Weekly Report - 10 March 2022 (WR-22-10)

If Colombia’s President Iván Duque had met his US peer Joe Biden in the White House last week, the mutual backslapping of two allies who speak as one on the international stage would have ensued.... Read More

Peru’s President Pedro Castillo dragged another cabinet over the line on 8 March, winning a congressional confidence vote that secured the position of his fourth prime minister in seven months.... Read More

Defence Minister Luis Hernández announced on 4 March that President Guillermo Lasso’s administration will bolster its military cooperation with the US, with Ecuador’s armed forces set to receive equipment and training.... Read More

More than two years after it began the process of renegotiating Argentina’s outstanding debt of US$45bn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the government led by President Alberto Fernández finally struck a definitive accord on 3 March.... Read More

Thousands of people gathered in the Brazilian capital Brasília on 9 March to protest against a series of bills which environmentalists warn will cause irreversible damage to the environment in Brazil.... Read More

Juan Carlos Ozorio has resigned his seat in the lower chamber of Paraguay’s congress after evidence emerged of his links to the Brazilian drug-trafficking organisation Comando Vermelho (CV) in line with a major counter-narcotics operation being conducted by the national anti-drugs agency Senad.... Read More

The government led by President Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou accused Uruguay’s main trade union movement of trying to piggyback on International Women’s Day on 8 March by electing to stage a general strike for the same day ahead of a crucial national referendum at the end of the month.... Read More

BRAZIL | Economy recoups pandemic losses in 2021.... Read More

Mexico’s political opposition and the human rights unit of the interior ministry (Segob) have both urged the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to introduce legislation to protect journalists and human rights defenders (HRDs) in the past week.... Read More

On International Women’s Day, Mexico’s state of Sinaloa decriminalised abortion, becoming the third Mexican state in six months to do so.... Read More

The trials and convictions which began last month [WR-22-06] of opposition figures arrested ahead of the widely discredited general elections in November are continuing, as is international condemnation of the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) government led by President Daniel Ortega.... Read More

Less than two months into her term and President Xiomara Castro of the leftist Partido Libertad y Refundación (Libre) continues to move on her chief campaign pledge to eradicate official corruption.... Read More

With less than a month to go until Costa Rica’s second round run-off on 3 April, Rodrigo Chaves, of the opposition Partido Progreso Social Democrático (PPSD), who has emerged as the favourite ahead of the vote [WR-22-09], has been forced on the defensive over the issue of campaign finance.... Read More

The Dominican Republic’s President Luis Abinader delivered a national broadcast on 7 March to provide reassurance to the public that his government is taking steps to mitigate the fallout of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.... Read More

“We, along with the US and more than 50 other countries, do not recognise the dictatorial government of Nicolás Maduro [who] has committed crimes against humanity”.... Read More