Weekly Report - 21 February 2019 (WR-19-07)

President Jair Bolsonaro’s first 50 days in office have been far from plain sailing.... Read More

The intensity of the verbal sparring in Venezuela is escalating ahead of the impending arrival of humanitarian aid.... Read More

President Martín Vizcarra has seen his approval rating decline by five percentage points in one month.... Read More

COLOMBIA | Fiscal adjustment falls short.... Read More

Argentina’s security minister Patricia Bullrich and justice and human rights minister Germán Garavano unveiled plans on 19 February to reduce the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 15, part of a package of tougher law enforcement measures.... Read More

URUGUAY | Tax take up.... Read More

After railing against private energy sector firms last week [WR-19-06], this week Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has reached out to the business community by holding a meeting with the Mexican business council (CNM).... Read More

MEXICO | Pemex and CFE in need for greater corporate transparency.... Read More

Nayib Bukele was formally proclaimed president-elect of El Salvador on 15 February.... Read More

“An important effort to open a door that has been closed for a long time.” This was the response by José Adán Aguerri, the head of the leading private sector lobby Cosep, to a meeting held last week by President Daniel Ortega and private sector representatives, along with Cardinal Leopoldo José Brenes Solórzano, Archbishop of Managua, and Bishop Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, Apostolic Nuncio to Nicaragua.... Read More

A week after the mass protests began calling for his resignation [WR-19-06], President Jovenel Moïse finally ended his silence, insisting he would not resign.... Read More

President Juan Carlos Varela received a major blow last week after the European Union (EU) included Panama on its blacklist of countries with weak anti-money laundering and terrorist-financing regimes.... Read More

The future of Colombia’s transitional justice system (JEP), a key component of the 2016 peace accord with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc), is hanging in the balance, as President Iván Duque decides whether to sign it into law, veto its provisions, or suggest new amendments.... Read More

“My outrage is that I served as a soldier willing to kill and die, to at the end of the day be crucified and branded a liar, all because Carlos Bolsonaro worked some psychological black magic in his father’s head.”... Read More