Britain's announcement on Wednesday that it plans to extend its Antarctic territory by 1 million square kilometers has already come under fire from environmental groups as being antithetical to the UK's status as a leader in the fight against global warming. The new territory would likely be used for oil and gas exploration, critics points out, thus violating the 1959 Antarctic treaty. The treaty divides the continent between seven nations and forbids resource extraction.

But Her Majesty's Antarctic land grab is only one of five new territorial claims the UK plans to submit under a new U.N. treaty that allows countries to claim continental shelf up to 380 miles off their shores. Britain's four other claims are located around the Falkland Islands, around Ascension Island in the South Atlantic, near the Bay of Biscay in the North Atlantic, and in the Hatton-Rockall basin off Scotland's coast. Though eight other countries have filed claims under the treaty, some are characterizing Britain's sudden expansionist mood as imperialistic.

The Falklands claim is particularly touchy because of certain previous, uh, territorial disputes in that region. When the claim was announced last month, a senior Argentine official stated, "[I]f the British do not change their approach we shall have to interpret it as aggression." Now, Argentina is working on its own Antarctica bid. This should be interesting.

ANDREW WONG/Getty Images News

It used to appear that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice enjoyed trading verbal barbs with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Chávez would call President George W. Bush "a donkey." Condi would fire back that Chávez was "really, really destroying his own country." It was good fun. But sometime around March, the Bush administration's tactics began to change. These days, when Hugo acts like an impetuous toddler, the Bush administration treats him accordingly: by ignoring him.

The 180-degree turn in tactics was on full display yesterday when Condoleezza Rice spoke about Latin America with members of the Council on Foreign Relations. Chávez had just boycotted the U.N. General Assembly and had given an interview to the AP in which he said the U.S. was "hunting" him and wanted him dead. But in her appearance yesterday, Rice didn't bite. She didn't mention Chávez by name once, instead referring only to "exceptions" to democracy in Latin America who "may be noisy ... but are heading in the opposite direction of the hemisphere as a whole." This was hardly the Power Condi of 2005 who showed up at Wiesbaden Army Airfield wearing knee-high leather. In fact, Rice went out of her way yesterday to check the tough talk at the door. Though her remarks were typically laden with language about the transformative powers of democracy, she also made it clear that, when it comes to picking allies in the hemisphere, "the U.S. charges no ideological price for our partnership."

At least by Rice's account, the change in tactics is working. After Bush refused to mention Chávez's name on a tour of Latin America in March, Condi says, "Chávez was going around saying, 'Why will not President Bush mention my name?'" "There is actually, frankly, nothing that he likes better than to have the United States responding to him," Rice added. That may be so, but I'm still going to miss the fireworks.

LUIS ACOSTA/AFP

Néstor Kirchner isn't standing for a second term as Argentina's president. Instead, he's recommending his wife for the position. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who represents the highly populous Buenos Aires province in the Argentinian Senate, plans to run for Argentina's top job in October.

Kirchner is reasonably well liked, with an approval rating of 52 percent. It's not as if he couldn't win reelection. So why is he doing this? The Post speculates that Néstor is worried that recent setbacks have hurt his popularity. His plan, analysts suspect, is to give Cristina a turn at the wheel and return to power in 2011. (Argentina prohibits a president from serving more than two terms in a row.) The Kirchners' scheme to stay in power for longer could very well work; none of the other four contenders for the presidency is even polling in the double digits.

Cristina, interestingly, has been critical of her husband's friendship with Hugo Chávez. But she can only go so far in distancing Argentina from Chávez, as Strafor notes—her country's economic health depends on the Venezuelan strongman's continued largesse.

Bolivia's coca growers are demanding that Coca-Cola drop the word Coca from its name. A group of coca industry representatives passed a resolution saying that international companies should refrain from using the word coca in their commercial names. The resolution also urges the United Nations to decriminalize the shrub. The coca growers argue that the sacred plant is part of Bolivia's cultural heritage, which is true, but disingenuous when you take into account that the traditional crop now underpins a global illicit industry whose profits run in the billions. (Just today, Mexican police found $206 million in drug cash in a Mexico City mansion.)

This effort at trying to "own" the word coca reminds me of Ethiopia's effort to trademark the names of three of its coffee-producing regions. In this case though, it is a publicity stunt aimed primarily at a domestic constituency, and the latest step in President Evo Morales's struggling campaign to recast the image of the coca leaf (which is only a mild stimulant until it is processed into cocaine). Morales, who emerged from the ranks of coca growers, hopes—probably in vain—that a legal market for coca tea, flour, and liquor can emerge to divert the coca harvest away from the illegal market for the popular drug.

Meanwhile, The Coca-Cola Company issued a statement declaring that its brand name is protected under Bolivian law. It also denied, yet again, that it has ever used cocaine as an ingredient. (It made no mention of whether it has ever used coca leaves in its refreshing beverages. An old label, though, lists coca leaves as an ingredient.)

It all seems a bit counterproductive to me. If coca growers want to recast the image of their plant as a legitimate, marketable crop, then isn't inclusion of the word coca in the world's most widely known brand something that would actually further that goal?

Add bananas to the list of products you need to be careful about buying.

Chiquita Brands International, one of the world's largest producers of bananas, has agreed to pay a $25 million fine to the U.S. government for paying protection money to terrorists through a former subsidiary in Colombia.

Last month, the Ohio-based company disclosed in its quarterly financial statement that it initially notified the U.S. Department of Justice of the problem in April 2003. But the payments, which reached $1.7 million altogether, continued into 2004. Chiquita was logging the transactions as "security payments" or "security services." Of course, in this instance, they happened to be paying terrorist groups not to kill or intimidate their employees.

The groups paid are: the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces (AUC), the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (better known as FARC), and the National Liberation Army (ELN). All three are on the U.S. State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations.

Now that Chiquita has reached a plea agreement, I wonder what other banana companies have been paying out protection money to terrorist groups? 

ANTONIO SCORZA/AFP/Getty Images

Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL: "Unidos da Tijuca" samba school performs at the Sambadrome, during the second night of carnival celebrations in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 19 February 2007.

ANTONIO SCORZA/AFP

A number of tour operators have begun leading curious tourists into some of the world's most famous slums: Soweto township, slums in Kenya, Brazil's favelas, and the "homes" of India's street children. The jury's still out on whether the tours are perverse invasions of privacy or eye-opening experiences that will prompt action on the poverty agenda.

The best-known slums of all, Rio de Janeiro's sprawling favelas, are even enticing permanent gringo residents. This isn't so surprising, given that favela residents are a lot more middle-class than most Brazilians care to admit—about 15 percent according to the 1991 census. And this proportion is rising, due to a lack of affordable housing. The vibrancy of life in the favelas is felt more strongly outside Brazil than within it, thanks to cultural exports like samba music and the movie City of God. Gentrification of the favelas is almost certain to help poor residents, as gringos support local restaurants and help upgrade infrastructure.

In traditional development circles, pro-poor tourism is about helping the poor market goods and services to foreigners, not marketing their own misery to the rich. My take: There's room for tour operators who respect the poor and help the rest of us better understand their lifestyles. Who better to lead favela tours than favela residents? As I wrote last week, there are plenty of positive things happening in the slums that we would do well to understand. After all, the first step to helping the poor is to ask them what kind of help they want.

Christine Bowers is a consultant at the World Bank Group and the godmother of the Private Sector Development Blog. Writers from the PSDBlog will be contributing a weekly series of posts for Passport entitled "Fighting Poverty With Markets."

For more on life in the favelas, Janice Perlman's work is a great place to start. Also, check out this blog on squatter cities.