LatinNews Daily - 3 June 2019

On 2 June, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador received a huge fillip as his left-wing Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena) won the state governorships of Puebla and Baja California (BC), crushing the right-wing Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) in two of its traditional bastions, according to preliminary results released by the national electoral institute (INE).... Read More

On 1 June, the local media revealed that President Martín Vizcarra had sent a letter to a prosecutor which states that he is willing to put himself at the disposal of the prosecutor’s office to answer any questions relating to complaints involving crimes against public administration which took place under his term as governor of the southern region of Moquegua (2011-2014).... Read More

* The latest weekly figures from Venezuela’s oil ministry show the price per barrel of oil has fallen to 426.80 yuan (US$61.79) down from last week’s figure of 445.20 yuan.... Read More

On 31 May, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro questioned the supreme court’s (STF) planned vote on the criminalisation of homophobia, accusing the country’s highest court of “legislating”.... Read More

* Brazil’s national statistics institute (Ibge) has reported that the national unemployment rate stands at 12.5% for the period of February to April 2019, down 0.4 percentage points compared with the same period last year (12.9%) but an increase of 0.5 percentage points from the previous rolling quarter of November 2018-January 2019 (12.0%).... Read More

On 1 June, Nayib Bukele of the centre-right Gran Alianza por la Unidad Nacional-Nuevas Ideas coalition was sworn-in as El Salvador’s new president for a five-year term.... Read More

* President Juan Orlando Hernández has announced he will revoke two decrees which affect the health and education sectors, which unions warned would result in the privatisation of both sectors and job losses.... Read More

* Mexico’s foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard has arrived in Washington DC in preparation for a meeting with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week.... Read More

On 1 June, Chile’s President Sebastián Piñera delivered the second state-of-the-nation speech of his current presidential term before the national congress in Valparaíso.... Read More

* President Mauricio Macri has warned against a return to the past in comments that implied a critique of the Peronist opposition party: “Some believe that we can find solutions in returning to the past.... Read More

Argentina: On 23 May, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) identified the Argentina-based Goldpharma Drug Trafficking and Money Laundering Organization (Goldpharma DTO/MLO) as a significant foreign narcotics trafficker pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (Kingpin Act).  OFAC also designated eight Argentine nationals for their role in the Goldpharma DTO/MLO, as well as nine entities located in Argentina, Colombia, Canada, the UK, and the Netherlands.... Read More