LatinNews Daily - 23 August 2018

Development: On 22 August Guatemala’s supreme court (CSJ) approved the request put forward on 10 August by the attorney general’s office (AG) and the United Nations-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (Cicig) for President Jimmy Morales to be stripped of his immunity from prosecution to be investigated for illegal campaign financing.... Read More

Development: On 22 August, legislators from Fuerza Revolucionaria del Común, the political party made up of former members of Colombia’s demobilised Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) guerrilla group, presented a bill proposing differential treatment for small-scale farmers who cultivate illegal crops.... Read More

Bolivia: A local private sector lobby, IBCE, has released a new report which shows that Bolivia’s net international reserves (RIN) dropped to US$9.17bn in August (equivalent to 27% of GDP) down from US$15bn at its peak in 2014 (when it was equivalent to 45% of GDP).... Read More

Development: On 22 August, Brazil’s federal public security minister, Raul Jungmann, met Colombia’s foreign minister, Carlos Holmes Trujillo, in Bogotá, where they discussed questions of border security, migration issues, and how to cooperate in the fight against organised crime.... Read More

* Brazil’s labour ministry (MTB) has released the latest figures from the country’s general employment registry (Caged) which show that the domestic economy created over 47,300 formal jobs in July.... Read More

El Salvador: El Salvador’s Vice President Oscar Ortiz has denied that the government’s recent decision to break ties with Taiwan in favour of mainland China would impact on relations with the US.... Read More

Development: On 22 August Olga Sánchez Cordero, who has been designated as Mexico’s future interior minister by President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said that the incoming government would propose the decriminalisation of illicit drugs such as marijuana and opium to the United Nations (UN).... Read More

*Moody’s Investor Service, the international credit ratings agency, has issued a new comment note in which it warns that the cancellation of the project to build a new international airport for Mexico City (NAICM) would negatively impact Mexico’s domestic economy.... Read More

Development: On 22 August Argentina’s federal congress unanimously voted in favour of authorising prosecutors to conduct searches in a number of properties owned by former president (2007-2015) and incumbent senator Cristina Fernández, as well as to approve a bill on domain extinction for ill-gotten assets.... Read More

Argentina: The finance ministry has announced that it has successfully placed US$2.09bn in short-term treasury bonds (Letes) in the local financial market.... Read More