COLOMBIA: Alvaro Uribe has taken the oath as the first re-elected president in Colombian history, vowing to maintain a firm hand with leftist guerrillas but to aggressively pursue what his citizens want above all: an end to four decades of armed conflict.
In a speech on Monday to Colombia's Congress, Mr Uribe reviewed what he called his first term's progress in re-establishing security in much of the nation. That in turn has helped democracy to rebound and the economy to stage a comeback after a decade of near chaos, he said.
But he admitted there was "a long way to go, and difficulties persist". He promised to pursue peace with armed rebels despite the failure of such gestures in the past. "We are not afraid to negotiate peace. I confess that I worry about something different - the risk of not achieving peace and reverting to insecurity."
Voters re-elected Mr Uribe in May by a large margin. With billions in US aid to help pay for 120,000 additional soldiers and police, he has improved security in the urban areas and provided protection to officials.
His inauguration caps a week in which fighters thought to be left-wing guerrillas sought to remind Mr Uribe and Colombia that, though weakened, they still are a force to be reckoned with.
In the days leading up to the swearing-in, several bomb attacks killed 22 soldiers and six police officers across the country. Last Wednesday, authorities broke up a guerrilla ring and seized 113kg of high explosives in in south Bogota.
On Tuesday of last week six civilians working in a programme to eradicate coca leaves used in the production of cocaine were killed when guerrillas exploded a bomb in the Macarena national park. The attack was seen as a warning that working for the government was a risky business. Over the past several days, hundreds of troops and armoured vehicles patrolled Bogota's streets.
On Monday a Colombian family of six, including one child, was massacred by an armed group in a region of northern Colombia where crops are grown to make cocaine and police believe the killings, which took place in Zaragoza, may have been carried out by former right-wing militia members.
Although the country is still at war, there is widespread acknowledgment that things have improved significantly since Mr Uribe took office in 2002. The economy has strengthened, and inflation and unemployment are down. Much of the growth had little to do with Mr Uribe's policies: the economy has been propelled by the increase in prices of Colombian commodities such as coal, oil, coffee and bananas. But Wall Street has praised Mr Uribe's fiscal management as well as his plan to impose a wealth tax similar to one in 2002.
Bogota and other cities are in the midst of a construction boom, and foreign investment is pouring into the country.
While much of Latin America has taken a leftward tack politically, Mr Uribe remains a steadfast friend of the Bush administration. But in a nod to prevailing political winds, he acknowledged that free-market policies of recent years have proved insufficient to alleviate his country's grinding poverty and inequality.
"We don't share the idea of promoting growth and abandoning the war on poverty to fate of the free market. We reject the notion of the equitable distribution of poverty. We believe in the growth of social justice," he said