LatinNews Daily - 20 January 2023

On 19 January thousands of protesters participated in violent protests in Lima to demand the resignation of Peru’s President Dina Boluarte, who insisted that her grip on power remains “firm” and accused demonstrators of aiming to “break the rule of law”.... Read More

* Bolivia’s mining minister, Ramiro Villaviciencio, has described as “world class” a silver deposit discovered in Potosí department by Canada’s New Pacific Metals Corp, and said that the government will launch efforts to estimate the total value of the reserves.... Read More

On 19 January, Brazil’s leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT) replaced the regional chiefs of Brazil’s highway police (PRF) in 26 states and of the federal police (PF) in 18 states.... Read More

* The Companhia Nacional do Abastecimento (Conab), the logistics arm of Brazil’s agriculture ministry, has released the first estimate for 2023 coffee harvest, predicting that Brazil’s coffee producers will collect 54.94m sacks of coffee this year (one sack = 60kg).... Read More

On 19 January, Guatemalan national daily elPeriódico reported that Rafael Curruchiche, the head of the anti-impunity unit (Feci) in Guatemala’s attorney general’s office (AG), had announced more charges against it and arrest warrants for two lawyers linked to the media.... Read More

*El Salvador’s Universidad Centroamericana (UCA), a Jesuit university, has released a new survey indicating that during 2022 74% of Salvadoreans did not use the cryptocurrency bitcoin, which was made legal tender by the government led by President Nayib Bukele in 2021, to buy goods or make payments.... Read More

On 19 January, Mexico’s political opposition criticised the government for considering a request from drug kingpin Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán Loera to be transferred from prison in the US to Mexico.... Read More

*Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said he has met with representatives of four Canadian companies and resolved the problems they had in relation to Mexico’s energy policies “without any obstacles”.... Read More

On 19 January Chile’s congress narrowly rejected a constitutional accusation brought against Giorgio Jackson, the social development and family minister and one of President Gabriel Boric’s closest allies.... Read More

* Argentina’s national statistics institute (Indec) has released new figures which show that the country’s exports totalled US$6.12bn in December 2022, down 7.1% year-on-year.... Read More