LatinNews Regional Monitor: Brazil & Southern Cone - 18 January 2019

Development: On 17 January, NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned that Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro’s approach to security represents a threat to public safety in the country.... Read More

* Brazil’s central bank (BCB) has released the latest figures for the index of economic activity (IBC-Br), which show that GDP grew 0.29% month-on-month in November 2018.... Read More

Development: On 17 January, a fifth case of hantavirus was confirmed in the central Argentinian province of Buenos Aires according to local media reports.... Read More

* In a recent press conference, Chile’s mining minister, Baldo Prokuriça, and Jorge Cantallopts, the director of studies and public policies at the state copper commission (Cochilco), said that the government was expecting international prices of copper (Chile’s main export) to average US$3.05/lb this year, rising to US$3.08/lb in 2020.... Read More

Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri met his Brazilian peer Jair Bolsonaro in Brasília on 16 January, having missed his investiture on New Year’s Day.... Read More

Uruguay’s political opposition has concentrated its attacks at the start of this electoral year on the government’s refusal to declare the presidency of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro to be illegitimate after his investiture on 10 January.... Read More

President Jair Bolsonaro’s new government has few concrete measures to show for its first two weeks in office, which have been marked by controversies over appointments, continued violence in the North-East, and sustained market optimism based largely on speculation.... Read More

BRAZIL | Bolsonaro approves budget.... Read More