Weekly Report - 21 May 2026 (WR-26-20)

It was only a matter of time before President Rodrigo Paz faced a major uprising against his efforts to transform Bolivia’s economic model.... Read More

Outbreaks of violence, fake news, and intense but shallow social media campaigns have marked the run-up to the first round of Colombia’s elections due on 31 May.... Read More

Alex Saab, the Colombian businessman who was reputed to be the chief strategist behind Venezuelan sanctions evasion under former president Nicolás Maduro (2013-2026), was extradited to the US state of Florida on 16 May to face money-laundering charges.... Read More

PERU | Trade surplus surges.... Read More

Brazil’s political landscape was shaken this week by revelations involving Senator Flávio Bolsonaro of the right-wing Partido Liberal (PL) and banker Daniel Vorcaro, the central figure in the high-profile Banco Master fraud case, who is currently being held under preventive arrest.... Read More

In record time, after only 69 days in office, Chile’s President José Antonio Kast has carried out a mini-reshuffle, highlighting the early travails encountered by the new right-wing government.... Read More

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BRAZIL | Government raises inflation forecast.... Read More

Since the US Department of Justice unsealed an indictment accusing 10 current and former Mexican officials of ties to the Cártel de Sinaloa, President Claudia Sheinbaum has been playing for time.... Read More

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has announced an initiative to amend the judicial election process, including postponing the next elections until 2028.... Read More

The US government said on 20 May that it was indicting Cuba’s 94-year-old former president Raúl Castro (2008-2018) on charges of shooting down two aircraft in 1996, an incident in which three US citizens lost their lives.... Read More

Gabriel García Luna took over as Guatemala’s attorney general on 17 May, bringing to an end the egregious eight-year term of María Consuelo Porras, who progressively undermined democracy and the rule of law, building a criminal structure to protect the ‘Pacto de Corruptos’, an entrenched alliance of political and business elites.... Read More

Keiko Fujimori and Roberto Sánchez will go head-to-head in a debate on 31 May, one week before the second round of presidential elections.... Read More

“Evo [Morales] has a madness with power, meaning he is a man obsessed with power.... Read More