LatinNews Daily - 09 August 2022

On 8 August, Colombia’s new left-wing government led by President Gustavo Petro presented a tax reform bill as its first major piece of legislation.... Read More

* The Peruvian hydrocarbon lobby Sociedad Peruana de Hidrocarburos (SPH) has released its monthly calculation of oil and natural gas production, both of which declined in July.... Read More

On 8 August the Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (TSE), Brazil’s top electoral authority, expelled a military officer from the election monitoring committee and denied the defence ministry a request for information.... Read More

* Poverty in Brazil’s metropolitan areas has increased from 16% in 2014 to 23.7% in 2021, according to a study carried out by private Brazilian university Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), local research institute the Observatório das Metrópoles and regional research initiative Red de Observatorios de la Deuda Social (RedODSAL).... Read More

On 8 August José Rubén Zamora Marroquín, a prominent journalist in Guatemala and fierce critic of President Alejandro Giammattei and the attorney general (AG), María Consuelo Porras, appeared in court for the first time after he was arrested in his home 10 days earlier accused of money laundering, influence peddling, and blackmail.... Read More

* Costa Rica and Ecuador have begun negotiations for a free trade agreement (FTA), following on from informal talks between Costa Rica’s President Rodrigo Chaves and his Ecuadorean counterpart Guillermo Lasso in June on the side-lines of the Summit of the Americas (SoA).... Read More

On 8 August, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he would bring the national guard (GN) under control of the defence ministry (Sedena) even if a constitutional reform to this end was rejected.... Read More

* Mexico’s ambassador to the US, Esteban Moctezuma, has thanked US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian Nichols for his support in ensuring tax credits for electric vehicles (EVs) are applied to vehicles made in the whole of North America, and not just the US.... Read More

Chile’s foreign minister Antonia Urrejola said on 8 August that she had met her Argentine opposite number Santiago Cafiero in Bogotá, Colombia, and was trying to clarify an alleged violation of Argentine airspace by Chilean aircraft.... Read More

* Chile’s national statistics institute (INE) has released new figures which show that monthly inflation in July was 1.4%, bringing the 12-month rate to 13.1%.... Read More