25th June, 2001. Venezuela: "In Venezuela, if you don't pay bills, a devil may pay you a visit," writes Marc Lifsher. The most bizarre debt-collection agency in Venezuela is called "Dr Diablo" and is the creation of lawyer and advertising executive Rodrigo Herrera. Mr Herrera has fine-tuned a system that uses shame, intimidation and the threat of being visited by his "Mobile Anti-Deadbeat Command" to collect debts ranging from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands. Mr Herrera's commando tactics are an over-the-top answer to a new kind of Latin American debt crisis, one involving consumers and business, not governments. The move towards free-market capitalism in Venezuela has fueled a boom in issuing unsecured credit and has unleashed ferocious competition among banks to hand out credit cards. However, there is no functioning credit-reporting system to tip off creditors to people who aren't credit worthy, and no effective way to collect unsecured debt in court. Debt collection has become a growth industry in a depressed region. Another Caracas agency, Los Pinguinos (The Penguins) sends out collectors in tuxedos. In neighbouring Colombia, a company called the Chepitos sends collectors dressed as Charlie Chaplin, with bowler hats, canes and little mustaches. Such methods, entirely legal in Venezuela, lawyers say, would out of the question in the US where the 1977 Fair Debt Collection Practices Act bars the humiliation or harassment of debtors. WTO: A WTO disputes panel has rejected US efforts to defend a $4bn tax break for US exporters, according to details of the ruling that emerged over the week end. The EU asserted that US legislation passed last year on the so-called foreign sales corporation (FSC) tax resulted in an unfair export subsidy for US companies. UK: Gordon Brown will today vow that no child is to be left behind as he puts at the heart of the government second-term spending the tackling of ingrained deprivation among the 3.2 million British children still below the poverty line. Despite Labour's success in lifting nearly a million children above the poverty line in their first term, Britain still has one of the worst records of deprivation in the EU. AIDS: Former president Bill Clinton raised the stakes on the eye of the momentous three-day-special session of the UN on HIV/AIDS by calling on the US to put in far more money than it has promised so far to fight the epidemic. Today Kofi Annan, the US secretary general will formally ask for contributions to a global health fund. He says that up to $10bn a year is needed. So far the US - the richest donor state - has pledged just $200m, and the UK about $100m. AIDS has killed 22 million people already in the 20 years since it was first detected. It is now recognised as a critical development issue, since the burden of the disease, which is wiping out the youngest, most economically productive generation, is wrecking the fragile economies of poor countries. Venezuela: Vladimir Montesino, a fugitive Peruvian intelligence official accused of amassing a fortune from arms dealing and drug trafficking, has been captured here after eight months in hiding. Mr Montesino, who since fleeing Peru last October had become Latin America's most wanted man, triggered a political crisis last year that toppled President Alberto Fujimori. He faces charges ranging from money laundering to corruption.