LatinNews Daily - 16 June 2021

On 15 June a car bomb was detonated at a military compound in Cúcuta, the capital of Colombia’s Norte de Santander department, injuring 36 people.... Read More

* Peru’s national statistics institute (Inei) has released figures showing that national productive output increased 13.8% in January-April 2021 compared with the previous year, closing the month of April 58.49% higher than in the same month in 2020, when the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic caused a 39.09% decline in production.... Read More

On 15 June, the president of Brazil’s federal chamber of deputies, Arthur Lira, expressed concerns that the country could suffer from the rationing of electricity as it did during the energy crisis of 2001-2002.... Read More

* Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has said that the emergency basic income, a government handout put in place to help the most vulnerable in the context of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, will be extended for a further two or three months, at an average value of R$250 (US$50) per household per month.... Read More

On 15 June the Organisation of American States (OAS) passed a resolution on Nicaragua condemning the "arrest, harassment and arbitrary restrictions...on presidential candidates, political parties and independent media" and demanding the “immediate release of presidential candidates and all political prisoners”.... Read More

* Costa Rica’s finance ministry has released new figures which show the country’s fiscal deficit to May was ¢609.342bn (US$984.4m), representing 1.61% of GDP – the lowest of the last four years as a percentage of GDP.... Read More

On 15 June Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced that in the coming months he will send three major constitutional reforms to the lower chamber of congress pertaining to the electricity sector, the national electoral institute (INE), and the national guard.... Read More

* International credit ratings agency, Fitch Ratings, has raised its 2021 GDP growth forecast for Mexico from 5% to 5.3%.... Read More

On 15 June Argentine opposition figures condemned the Argentine government’s decision to abstain from voting on an Organization of American States (OAS) resolution denouncing the deterioration of democracy and human rights in Nicaragua and demanding the immediate release of jailed government opponents.... Read More

* Shell Argentina, a subsidiary of Anglo-Dutch multinational Royal Dutch Shell, has opened its second oil and gas processing plant in Argentina’s 'Vaca Muerta' shale oil and gas fields, in the Sierras Blancas area of Neuquén province.... Read More