Eurnekian bets on IPOs: Argentine businessman Eduardo Eurnekian is reported to be planning up to four IPOs on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) this year, arguing that conditions could be “ideal” for such a move if Argentina successfully resolves its long legal dispute with the hold-out...
Development: On 15 January the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned pregnant women not to travel to 14 countries in Latin America, including Brazil, due to an outbreak of the zika virus.
Significance: The zika virus, common in Africa and Asia, was detected in Brazil for the...
New management at Aerolíneas Argentinas: A radical change is underway at the top of state airline Aerolíneas Argentinas. Out goes president and general manager Mariano Recalde and a group of senior managers closely identified with La Cámpora, the youth wing of the Frente Para la Victoria (FPV)...
Development: On 7 December Venezuela’s national electoral council (CNE) published a second electoral bulletin giving the main opposition coalition, Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD), 107 national assembly seats following the day-earlier legislative elections, to 55 for the ruling Partido...
CMPC and SCA accused of running a cartel: Chile's economic prosecutions office (Fiscalía Nacional Económica) accused the powerful CMPC group (controlled by the Matte family) and Swedish-owned SCA of operating a price cartel in the country's paper products market for over 10 years. In a complaint...
In the year to the end of last June the authorities seized 413 firearms from suspected members of organised crime. Just under two-thirds of them were picked up in three states ― Tamaulipas, Guerrero and Jalisco ― and 74 of them were long-barrelled weapons of a military-issue kind. The...
Victims of the massive scandal that has brought down one of the most prominent families in Honduras, the Rosenthals, now include an estimated 11,000 crocodiles and seven lions kept at the family's 30-hectare ranch, who were at risk of starvation after unpaid workers abandoned the ranch. The...
Development: On 2 November a World Bank tribunal ordered Ecuador to pay US$1.06bn plus interest in compensation to the US oil company Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) for an assets seizure dating to 2006.
Significance: Ecuador had appealed to the World Bank tribunal over a case taken by Oxy to the...
Mexico's newly appointed foreign minister, Claudia Ruiz Massieu [RM-15-08], went to Cuba on 19 October for her first official trip abroad. Upon taking office in December 2012 at the helm of the traditional Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), one of President Enrique Peña Nieto's declared...
Development: On 26 October Colombia's left-wing guerrilla group Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) killed 12 members of the security forces in the central department of Boyacá, as they transported votes from the country's day-earlier regional and municipal elections.
Significance: The attack,...
Development: In general elections on 25 October Argentina’s opposition presidential candidate, Mauricio Macri, did better than expected, forcing a second round run-off with Daniel Scioli, the candidate of the ruling Frente para la Victoria (FPV, Kirchneristas) faction of the Partido Justicialista...
President Luis Guillermo Solís is calling for a new inter-institutional strategy in order to tackle the wave of homicides currently afflicting Costa Rica, particularly the capital San José and the Caribbean port city of Limón, which local authorities attribute to a rise in organised crime....
Development: A debate over parliamentary rules looks set to delay the opening of the Brazilian congress' ethics committee inquiry into Eduardo Cunha, the speaker of the lower chamber of congress, and the man with the sole responsibility to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Dilma...
With under two weeks to go until polling day, the leading candidates in the Argentine presidential election are attempting to reach out beyond their core supporters. Daniel Scioli, the candidate of the ruling Frente para la Victoria (FPV) faction of the Partido Justicialista (PJ, Peronists), has...
Uruguay's opposition political parties have torn into the left-wing government led by President Tabaré Vázquez for shrinking from condemning the Venezuelan government for the heavy prison sentence handed down to one of the leading lights of the country's opposition movement, Leopoldo López, on 10...
Development: Today (12 October), Mexico's Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (CNTE) teachers' union will stage a 24-hour national strike, complete with marches and road blocks, to protest against aspects of the federal government’s education reform.
Significance: This is the...
Development: On 6 October Nicaragua’s national police reported that one police officer had been killed and 31 people injured during violent clashes with protesting workers from the ‘El Limón’ mine, located in the department of León.
Significance: For several weeks workers have been demonstrating...
Globant seeks to double sales
Globant, the Argentina-based software development company that floated on the New York Stock Exchange in July 2014, is targeting very rapid growth. CEO Martín Migoya told the Reuters news agency that the company is aiming for 25% annual revenue growth, and hopes to...
Development: On 5 October the Brazilian government's attorney, Luiz Inácio Adams, filed a request against Augusto Nardes, the leading judge in the case in the federal court of accounts (TCU) that is due to issue a ruling tomorrow (7 October) on whether the government led by President Dilma...
The Salvadorean street gangs have responded to the government’s decision to start trying them as terrorists [SSR-15-08] with a sharp increase in homicides, to which the national police (PNC) responded with an escalation of confrontations with the maras. The government has interpreted this as...
