Weekly Report - 10 May 2018 (WR-18-18)

A sombre President Mauricio Macri appeared on national television on 8 May to make the announcement he perhaps most dreaded upon taking office in December 2015: Argentina will seek financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).... Read More

Less than a month after being notified by Ecuador that it would no longer host the formal peace dialogue with the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) [WR-18-16], the Colombian government led by President Juan Manuel Santos has found a new country willing to assume this role.... Read More

President Nicolás Maduro promised this week that he would provide “a reward” for those who “exercise their sovereign right and go to vote freely” in Venezuela’s presidential elections on 20 May.... Read More

COLOMBIA | Coffee production.... Read More

“A tragedy foretold” is the way the governor of São Paulo, Márcio França, described the collapse of a 24-story building destroyed in a fire in the city on 1 May.... Read More

Brazil’s supreme court (STF) has restricted the special legal status or ‘foro privilegiado’ previously granted to federal legislators.... Read More

The government led by President Sebastián Piñera has unveiled a new fiscal austerity plan for 2018-2021.... Read More

REGION | Trade relations between Latin America and US.... Read More

The frontrunner in Mexico’s presidential elections, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, calm and measured for the duration of the campaign so far, launched into a diatribe against big business on 3 May which could unnerve some of his more moderate supporters who are attracted by the prospect of change but not upheaval.... Read More

This is shaping up as one of the most violent electoral campaigns on record in Mexico.... Read More

MEXICO | Remittances.... Read More

Carlos Alvarado Quesada of the ruling centre-left Partido Acción Ciudadana (PAC), a former minister of labour (2016-2017) and human development & social well-being (2014-2016), took over this week as Costa Rica’s new president.... Read More

President Jimmy Morales has named María Consuelo Porras de Argueta as Guatemala’s new attorney general (AG) for a four-year term.... Read More

HONDURAS | US ends TPS.... Read More

Ecuador’s army commander, General Edison Narváez, tendered his resignation to President Lenín Moreno on 7 May.... Read More

“We have to reassure [Argentine] society that it is not the case that history always repeats itself.... Read More