LatinNews Regional Monitor: Brazil & Southern Cone - 24 January 2020

The escape in the early hours of 19 January of 75 inmates from a Paraguayan prison, reportedly through a 15-metre tunnel dug in a bathroom in the middle of the prison compound, sounds like the plotline for a film script.... Read More

The pressure on President Sebastián Piñera is unrelenting.... Read More

After completing a first month in power that was dominated by fiscal and monetary policy measures aimed at addressing the fiscal deficit and stabilising the peso [WR-20-02], the government led by President Alberto Fernández is starting to roll out economic initiatives aimed at reducing inflation and providing respite to those who have been feeling its effects the most.... Read More

Brazil has been shaken by another ideology-driven scandal.... Read More

The competition to secure nominations for the Montevideo mayoral candidacy ahead of Uruguay’s municipal elections on 10 May is producing significant divisions among the country’s main political parties.... Read More

On 23 January, US journalist Glenn Greenwald told Spanish newswire Efe that the charges brought against him for cybercrimes were part of a pattern of intimidation carried out by President Jair Bolsonaro’s government against the press in Brazil.... Read More

* The Instituto Aço Brasil, Brazil’s steel industry association, has released production figures for 2019 which confirm earlier predictions of a disappointing year.... Read More

On 23 January the former army commander and presidential candidate of the right-wing party Cabildo Abierto (CA), Guido Manini Ríos, announced his intention to run for mayor of Montevideo in Uruguay’s municipal and departmental elections on 10 May.... Read More

* Argentina’s national statistics institute (Indec) has released its latest report on the country’s trade flows, which shows that Argentina recorded a US$15.99bn trade surplus in 2019 thanks to a sharp fall in imports.... Read More