LatinNews Daily - 14 April 2021

On 13 April Pedro Castillo, the candidate for the far-left Perú Libre party who leads in the preliminary results of Peru’s 11 April first-round presidential election, announced plans to form an inter-party alliance against Keiko Fujimori, the candidate of the right-wing Fuerza Popular party and his likely rival in the second round run-off vote.... Read More

* Peru’s mining exports totalled US$5.23bn in the first two months of 2021, up 15% on the same period in 2020, according to figures from the Peruvian extractive industry lobby Sociedad Nacional de Minería, Petróleo y Energía (SNMPE).... Read More

On 13 April, the president of Brazil’s federal senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, launched the process of setting up a parliamentary inquiry commission (CPI) to investigate the response by the government led by President Jair Bolsonaro to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.... Read More

* Brazil’s national statistics institute (Ibge) has released the latest figures on retail trade, according to which the volume of sales expanded 0.6% in February compared with January, after contracting 0.2% month-on-month in January.... Read More

On 13 April the governments of Guatemala and Honduras denied having signed a border security agreement with the US.... Read More

* Publio de Gracia, the director of Panama’s tax authority (DGI), has presented new figures which show tha the central government’s tax take in the first quarter of 2021 totalled US$1.3bn, a 39.4% increase on the amount budgeted for the period.... Read More

On 13 April Mexico’s national electoral institute (INE) ratified its decision to reject the registration of candidates from the ruling Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena) party seeking to take part in the 6 June midterm federal legislative and state elections over irregularities in their applications. ... Read More

*Mexico’s Comisión Federal de Competencia (Cofece), the federal anti-trust body, has warned that the oil sector reform promoted by the government led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and which is currently being debated in congress, will negatively affect local business and households.... Read More

On 13 April, Uruguay’s health minister, Daniel Salinas, appeared before the senate’s health committee to discuss the sanitary situation as the country faces a surge in coronavirus (Covid-19) infections.... Read More

* The Paraguayan government led by President Mario Abdo Benítez has announced a new subsidy of up to G$50m (US$8,000) a month for individuals whose relatives are in intensive care as a result of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, as part of efforts to guarantee access to necessary supplies for treatment.... Read More