Vice-President Pence's stature is on the ascendancy

THE US vice-president, Mike Pence, ended his four-country Latin American tour on Friday, after stop-offs in Colombia, Argentina, Chile and Panama.

Venezuela was not part of the tour, but the political crisis there hung over the trip, following President Donald Trump's polarising remarks on Sunday about considering intervening "military options" there.

The eyes of much of the international business and governmental worlds are currently on the continent - partly because of the destabilising political effects of the Caracas crisis for the wider region, including the bordering states of Brazil and Colombia.