Weekly Report - 16 March 2023 (WR-23-11)

Another brick in Taiwan’s crumbling diplomatic edifice in Central America will shortly be removed after Honduran President Xiomara Castro announced on 14 March that she had had instructed her foreign minister, Eduardo Enrique Reina, to commence negotiations to open diplomatic relations with mainland China.... Read More

Bolivia’s central bank has spent the last two weeks attempting to quell concerns over a US dollar shortage in the country, and is now directly selling dollars to citizens anxious that a currency devaluation could be in the pipeline.... Read More

The second round of peace talks between the Colombian government and the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) guerrilla group concluded in Mexico City on 10 March with the announcement that the ELN had been granted political status – a necessary step for the group to negotiate the broader terms of its demobilisation.... Read More

As expected, opposition parties in Ecuador have confirmed their intention to launch an impeachment process against President Guillermo Lasso imminently.... Read More

Chile’s President Gabriel Boric, who has just marked his first year in office, might find himself unkindly branded as the ‘try-again man’.... Read More

Monthly inflation in February reached 6.6%, Indec reported, bringing 12-month inflation to 102.5%, a 30-year high.... Read More

On 13 March President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva travelled to Raposa Serra do Sol, near Brazil’s northern border with Guyana, to attend the 52nd assembly of the indigenous people of the state of Roraima where he promised to accelerate the process of recognising indigenous territories.... Read More

BRAZIL | Lower interest rates? Brazil’s finance minister Fernando Haddad confidently asserted on 13 March, at an event hosted by newspapers O Globo and Valor Económico, that the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank in the US should not pose a systemic risk, but was “serious”.... Read More

Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sent a new constitutional reform initiative to the lower chamber of deputies on 8 March.... Read More

Hundreds of thousands of women took to the streets across Mexico once again to celebrate International Women’s Day on 8 March.... Read More

There has been a flurry of meetings and phone calls between US and Mexican officials in recent days as both sides attempt to defuse ongoing tensions over security matters, while also defending their respective security strategies.... Read More

Nicaragua is the only predominantly Christian country in the world without diplomatic relations with the Holy See after President Daniel Ortega ordered the suspension of bilateral ties in the wake of criticism from Pope Francis.... Read More

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele is preparing for elections in early 2024.... Read More

Ecuador’s government led by President Guillermo Lasso is embroiled in a sudden spat with Argentina that saw the ambassadors of both countries declared persona non grata on 14 March.... Read More

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