LatinNews Daily - 02 January 2019

Development: On 1 January, Jair Bolsonaro of the small right-wing Partido Social Liberal (PSL) was sworn in for a four-year term as the 38th president of Brazil.... Read More

Development: On 1 January Peru’s President Martín Vizcarra called on congress to urgently declare a state of emergency in the national judiciary thus allowing his administration to intervene.... Read More

* Peru’s national statistics institute (Inei) has reported that economic activity in the mining & hydrocarbon sector fell by 2.52% year-on-year in November 2018.... Read More

* Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, has signed his first decree which guarantees a 4.61% increase of the monthly minimum wage, from R$954 (US$245.8) to R$998 (US$257.1).... Read More

Development: On 1 January the Nicaraguan government led by President Daniel Ortega rejected the decision by Luis Almagro, the secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS), to begin the process of applying Article 20 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter (IACD) against Nicaragua.... Read More

* The Dominican Republic (DR)’s central bank has released figures which project 7% GDP growth for the DR for 2018 – the highest in Latin America.  The fastest growing sectors were: communications (11.0%); construction (10.6%); free trade zones (9.1%); health (8.8%); trade (8.5%); financial services (7.9%); and agriculture (6.5%).... Read More

Development: On 1 January the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency reported that 25 people, including some minors, have been arrested after a group of Central American migrants tried to cross the Mexico-US border in Tijuana, Baja California state. ... Read More

* Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said that his government will not increase any taxes this year, including on petrol fuels, to finance its budget.... Read More

Development: On 1 January Aucán Huilcamán, the spokesperson for the indigenous Mapuche organisation Consejo de Todas las Tierras, called for “urgent clarification” of the events surrounding the death of Juan de Dios Mendoza, an indigenous Mapuche leader (lonko), whose body was found the previous day in La Araucanía region.... Read More

* Chile’s national statistics institute (INE) has released preliminary figures which show national unemployment in the third quarter of 2018 was 6.8%, 0.3 percentage points more than the same period in 2017.... Read More