LatinNews Daily - 31 March 2022

On 30 March, Costa Rican pollster Universidad de Costa Rica’s Centro de Investigación y Estudios Políticos (Ciep) published a survey which showed the gap narrowing between 3 April presidential run-off candidate Rodrigo Chaves of the opposition Partido Progreso Social Democrático (PPSD) and his rival, former president José María Figueres (1994-1998) of the main opposition Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN).... Read More

On 30 March, human rights organisations accused the Colombian military of covering up a massacre in the southern department of Putumayo.... Read More

* Officials from Venezuela’s trade ministry have met with representatives from India’s embassy in Caracas in an effort to strengthen trade rations between the two countries.... Read More

On 30 March, Brazil’s supreme court (STF) began hearing seven cases all relating to the environment, notably the government’s omissions or failures in the implementation of environmental and climate policy.... Read More

* Brazil’s Agência Nacional de Petróleo, Gás Natural, e Biocombustíveis (ANP), the federal oil & gas regulator, has released data which shows that the country’s oil production fell in February compared with January.... Read More

* The president of Nicaragua’s central bank (BCN), Ovidio Reyes, has presented new figures which show that net foreign direct investment (FDI) to the country totalled US$1.22bn in 2021, an increase of US$473.6m on the previous year.... Read More

On 30 March, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador outlined major reforms including a reduction in congressional size and budget, together with the direct election of electoral authorities.... Read More

* Mexico’s national statistics institute (Inegi) has released employment figures for February, recording an unemployment rate of 3.7% (2.2m people), down from 4.4% in the same month in 2021.... Read More

On 30 March, a Chilean government delegation was forced to abandon a visit to Cañete municipality in the southern region of Bío Bío after being turned back at a roadblock manned by militants from the Mapuche indigenous group.... Read More

 * Chile’s national statistics institute (INE) has released the latest figures on unemployment, which reached 7.5% over the period of December 2021-February 2022, down 2.8 percentage points on the same quarter in annual terms but a 0.2 percentage point rise on the previous rolling quarter (November - January).... Read More