Weekly Report - 31 August 2017 (WR-17-34)

The future of Guatemala’s President Jimmy Morales is looking increasingly uncertain.... Read More

Fitch Ratings has lowered Venezuela’s junk bonds further into speculative territory, cutting the sovereign’s long-term foreign and local currency ratings from CCC to CC, just two notches from default.... Read More

To no surprise, President Nicolás Maduro immediately seized upon the new US economic sanctions against Venezuela to play the victim, casting the radical left-wing Bolivarian Revolution as the target of a US-backed international right-wing conspiracy, whose main aim is to invade Venezuela militarily and seize its oil.... Read More

The hydrocarbons ministry announced on 25 August that international auditors would be brought in to help formally revise the technical and financial terms of five major energy projects in the country.... Read More

Germán Vargas Lleras, Colombia’s former vice-president (2014-2017) and the main leader of the Cambio Radical (CR) political party, has announced that rather than seek the presidency in next year’s general election on a CR ticket, he will try and register as an independent candidate.... Read More

The Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) government led by President Evo Morales has decreed a reduction in industrial gas subsidies for the first time in nearly two decades.... Read More

PERU | Seeking to boost foreign trade.... Read More

President Michel Temer has abolished a protected reserve (Renca) in Brazil’s Amazon spanning 46,450km² – larger than Denmark – to make way for mining companies.... Read More

Hebe de Bonafini, leader of Madres de Plaza de Mayo and a longstanding human rights campaigner, has been summoned to appear before a court on 25 October to answer questions on the improper use of funds.... Read More

At least 29 trucks used for transporting timber were destroyed in an arson attack in the early hours of 28 August in the Region of Los Ríos in the province of Araucanía in southern Chile.... Read More

In a landmark 7-3 decision on 28 August Mexico’s supreme court (SCJN) ruled that the so-called ‘Kumamoto law’ on the financing of political parties in the state of Jalisco is constitutional.... Read More

The Mexican government led by President Enrique Peña Nieto is once again having to respond to uncertainty caused by a stream of soundbites and tweets from US President Donald Trump.... Read More

MEXICO | Rising household incomes.... Read More

As attempts continue to resolve a teachers’ strike which has dragged on for more than two months, President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski is seeing a sharp fall in his opinion poll ratings.... Read More

“Justice is not negotiable.”... Read More