Security & Strategic Review - May 2021

The coronavirus (Covid-19) has claimed more lives in Brazil in the first four months of 2021 than during the nine months of the pandemic last year.... Read More

The relationship between South American and Mexican drug trafficking organisations (DTOs) – a crucial link in the international narcotics trade – has been transformed in recent years, according to the United Nations International Narcotics Control Board (INCB)’s annual report.... Read More

The arrest in March of Bolivia’s former interim president Jeanine Áñez (2019-2020) and other high-ranking officials from her administration has reignited familiar concerns over judicial independence in Bolivia.... Read More

Peru’s national anti-drugs agency (Devida) was recently forced to correct the United Nations International Narcotics Control Board (INCB)’s annual report, published in March, which mistakenly claimed that Peru had not monitored illegal coca cultivation in 2018 and 2019.... Read More

Chile faces a future of water scarcity.... Read More

Both Argentina and Uruguay received visits from US officials in April.... Read More

The Mexican government led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is determined to expedite the reopening of schools for in-person learning after it was forced to close these to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus (Covid-19) in the country.... Read More

With US President Joe Biden now settled in the White House, the Mexican government led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been advancing with its efforts to reshape all aspects of the Mexico-US bilateral relation.... Read More

President Nayib Bukele’s recent failure to meet the new US envoy for Central America, Ricardo Zuñiga, during the latter’s first trip to the sub-region has again highlighted strained relations between the Salvadorean government and the new US administration led by President Joe Biden.... Read More

While irregular migration from Central America’s Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) continues to dominate headlines, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) has highlighted another worrying situation regarding migrants headed north – those making the perilous journey through the Darién Gap, a roadless expanse of jungle on Panama’s eastern border with Colombia.... Read More

The ruling Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) has unveiled an electoral reform initiative ahead of the 7 November general election in which President Daniel Ortega is running again.... Read More

The eruption of La Soufrière on St Vincent is not an unusual or unexpected event.... Read More