Brazil & Southern Cone - March 2020

The March issue of the Latin American Regional Report: Brazil & Southern Cone considers a number of economy, societal, and security-related issues which will have been on civil society and governments’ agenda before Latin America and the world began scrambling to respond to the spread of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic – although the outbreak was already bringing some economic uncertainty.... Read More

The intersection of politics and crime at local level is nothing new in Brazil, but looks set to come under increased scrutiny as the country prepares to elect mayors and municipal councillors in October.... Read More

“Stop suffering!” Brazilians of all religious denominations are familiar with part of this sermon, the slogan of the most powerful and well-known evangelical pastor in the country, Edir Macedo, who is also the owner of a national TV station.... Read More

Brazil’s state-owned oil and gas giant Petrobras announced record profits for 2019, enhanced by various asset sales.... Read More

The headlines for the Chilean economy are all pretty bad.... Read More

Chile continues to suffer from its worst drought on record, which has affected the country’s central regions for the past decade.... Read More

The murder of a Brazilian journalist in the Paraguayan border city of Pedro Juan Caballero, Amambay department, has brought to light additional dimensions to the challenges of the authorities’ fight against organised crime in an area where the lack of a hard border makes it a location of choice for the smuggling of contraband and illegal goods from Paraguay to Brazil.... Read More

Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou took office as Uruguay’s new centre-right president on 1 March, with Azucena Arbeleche taking over as the country’s new economy & finance minister.... Read More

Argentina’s Peronist President Alberto Fernández had promised a radical shift from the public security policy espoused under his predecessor Mauricio Macri (2015-2019).... Read More

The number of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the Latin American energy sector dipped a little in 2019, but the overall value of transactions surged upwards, according to research company Transactional Track Record (TTR).... Read More

ARGENTINA| Agricultural tariffs cause tensions.... Read More