Latinnews Daily - 06 February 2018

Development: On 5 February, Honduras’s President Juan Orlando Hernández said that the arrival of an exploratory mission from the United Nations (UN) would provide the basis for a way out to the country's current political crisis.... Read More

Development: On 5 February, Colombia’s state-owned oil company, Ecopetrol, reported that another bomb attack had hit the Limón-Coveñas oil pipeline in Saravena, in the country’s north-eastern Arauca department.... Read More

Colombia: Colombia’s national statistics institute (Dane) has reported that the country’s exports reached US$37.8bn in 2017, a 19% increase from the US$31.7bn reported the previous year.... Read More

Development: On 5 February, São Paulo state judge Manoel de Queiroz Pereira Calças admitted that judges were receiving housing benefits as a kind of “indirect salary” in addition to their wage.... Read More

* Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobras has been fined by the national environmental regulator Ibama.... Read More

Central America... Read More

Development: On 5 February, Mexico’s Catholic episcopal conference (CEM) called on the national authorities to investigate and fully clear up the murder of two Catholic priests in the south-western state of Guerrero that same day.  ... Read More

* Mexico’s social security institute (IMSS) has released new figures which show that 356,414 women registered as formal workers in 2017, a new all-time record high figure.... Read More

Development: On 5 February, the Paraguayan authorities confirmed that two Mennonites who had been abducted by the insurgent Ejército del Pueblo Paraguayo (EPP) criminal organisation last year had been released and safely made their way back to their community in Paraguay’s northern San Pedro department.... Read More

Argentina: The Argentine association of automobile manufacturers (Adefa) has reported that the country exported 10,409 automobiles in January, a 6.7% year-on-year increase.  The January automobile export figure is 42.8% lower than that registered in December 2017 but Adefa notes that January is traditionally a slow month for the sector as production levels are reduced due to the summer holidays and a lag in updating production lines to assemble new automobile models.... Read More