Weekly Report - 17 February 2022 (WR-22-07)

Not many heads of state enjoy such an eventful first three weeks in office as Xiomara Castro.... Read More

On 14 February local news media reported two big cocaine finds.... Read More

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Relations between President Pedro Castillo’s administration and the congressional leadership, strained since he took office in July last year, took another downward turn on 15 February.... Read More

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) board of directors granted informal approval on 16 February to the proposed US$44.5bn financial rescue package for Argentina.... Read More

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro embarked on an international trip on 14 February.... Read More

For Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, environmental considerations have always been secondary to the need to develop the country.... Read More

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares has spent much time stressing the strength of Spain’s economic and cultural ties with Mexico recently.... Read More

The pressure is piling on Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador over potential conflict of interest issues involving his son, José Ramón López Beltrán.... Read More

Mexico’s agriculture and rural development ministry (Sader) announced on 12 February that the US animal and plant health inspection service (Aphis) had suspended avocado imports from Michoacán – Mexico’s main avocado-producing state – until further notice, citing security grounds.... Read More

El Salvador’s president of congress, Ernesto Castro, a deputy for the ruling Nuevas Ideas (NI), has announced that two NI deputies, José Ilofio García Torres and Gerardo Balmore Aguilar Soriano, have been stripped of their immunity from prosecution to be tried for bribery and abuse of office.... Read More

The Nicaraguan government said on 9 February that it had received a delegation from Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy firm Rosatom, in the framework of a mixed Russia-Nicaragua committee on trade and economic exchanges as well as technical cooperation.... Read More

The US, UK, European Union (EU), and United Nations (UN) have all recently sounded the alarm about the persecution of independent judges, lawyers, and prosecutors in Guatemala, warning that this reflects an ongoing deterioration of the rule of law.... Read More

Ecuador’s mining exports totalled US$2.092bn in 2021, surpassing the government’s target by 31%, according to a statement released by the ministry of energy and non-renewable natural resources on 16 February.... Read More

“It is not an easy moment…but I am ready to confront this situation and defend myself.”... Read More