Latinnews Daily - 15 January 2018

Development: On 14 January, security officials from Guatemala’s military, the national police (PNC), and state security service (SAAS) fired tear gas at demonstrators in the capital, Guatemala City, who were calling for President Jimmy Morales to resign.... Read More

Development: On 14 January, the local authorities in Colombia’s eastern department of Arauca confirmed that a contractor of the state-owned oil firm, Ecopetrol, had been kidnapped by presumed members of the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) insurgent guerrillas.... Read More

Venezuela: The governor of Venezuela’s central Guárico state, José Vásquez, has reported that 22 shops and local food distribution centres had been affected by the looting on 13 January in the Guárico locality of Calabozo.... Read More

Development: On 12 January, civil police officer Fabio Monteiro was found dead in the boot of a car near the Arará favela in the northern zone of Brazil's Rio de Janeiro city.... Read More

* Brazil’s financial securities regulator CVM has banned investment fund managers from investing in Bitcoin and other kinds of cryptocurrency.... Read More

Central America... Read More

Development: On 14 January, the governor of Mexico’s northern state of Chihuahua, Javier Corral, addressed a large rally at which he accused the federal government of punishing his administration financially for its uncompromising investigation of official corruption.... Read More

* Representatives from Mexico’s livestock sector have called on the European Union (EU) to ease trade restrictions on products such as beef.... Read More

Development: On 14 January, the local police reported that a group of unidentified individuals had set on fire a Catholic Church in the locality of Melipilla, which forms part of the metropolitan area of Chile’s capital, Santiago.... Read More

Paraguay: The finance ministry has formally requested the central bank (BCP) to provide it with a US$90m cash advance so that it can cover central government expenses this month.... Read More

Cuba: In a 9 January press briefing US Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Steven Goldstein said that the US government still does not have definitive answers on the source or cause of a mysterious affliction (including ear complaints, hearing loss, dizziness, headache, fatigue, cognitive issues, and difficulty sleeping) reported by US embassy officials stationed in Cuba since December 2016.... Read More