LatinNews Daily - 26 July 2019

On 25 July Guatemala's President Jimmy Morales questioned the “conscience” and “capacity” of the country’s constitutional court (CC) justices.... Read More

On 25 July, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) sanctioned ten individuals implicated in a complex network of bribery and money laundering revolving around a Venezuelan government food subsidy programme (Clap), among which are the step children of Venezuela’s de facto president, Nicolás Maduro.... Read More

* Colombia’s agriculture ministry has announced that Colombian Hass avocados will be exported to Japan from the end of July, which agricultural minister Andrés Valencia Pinzón says will open new markets for avocados and other Colombian agricultural products.... Read More

On 25 July, Brazil’s Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo said that the state-owned oil company Petrobras could face losses in its US activities once it refuels two Iranian ships, which are subjected to US sanctions, currently docked in Brazil.... Read More

* Brazil’s central bank (BCB) has released its latest statistics for the external sector, which show that foreign direct investment (FDI) net inflows to Brazil totalled US$37.3bn in the first six months of 2019, a 10.4% increase on the same period in 2018.... Read More

* El Salvador’s national legislative assembly has approved a US$200m loan from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) aimed at providing support for the 2019 budget and strengthening fiscal stability.... Read More

On 25 July Mexico’s federal chamber of deputies approved a new asset forfeiture law, ‘Ley Nacional de Extinción de Dominio’, which aims to unify all the processes under which the state can confiscate illicitly obtained assets.... Read More

* Mexico’s environment ministry (Semarnat) has published an environmental impact report (MIA) that will allow construction to begin on the mixed civil/military Santa Lucía international airport located between the Zumpango and Tecámac municipalities in the Estado de México (Edomex).... Read More

On 25 July figures from Paraguay’s main opposition Partido Liberal Radical Auténtico (PLRA) threatened to launch impeachment proceedings against President Mario Abdo Benítez unless an agreement reached by his government with Brazil over the distribution of electricity from the Itaipú binational hydroelectric dam is revoked.... Read More

* Argentina’s agriculture minister, Luis Miguel Etchevehere, has presented a declaration signed by members of the Consejo Agropecuario del Sur (CAS) ministerial council (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay) to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) regarding delays from certain food-importing countries in authorising the presence of biotechnological products from South America.... Read More