rock-star standing by the bruising political standards of the Andes. The country’s $370 billion economy was soaring, overtaking Argentina as the fifth largest in Latin America. Foreign investors lined up as prospectors found oil, gas, and coal practically everywhere they dug. Crime, once a national scourge, was plunging. The only thing missing was peace.

On the face of it, the pundits appear to have got their projections for Latin America’s two biggest economies upside down this year. Mexico, which started with the most promise, unexpectedly suffered a 0.7% slump in the second quarter compared with the first three months, according to data released on August 20th, due to a slump in construction, mining and exports. Brazil, which has been the subject of much hand-wringing since China’s demand for commodities collapsed, is expected to show decent growth when second-quarter figures are published on August 30th.

More than 20 years after the end of El Salvador's brutal civil war, its legacy of pain and misery still lingers. Until now, an amnesty has shielded from prosecution those suspected of atrocities. But the discovery of a secret directory of death squad targets has given campaigners hope that the guilty can at last be held accountable. On this edition of People & Power, we investigate how evidence of atrocities committed by government forces during the civil war sparked efforts to overturn the amnesty laws.

The first day of anti government protests, in which hundreds of thousands took to the streets, are resulting in substantial traffic delays on the road. Aviation authorities said the situation on the country’s airports is normal. Transit police reported that approximately 1.365,000 vehicles were forced to use a different route to return home from their long weekend as Monday was a bank holiday in Colombia.

Cuban-born trumpeter Arturo Sandoval is set to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom later this year for his contributions to the world of music. He's won nine Grammy awards and an Emmy. He's also collaborated with legends like Frank Sinatra and Johnny Mathis, and contemporary stars such as Justin Timberlake and Alicia Keys.

Ecuador’s combative president is threatening to try to force the country’s newspapers to go all-digital as a way to save paper. Rafael Correa has long had a prickly relationship with Ecuador’s opposition-owned newspapers, and his Twitter statement Monday is a jab at papers backing a proposed referendum to block oil exploration in the pristine Yasuni national park.

Forty teenage girls from the Middle East are visiting P.E.I. as part of a special language and cultural exchange program. It's a partnership between UPEI, the International Language Institute, and the Abu Dhabi Education Council. The 16- and 17-year-old girls are from the United Arab Emirates, and are living in residence at UPEI. Serena Lambert, academic advisor for the International Language Institute, said the program is highly competitive.