Weekly Report - 07 March 2019 (WR-19-09)

In a combative speech opening the new session of the federal congress on 1 March, jeered by opposition protestors inside and outside the building, Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri insisted that his government is making progress and needs a second four-year term in office to complete its “transformation” of the country.... Read More

Juan Guaidó is back in Venezuela.... Read More

Colombia’s transitional justice system (JEP) is facing a major political challenge after the arrest of one of its prosecutors, accused of accepting bribes.... Read More

Peru’s political parties continue to mutate.... Read More

COLOMBIA | Solid growth.... Read More

The release of Brazil’s annual economic growth figures by the national statistics institute (Ibge) on 28 February demonstrates that the country is continuing the economic recovery begun in 2017, but at a painfully slow pace.... Read More

Carnival festivities in Brazil reached their peak with the official celebrations in the days leading up to Ash Wednesday, on 6 March.... Read More

BRAZIL | Petrobras posts profit.... Read More

Mexico’s opposition parties are complaining that members of the ruling leftist Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena) have been sowing political division by jeering and insulting opposition figures during official public events.... Read More

MEXICO | López Obrador reproaches rating agencies.... Read More

President Danilo Medina delivered his annual state-of-the-nation address to the legislative assembly on 27 February, Dominican independence day.... Read More

The government led by President Daniel Ortega and the opposition Alianza Cívica por la Justicia y la Democracia (ACJD) will embark on a fresh dialogue process to try and draw an end to a protracted political crisis.... Read More

The outgoing left-wing Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) has announced that it will stage internal elections on 16 June, two weeks after President-elect Nayib Bukele takes office as part of a renewal process after the party’s humbling defeat in last month’s presidential elections.... Read More

Exactly three years after the notorious murder of Honduran environmentalist and indigenous activist Berta Cáceres, a trial is set to begin into irregularities surrounding the award of a contract to build the Agua Zarca dam and hydroelectric project she had protested against.... Read More

Panama’s electoral campaign formally began on 4 March.... Read More

COSTA RICA | Tax amnesty success.... Read More

Cuba’s foreign minister Bruno Rodríguez accused the US government this week of making “an unacceptable threat against the world”.... Read More

“If we had not taken the measures that we took the economy would have collapsed.”... Read More