Weekly Report - 17 November 2022 (WR-22-46)

The first international trip of president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva this week signposted a stark impending change in Brazil’s position on climate change - especially the issue of deforestation of the Amazon - when he succeeds President Jair Bolsonaro on 1 January.... Read More

The pressure on Peru’s embattled president, Pedro Castillo, is ramping up.... Read More

Bolivia’s President Luis Arce is facing the most serious threat to his authority since taking office in 2020 as a result of a protracted strike in the eastern department of Santa Cruz, which has now reached 26 days.... Read More

A series of public statements made by the heads of Brazil’s armed forces this week show the extent of the challenge that the country’s president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, of the leftist Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), will face to ease the military back into barracks, after four years in which the incumbent right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro (Partido Liberal, PL) wooed them with power, resources, and a central role in the country’s politics.... Read More

Paraguay staged a national census on 10 November which was widely criticised as a costly shambles, with droves of census takers failing to turn up, resulting in thousands of people waiting at home, at a significant expense to the economy, for a visit that never materialised.... Read More

Tens of thousands of Mexicans took to the streets across the country on 13 November to show their opposition to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s proposed electoral reform.... Read More

Guanajuato, the central Mexican state which frequently ranks as the country’s most deadly, has hit headlines in the past week for a wave of violence which saw multiple people massacred in a bar, vehicles and shops set alight, roads blockaded, and police units attacked.... Read More

Weeks after the US government’s 12 October announcement of visa restrictions on Haitian officials and others linked to street gangs and criminal organisations [WR-22-41], it revealed new sanctions targeting senate president Joseph Lambert and former senator Youri Latortue.... Read More

A judge in one of Guatemala’s high-risk courts, Miguel Angel Gálvez, has become the latest justice official identified with the fight against corruption to resign and flee the country.... Read More

El Salvador’s attorney general’s office (FGR) last week announced that former congress president (2018-2019) Norman Quijano, of the right-wing opposition Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (Arena), would face trial for alleged electoral fraud and links to gangs.... Read More

Chile’s President Gabriel Boric sought to make up for lost time during his first visit since taking office in March to the southern region of La Araucanía on 10 and 11 November.... Read More

“We will fight hard against illegal deforestation.... Read More