LatinNews Daily - 10 September 2018

Development: On 9 September Venezuela’s foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza, condemned as “totally unacceptable” the reports in US media that US government officials have secretly met with Venezuelan military officers to try to promote a coup d’état against the government led by President Nicolás Maduro.... Read More

Colombia: Colombia’s President Iván Duque has said that his government will not resume the peace dialogue with the insurgent Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) guerrillas until the guerrilla group releases all of its current hostages and shows “a real will for peace”.... Read More

Development: On 9 September, candidates running in Brazil’s 7 October presidential election took part in a third televised debate, during which they defended the importance of a peaceful electoral process.... Read More

* Authorities say that hostility towards Venezuelan migrants has increased and tensions have risen again in Brazil’s northern state of Roraima after a group of locals in Boa Vista, the state capital, killed a Venezuelan suspected of having beaten to death a Brazilian national.... Read More

Development: On 7 September Nicaragua’s Alianza Cívica por la Justicia y la Democracia (Alianza Cívica) opposition movement - comprising students, civil-society groups, and the private sector – staged a national march.... Read More

Central America: The US government recalled its ambassadors to the Dominican Republic (DR) (Robin Bernstein); El Salvador (Jean Manes); and its US Charge d’Affaires in Panama (Roxanne Cabral) for consultations related to recent decisions to no longer recognise Taiwan.... Read More

Development: On 9 September the coordinator of the left-wing Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena) in Mexico’s federal lower chamber of congress, Mario Delgado, accused five state governments of applying pressure to thwart the legislative agenda of incoming president Andrés Manuel López Obrador.... Read More

* Mexico’s President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said that he plans to increase the country’s oil production to 2.6m barrels per day (bpd) during his six-year term starting on 1 December, up from the current rate of 1.8m bpd.... Read More

Development: On 9 September, local public prosecutor Lorena Ledesma indicted Ulises Quintana, a national deputy from Paraguay’s ruling Asociación Nacional Republicana- Partido Colorado (ANR-PC) party, on five charges and asked for his impeachment so that he could face prosecution as part of an investigation into an international drug trafficking network allegedly headed by detained kingpin Reinaldo Javier 'Cucho' Cabaña.... Read More

Argentina: Argentina’s finance minister, Nicolás Dujovne, and cabinet chief, Marcos Peña, have signed an administrative decree authorising an increase in spending of more than Ar$40bn (US$1.1bn).... Read More

Argentina: On 4 September the US President Donald Trump issued a statement noting that he had spoken with Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri on the telephone that same morning to discuss the Macri administration’s response to the currency crisis currently affecting Argentina’s domestic economy.... Read More