LatinNews Daily - 12 December 2018

Development: On 11 December the United Nations (UN) representative in Honduras Igor Garafulic announced the end to the UN-brokered political dialogue in Honduras after ten months, a process which failed to produce any formal political agreements.... Read More

Development: On 11 December Ecuador’s national assembly appointed Otto Sonnenholzner Sper as vice president to replace María Alejandra Vicuña, who had relinquished her position last week in the face of corruption charges.... Read More

* David Sánchez, the executive director of Bolivia’s port authority (ASPB), has told reporters that ASPB’s target for 2019 is to triple the 30,000 tonnes of Bolivian cargo currently moving through Ilo port on Peru’s Pacific coast.... Read More

Development: On 11 December, Brazil’s incumbent foreign minister, Aloysio Nunes Ferreira, lamented that Ernesto Araújo, his designated successor, has said that Brazil will disassociate itself from the United Nations (UN) global compact on safe, orderly, and regular migration.... Read More

* Brazil’s council of coffee exporters (Cecafé) has announced that the country exported 3.68m sacks of coffee (one sack = 60kg) in November.... Read More

* Costa Rica’s foreign minister Epsy Campbell has resigned following an investigation into the process by which she appointed certain officials in the foreign ministry.... Read More

Development: On 11 December the representative of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Mexico, Jan Jařab, said that the government led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador could fall into “committing the same mistakes” as it predecessors with its proposed new national security strategy.... Read More

* Mexico’s national hydrocarbons commission (CNH), the sector regulator, has announced the cancellation of the second and third round of the ‘Second Round’ of oil concession auctions opened to private firms and scheduled to take place this month and in January 2019.... Read More

Development: On 11 December, businessman and political newcomer Juan Sartori formally launched his pre-candidacy for Uruguay’s centre-right opposition Partido Nacional (PN, Blancos) party in next November’s presidential election.... Read More

* International credit ratings agency, Fitch Ratings, has upgraded its long-term sovereign credit rating for Paraguay from ‘BB’ to ‘BB+’.... Read More