Weekly Report - 22 February 2024 (WR-24-07)

Brazil’s government has for some time been critical of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, following last October’s attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas, but on 18 February those criticisms intensified, after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva compared the violence against Palestinians to the Holocaust, sparking a diplomatic row with Israel and drawing flak from opponents within Brazil.... Read More

Venezuela’s government is waging an intensifying crackdown on its opponents in the run-up to the presidential election that is due to be held at some stage this year.... Read More

Ecuador has in recent weeks been reluctantly dragged into debates over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, amid intense Russian backlash to a proposed arms deal with the US.... Read More

Bolivia’s economy and finance minister, Marcelo Montenegro, revealed a series of measures on 19 February designed to attenuate the country’s economic problems, especially an acute shortage of US dollars and increasing fiscal deficit due to onerous subsidies on expensive fuel imports.... Read More

Just under three months after his release from prison by means of a controversial humanitarian pardon, Peru’s former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) gave a brief televised interview this week, his first public declarations since his release.... Read More

The far-right government led by President Javier Milei sought to put a positive spin on two developments this week that looked like significant setbacks.... Read More

Only two weeks into his tenure as Brazil’s justice minister, Ricardo Lewandowski has been under pressure to address serious concerns over the security of the federal prison system.... Read More

A sea of pink descended on the Zócalo, the main square in Mexico City (CDMX) on 18 February as large crowds gathered to protest in defence of democracy.... Read More

Mexico’s leftist opposition Movimiento Ciudadano (MC) has positioned itself as the party of ‘the new’ in this year’s electoral race, as opposed to both the ruling left-wing Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena) and the parties in the main opposition coalition, Fuerza y Corazón por México.... Read More

More than two weeks after the presidential and legislative elections on 4 February, El Salvador’s electoral authority (TSE) has finally confirmed the results for the new 60-member unicameral legislature (downsized from 84 as per electoral reforms passed last year).... Read More

Guatemala’s new President Bernardo Arévalo has begun a tour of Europe.... Read More

The 18 February municipal elections have delivered a major victory for President Luis Abinader’s Partido Revolucionario Moderno (PRM) ahead of the May presidential and legislative contest in which he is widely expected to win re-election.... Read More

Costa Rica’s President Rodrigo Chaves said this week that the economy was in “excellent health” and expressed surprise at “how quickly we have moved from such a terrible state to a state where we can feel much more secure”.... Read More

NICARAGUA | Record remittances offset trade deficit.... Read More

A Paraguayan court handed down the maximum prison sentence of 30 years on 20 February to a former police interrogator accused of torture under the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989).... Read More

“What is happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people has no parallel in other historical moments.... Read More