Americas

Donald Trump’s playground politics continue unabashed. Despite the establishment’s best efforts to topple him, the property tycoon and gop presidential candidate has managed to counter his detractors with a campaign strategy seemingly based on throwing out insults and making outrageous proclamations. It has been effective. Trump has not only managed to dominate the media spotlight, becoming the most recognisable Republican candidate around the world, but has also seen his popularity with GOP primary voters soar.

The Republican’s no-nonsense New-Yorker-spoiling-for-a-fight act is washing with his supporters. His diatribes tend to repeat the same ideas because Donald J Trump, schooled in reality TV, knows what it means to create a powerful brand. “He understands how to use the media to drive messaging,” says Darrell West, director of governance studies at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. “And the message is him.”

When it comes to dress sense Trump won’t be winning any accolades. But he manages to convey combativeness with his attire from the blatant baseball cap – worn during warmer months – embossed with the slogan “Make America Great Again” to the oversized suits that project the idea of a successful businessman. Yet in essence Trump plays it safe: he’s seen what shiny-heeled boots did for Marco Rubio, now trailing in the polls – and as such he knows that he doesn’t need to make a statement through his clothes. He’s more than capable of getting his point across.

As relations thaw between the US and Cuba, many islanders have been travelling via Central America and Mexico into the US hoping to gain residency before a now-outdated law is changed. More than 40,000 Cubans entered the US last year through the Cold War-era Cuban Adjustment Act, which gives preferential migratory rights to those turning their backs on the Castros.

But Miami’s mayor Tomás Regalado has warned that his city – home to the country’s largest Cuban expat community – can’t cope with the influx. With Cuba no longer labelled a state sponsor of terrorism, the law makes little sense; but will President Obama act?

Latin America’s biggest medicinal marijuana farm has sprung up in the tiny Chilean town of Quinamávida. Non-profit organisation Fundación Daya, which is leading the project, expects to harvest some 1.5 tonnes of cannabis from more than 6,000 marijuana plants by the middle of the year.

The foundation, along with the University of Valparaíso, a handful of public hospitals and a pharmacy chain, will test cannabis-based treatments for cancer, epilepsy and chronic pain. “This needs to be developed with a vision of common good,” says Ana María Gazmuri, Daya’s executive director.

Relations between Argentina and Uruguay are on the mend following former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s departure. The clearest proof is the two football-obsessed nations’ joint bid to host the 2030 World Cup: Argentina’s Mauricio Macri and Uruguay’s Tabaré Vázquez dropped the big news during a meeting in Montevideo, amid the kind of backslapping bonhomie that had been notably absent from summits between their predecessors. Further evidence of co-operation includes an environmental agreement to monitor shared rivers and a deal for Argentina to buy natural gas from Uruguay.