President Cristina Fernández this week decreed the takeover for a 60-day period of Compañía de Valores Sudamericana SA (CVS), the only company (or institution) able to print the Argentine peso. Officially, the decision was taken so that the state could regain sovereignty over the printing of...
The guerrillas of the Ejército del Pueblo Paraguayo (EPP) have resurfaced after the appointment of Federico Franco as successor to Fernando Lugo (2008-2012) in the presidency with two minor raids (in one of which a life was claimed) and a series of communiqués in which they call for ‘struggle’...
“It is like night and day.” That was the succinct response of the president of Uruguay’s central bank, Mario Bergara, when asked to compare the economic and financial status quo with the situation 10 years ago. Then, Uruguay was reeling from the financial meltdown across the River Plate in...
The Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) is again on the defensive. The post-electoral row over the legitimacy of the victory of the party’s presidential candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto, took a new twist last week when the Partido Acciόn Nacional (PAN) sided with the left-wing coalition...
President Hugo Chávez was “compelled by circumstances” to speak out this week in order to “unmask” the man who “says he is going to be commander-in-chief”. Chávez was responding to a message from Henrique Capriles Radonski, the presidential candidate for the opposition coalition Mesa de la Unidad...
Cuban President Raúl Castro visited China and Vietnam in early July on his first visit to either country since he formally took over from his brother Fidel in February 2008. He stopped over in Russia en route back home, his second visit to the country. Marino Murillo, the main architect of...
The most violent yet eviction of land invaders triggered a highly irregular impeachment and removal from office of President Fernando Lugo, only nine months before presidential elections scheduled for 23 April 2013. This in turn led to the suspension of Paraguay from the South American blocs to...
The escalating confrontation between President Cristina Fernández and Hugo Moyano, the secretary general of the union of truck drivers (Schoca) and of the general confederation of labour (CGT), was like watching the head-on collision of two articulated lorries: everyone could see it coming for...
Development: On 22 June Paraguay’s senate voted to impeach President Fernando Lugo, immediately removing him from office and replacing him with his vice-president, Federico Franco.
Significance: Lugo becomes the first Paraguayan president to be impeached by congress. The process took place in...
Enrique Peña Nieto entered the second and final televised debate on 10 June knowing that anything short of a decisive defeat would surely be sufficient to return the opposition Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) to government after a 12-year hiatus. He did not particularly excel in the...
The US and Brazil are once more at loggerheads over foreign policy. Mike Hammer, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, called for “more action” from Brazil to pressure Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad on 1 June. In a swift and firm riposte Brazil’s foreign minister Antonio...
Colombia’s ‘new paramilitary’ organisations, or Bacrims as the government calls them, have struck alliances with Mexican drug trafficking organisations (DTOs) and are fighting each other for the control of areas along the northern border with Venezuela. This development has been revealed in a...
Informal gold mining in Peru is not only being targeted as a threat to the environment and a source of fiscal evasion but also as a major illegal industry that generates more revenues than cocaine. At a recent symposium in Lima a proposal was floated to create a special body, similar to the...
When a crossword writer is hauled in by the intelligence service for allegedly concealing details of an assassination plot to destabilise the government, it gives a strong indication of that country’s prevailing political climate. This is the Venezuela of today; with President Hugo Chávez absent...
Development: On 14 May Peru’s President Ollanta Humala swore in three new ministers to head up the defence, interior and production portfolios.
Significance: Humala was forced to make this mini cabinet re-shuffle just five months after a major cabinet overhaul in December. The latest changes...
Development: On 13 May President Hugo Chávez tweeted “a thousand congratulations” to the mothers of Venezuela and to Pastór Maldonado, the first ever Venezuelan to win a Formula One motor race.
Significance: In an interview to mark yesterday’s Mother’s Day, Mónica Radonski, the mother of the...
As Mexico gears up for presidential elections in July, things are not looking good for President Felipe Calderón and his ruling Partido Acción Nacional (PAN). The traditional Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), which ruled Mexico for 71 years until its historic defeat in 2000, is set to...
Immigration is always a hot topic in Mexican and US politics, especially during an electoral year for both countries. US President Barack Obama stoked the fires by promising during the VI Summit of the Americas last month to push for an immigration reform in the first year of a second term. This...
Development: Fernando Cavendish and Carlos Pacheco, the owner and director respectively of Brazil’s construction giant Delta Construções, stepped aside from the company on 25 April. The same day, the federal police, acting in conjunction with the federal public ministry in the state of Goiâs,...
Spain is at the head of the line, but the queue of countries complaining about this week’s decision by President Cristina Fernández to re-nationalise Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (YPF), the local subsidiary of Spain’s Repsol, is growing by the hour. As Fernández continues to make policy...
