Weekly Report - 12 September 2019 (WR-19-36)

Venezuela’s de facto and interim presidents, Nicolás Maduro and Juan Guaidó respectively, fired poisoned darts at one another this week as the prospect of a political resolution to the country’s long-running and multi-layered crisis grew yet more distant.... Read More

Seven countries in South America signed a wide-ranging 16-point accord on 6 September to coordinate action to protect the Amazon rainforest from destruction.... Read More

Ecuador’s future as a mining nation could hang in the balance as the constitutional court (CC) weighs up a request by the prefect of Azuay, Yaku Pérez, to stage a referendum on whether the province should be declared a mining-free zone.... Read More

PERU | Oil tender.... Read More

The cordial relations that Chile’s President Sebastián Piñera maintains with his Brazilian peer Jair Bolsonaro were tested last week by the latter’s personal attack on Michelle Bachelet, a leftist former president of Chile (2006-2010; 2014-2018).... Read More

On 8 September, Brazil’s federal attorney general Raquel Dodge appealed to the country’s supreme court (STF) over an issue of censorship at the Rio de Janeiro book fair (see below).... Read More

Argentina’s election campaign formally got underway on 7 September.... Read More

The government led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has submitted its proposed 2020 national budget to Mexico’s federal congress for debate.... Read More

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been spared a damaging domestic political clash to go with his government’s economic difficulties and recurrent diplomatic crises with the US.... Read More

Authorities in The Bahamas are facing fierce criticism for their response to Hurricane Dorian one week after its devastating passage across parts of the island chain.... Read More

For the second time since taking office in 2016, President Jimmy Morales has declared a state of siege, a measure which allows for a military deployment and restricts basic rights such as the freedom of movement and the right to bear arms.... Read More

A law which would “limit the right to strike and weaken democracy”.... Read More

The fires in the Brazilian Amazon might have received the most international news coverage, but the Paraguayan government was compelled to declare a national emergency on 10 September as a result of forest fires that have been raging in the northern departments of Alto Paraguay and Boquerón, located in the country’s western Chaco geographical region.... Read More

“In 11 seconds a Sukhoi could be in Bogotá.”... Read More