Weekly Report - 25 February 2021 (WR-21-08)

Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández paid an official visit to Mexico between 22 and 24 February, amid suggestions that he and his host, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, feel the time is ripe to strike up a more strategic partnership.... Read More

The government led by President Luis Arce is facing major protests from both medical workers and soybean producers.... Read More

Yaku Pérez is determined to go down fighting for what he sees as his legitimate place in the second round of Ecuador’s presidential elections on 11 April.... Read More

New research by Colombia’s transitional justice system (JEP) suggests that the number of ‘false positives’ - civilians who were executed by the army and passed off as guerrilla casualties - was almost three times higher than previously thought, totalling 6,402 between 2002 and 2008.... Read More

President Jair Bolsonaro’s move to replace the head of Brazil’s Petrobras following disagreements between the government and the state-owned oil company’s administration over fuel pricing sowed panic in the financial markets.... Read More

The small Brazilian state of Acre, bordering Peru and Bolivia deep in the Amazon rainforest, is currently facing a crisis on multiple fronts: floods resulting from heavy rains, a dengue outbreak, hospitals under pressure from the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, and a migrant crisis unfolding on the Peruvian border.... Read More

It started as a few throw-away comments by veteran journalist Horacio Verbitsky on a live programme for the El Destape FM radio station in Buenos Aires.... Read More

Despite gradually becoming a political lame duck, President Sebastián Piñera announced on 22 February that he would be seeking a ‘national accord’ to prevent spreading violence in the southern region of Araucanía.... Read More

ARGENTINA | Primary fiscal surplus.... Read More

The gubernatorial race in the south-western state of Guerrero has been sharply polarised by accusations that the candidate for the nationally ruling Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena), veteran politician Félix Salgado Macedonio, has a history of sexual abuse.... Read More

Near the end of his term in office US President Donald Trump was unceremoniously thrown off Facebook and Twitter.... Read More

MEXICO | FDI declines.... Read More

In recent days the new US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken with his counterparts from Honduras (Lisandro Rosales); El Salvador (Alexandra Hill); and Guatemala (Pedro Brolo).... Read More

Cristiana Chamorro Barrios, the daughter of former president Violeta Chamorro (1990-1997), has become the latest presidential contender to sign up to a six-point agreement inked by four other leading opposition figures.... Read More

The Venezuelan government has announced the creation of a new anti-drugs superintendency, while accusing neighbouring Colombia of being the source of drug flows passing through Venezuela.... Read More

“Perhaps now is the time, in this bicentennial year being celebrated in Mexico, for a new plan for the whole of America to be conceived.... Read More