Countries that provide conditions such as ample financial access, training programs, and social services are more likely to cultivate female entrepreneurs, says a new study. The Women’s Entrepreneurial VentureScope—launched by the Inter-American Development Bank’s Multilateral Investment Fund on July 25—is the first comprehensive assessment to score Latin America’s best and worst environments for women business owners of micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).

For five days in July, the New Yorker hotel in midtown Manhattan hosts the daytime sessions of the Latin Alternative Music Conference (or LAMC). Each afternoon there are talks, gear demonstrations, lots of networking, and a general pulse of excitement in the air, but one of the best things about attending LAMC is the chance for unexpected encounters and chats with artists creating music all over the globe: From bands that are coming to the US for the first time, to industry veterans with Grammys lining their mantles.

Five Latin America leaders are on the list of the twenty most followed on Twitter in the world, among them Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, ranking number ten with 2.1 million followers (followers). The eleven and twelve positions are occupied by the Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto and Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos, each with more than 1.9 million followers in the world. The report “Twiplomacy 2013″ was released this week.

The percentage of women in charge of agricultural-and-livestock productions in recent years in Latin America increased, although in smaller areas of land, soil of lesser quality and less access to credits and other facilities, the FAO reported today. In a communique released here, the UN Regional Office for Food and Agriculture said women also have less access to technical assistance and training.

Blatter was speaking at the start of a two-day conference on sports, media and economy set up by German great Franz Beckenbauer in Austria. FIFA later verified the comments were accurate. The Confederations Cup, which was won by Brazil, angered citizens who are upset with the billions of dollars spent on the tournaments while they endure underfunded schools and hospitals. Protesters aired a wide spectrum of grievances, including the high cost of hosting the 2016 Rio Olympics.

These young people did not live through the repression of the military dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s. They did not live through the inflation of the 1980s, when the first thing we did when we received our paychecks was to run to the supermarket and buy everything possible before the prices rose again the next day. They remember very little about the 1990s, when stagnation and unemployment depressed our country. They want more.

At its core, the Latin Alternative Music Conference is a gathering of dedicated underdogs, rallying behind music that envisions a polyglot, multicultural, border-hopping 21st-century culture but faces stubborn barriers, in the United States, of language and radio formats. The term “Latin alternative” makes room for pop, indie-rock, electronica, hip-hop, punk and hard rock, all loosely connected by a willingness to push past divisions of genre and geography.

America is pivoting to Asia, focused on the Mideast, yet the "backyard," as Secretary of State John Kerry once referred to Latin America, is sprouting angry weeds as the scandal involving intelligence leaker Edward Snowden lays bare already thorny U.S. relations with Latin America.