Weekly Report - 13 January 2022 (WR-22-02)

Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega and his Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) took office this week for a fourth consecutive five-year term.... Read More

The repeat gubernatorial election in Venezuela’s Barinas state, held on 9 January, was viewed by the opposition coalition Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD) as a naked attempt by the ruling Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) to cling onto power despite losing the state in the 21 November regional elections.... Read More

The sands in Peru’s congress have shifted again, with the legislature growing even more fragmented following the 9 January formation of the breakaway leftist party Perú Democrático (PD).... Read More

In an attack claimed by the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) guerrilla group, 13 police officers were injured by a bomb in Cali, the capital of Colombia’s south-western department of Valle del Cauca, on 7 January.... Read More

COLOMBIA | Inflation picks up steam.... Read More

The omicron variant of the coronavirus (Covid-19) has arrived in full force in Brazil, sending the number of new Covid-19 cases soaring and impacting key industries with staff shortages.... Read More

After Bahia in the Northeast [WR-22-01], it is the south-eastern state of Minas Gerais that is being battered by heavy rains in Brazil.... Read More

President Alberto Fernández has the regional leadership role he has coveted since his investiture in December 2019.... Read More

ARGENTINA | China nuclear deal.... Read More

The cabinet of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador underwent a reshuffle on 11 January.... Read More

On 9 January, Mexico’s federal attorney general’s office (FGR) issued the first arrest warrants relating to the controversial US sting operation ‘Fast and Furious’, which took place during the administration of Felipe Calderón (2006-2012).... Read More

El Salvador’s supreme court’s constitutional chamber (SC) last week announced it was re-opening the case of the 1989 massacre of six Jesuit priests (five of whom were Spanish) and a woman and her child at the Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas (UCA) Jesuit university by an elite army unit – one of the worst atrocities to take place during the 1980-1992 civil war.... Read More

A national curfew to contain the spread of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic will be lifted for one night only in Barbados on 19 January when voters go to the polls to cast their ballots in a general election called by Prime Minister Mia Mottley on 27 December.... Read More

The national electoral council (CNE) confirmed the final results this week of the congressional and municipal elections held on 28 November.... Read More

Chile’s President-elect Gabriel Boric began the process of assembling his cabinet this week by naming his chief of staff, who also doubles as the interior and public security minister.... Read More

“Our goal is to provide continuity to the smooth running [of the country] that existed until [the protests of] April 2018…a clean slate…that is our commitment.”... Read More