January is out!

The Janaury issue marks our first foray as a magazine into government spending, a huge part of any national economy representing billions of dollars in contracts annually to private companies. It's a tough topic, one our correspondents handled well, with some standouts among them:

Margarida Pfeifer, our Brazil Correspondent, nailed the move by Brazil's government to online purchasing, including tons of details about how the increased competition is tough on suppliers. Marisol Rueda, in Mexico, took a similar tack covering how the Mexican government has taken it all online. Result: Politicians have gotten a taste for transparency and cost-cutting. Imagine that.

C.J. Schexnayder in Peru handled his assignment particuarly well by starting off with the story of a small business that had latched on to big government budgets. And María Elena Verdezoto in Ecuador handled a delicate situation -- how to write about a government so obviously in arrears -- while still writing about the matter at hand.

Elsewhere in the issue, Marisol Rueda landed an absolutely perfect interview with the head of the Venezuela media company Telesur. She's relentless, as you would expect a journalist interviewing a journalist would be. Especially if one of the journalists now officially works for Hugo Chávez.