BOLIVIA: The increasingly left-wing club of South American presidents will start gathering in the Bolivian capital of La Paz today to welcome its newest member, Evo Morales.
Mr Morales will be inaugurated in two ceremonies over the weekend, one involving traditional Indian rites and another before congress, to become the first Indian leader of this indigenous-majority country since the arrival of Spanish conquistadors.
Mr Morales is the latest beneficiary of deep discontent in the region at the failure of half-baked market reforms during the 1990s to tackle poverty and inequality; discontent which has resulted in the political map turning from blue to red in recent years.
But despite claims by this new generation of leaders that the swing left will speed up regional integration, two disputes have upset the image of South American solidarity in recent weeks.
Observers will be watching to see if Peru's Alejandro Toledo acknowledges Venezuela's Hugo Chávez at the weekend's events after Peru withdrew its ambassador from Caracas earlier this month in protest at Mr Chávez's open support for the radical Ollanta Humala in Peru's upcoming presidential elections.
Many Peruvians see Mr Chávez's support as blatant interference in their internal political affairs. "Chávez is president of Venezuela, not of Latin America," warned Mr Toledo.
Mr Chávez is openly backing the Humala candidacy in Peru, seeing it as the next step in the radicalisation of the region. But while Mr Chávez has at times declared himself to be a communist, many observers in Peru note that the populism of Mr Humala has as much in common with fascism as it does with the populist socialism of Mr Chávez and Mr Morales.
The Peruvian writer and former presidential candidate, Mario Vargas Llosa, in an article last year said that Mr Humala's movement inclined "to the Nazi outlook", noting its xenophobia, obsession with indigenous racial purity and militarisation.
Ecuador and Chile are warily watching Mr Humala's rise in the polls. His movement regards these two neighbours as Peru's historical enemies.
Peru has fought wars with both Ecuador and Chile in the past.
Traditionally, anti-Chilean propaganda has been a favourite political ploy in Bolivian and Peruvian politics, ever since the two countries were defeated by Chile in the War of the Pacific in the 19th century.
This deeply ingrained hostility to Chile leaves it feeling isolated in the region, despite being one of the longest-standing members of the left-wing club.
The second outbreak of diplomatic bad blood is in the Mercosur trade bloc, made up of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.
Echoing moves by Paraguay last year, Uruguay this month floated the idea of a bilateral trade deal with the US, something expressly prohibited under Mercosur rules. Paraguay and Uruguay increasingly feel that Brazil and Argentina ignore their concerns within the bloc and that their bigger partners' trade negotiating tactics are denying them access to overseas markets.
José Mujica, the former communist guerrilla and Uruguay's current minister of agriculture, recently said Mercosur's commitments were "not worth a damn", fuelling a crisis within the bloc.
Uruguay is also furious with the Argentine government for allowing protesters cut links between the two countries in recent weeks in a dispute over the construction of two pulp plants on the Uruguayan side of the Plat river.
Argentina opposes the plants, saying they will contaminate the area. Uruguay dismisses these concerns and says Argentina is once again interfering.
Tabaré Vázquez, Uruguay's president, has decided not to attend this weekend's ceremonies. Mr Mujica will represent Uruguay instead, providing an early opportunity for Lula da Silva, Brazil's president, to put into practice his promise this week to pay more attention to Mercosur's "smaller brothers".