LatinNews Regional Monitor: Brazil & Southern Cone - 11 October 2019

On 10 October, Venezuela’s state-run oil firm Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) rejected as “tendentious” the “unfounded accusations” that the oil currently polluting Brazil’s northeast coastline is of Venezuelan origin. ... Read More

* Brazil’s national oil & gas regulator (ANP) has celebrated the record outcome of its 16th round of bidding for maritime oil exploration concessions, which collected R$8.9bn (US$2.16bn) in signing bonuses.... Read More

On 10 October Argentina’s presidential frontrunner Alberto Fernández of the radical Peronist Frente de Todos coalition clashed with the justice minister, Germán Garavano, on the issue of corruption after two businessmen linked to Kirchnerismo were released from preventive detention earlier this week.... Read More

* Chile’s President Sebastián Piñera has announced a new national roundtable to address the problems of drought afflicting the country.... Read More

Argentina’s large and influential trade union movement has been beset by divisions and infighting for decades, but with just weeks to go before he expects to win a decisive victory for the radical Peronist Frente de Todos coalition in the country’s presidential elections, Alberto Fernández celebrated the unthinkable: the fusion of the warring factions into one overarching movement.... Read More

It took just over a month in office for members of President Jair Bolsonaro’s government to be touched by suspicions of graft relating to the 2018 election in Brazil [WR-19-06].... Read More

Since early September, a mysterious oil spill has been spoiling a growing number of the famously beautiful beaches along the coast of Brazil’s Northeast region.... Read More

Guido Manini Ríos, the former army commander and presidential candidate of Uruguay’s right-wing Cabildo Abierto (CA), has successfully fought off an attempt to bring him before a court before the first round of general elections on 27 October.... Read More