The stage is now set for an unconstrained increase in public spending ahead of presidential elections in October. President Hugo Chávez used the powers conferred on him by the national assembly in late 2010 to legislate by decree the removal of the debt ceiling that can be contracted by the State....
The UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America (Eclac/Cepal) reports that the region attracted a record US$138bn in foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2011. Although China maintained its place as the region’s third biggest external investor, it actually reduced the size of its direct investment in...
The immediate top priority the US Southern Command (Southcom) has set itself in its role as ‘the lead US agency responsible for directing illicit trafficking detection and monitoring activities’ is ‘strengthening the security capacities of our partners in Central America’. This reflects the...
In an unprecedented move, the federal public ministry has filed criminal charges against 17 workers from the US companies Chevron and Transocean for an oil spill in the Campos basin, off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state, in November 2011. Federal prosecutors said that the 17, which include...
Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa is facing what he is calling the final test of strength before the formal start of the election campaign on 18 October, ahead of presidential and congressional elections on 17 February 2013. An indigenous march is approaching Quito from Zamora Chinchipe, the...
The central bank’s monetary policy committee (Copom) cut the benchmark Selic interest rate by a full 75 basis points (bps) this week, taking it down to single digits (9.75%) for the first time since 2009. In a curt one-line statement, the Copom revealed that the larger-than-expected cut was not...
Development: On 7 March Fabricio Correa, President Rafael Correa’s elder brother, announced that he had the 250,000 signatures needed to register a new political party to contest Ecuador’s 2013 presidential and congressional elections.
Significance: Fabricio, a businessman, has accused Rafael...
Development: On 7 March in Havana, Cuba, President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia met his Cuban and Venezuelan counterparts, Raúl Castro and Hugo Chávez.
Significance: Santos and Castro reportedly spent over four hours together at Castro’s private residence in Havana. According to one reputable...
Guatemala's President Otto Pérez Molina has performed an unexpected volte-face by ditching his campaign stance of opposing drug legalisation and proposing an early top-level debate on the matter with a view to arriving at a regional consensus. He will take the issue to a Central American summit in...
Development: On 29 February Argentine media including the state news agency Telam reported that Industry Minister Débora Giorgi had asked several Argentine companies to substitute imports from the United Kingdom (UK) with alternative supplies.
Significance: The move is in line with the...
One of big issues in the forthcoming Mexican presidential election will be the next government’s strategy for the state oil monopoly, Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex). The two male presidential candidates, Enrique Peña Nieto, the de facto Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) candidate and Andrés...
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez will undergo emergency surgery in Cuba. Speculation had mounted for days about the state of Chávez’s health before he admitted publicly on 21 February that a “two-centimetre lesion” had been discovered during a “routine check-up” in Cuba at the weekend in the same...
Foreign press coverage of Ecuador this week was dominated by the judicial ruling coming down hard on the national daily El Universo. The widespread debate over press freedom in Ecuador is fully justified but what is really significant is President Rafael Correa’s attempt to discredit a potentially...
The Peruvian government has been celebrating a major triumph in its fight against the remnants of the Sendero Luminoso (SL) guerrillas: the capture of Florindo Eleuterio Flores Hala (‘Camarada Artemio’), the leader of the smaller of the two factions. Details of his capture even are not entirely...
Two strikes by state police forces, a violent one in Bahia and a lower-intensity one in Rio de Janeiro, ended within days as a result of the rapid response by the state and federal governments — the former seeking to meet some of the strikers’ demands, the latter making it clear that violence...
President Hugo Chávez claimed this week that it would not be “the end of the world” if he lost power in elections on 7 October, and that he would order his supporters, moderate and radical alike, to accept the result. A lot could still happen between now and then but the opposition Mesa de la...
Development: On 11 January three people were killed in Yapacaní, on the western borders of the province of Santa Cruz.
Significance: Protests are everyday occurrences in Bolivia but they rarely produce fatalities. When they do, ministers are sacked and governments totter. The protests and deaths...
Development: On 5 January President Sebastián Piñera of Chile announced that the authorities have “reliable” evidence that a string of forest fires were started intentionally, adding that the government will invoke Chile’s anti-terrorism law to prosecute anyone found responsible.
Significance:...
Javier Diez Canseco describes himself as “an independent” congressman within the ruling Gana Perú coalition. He has been appointed by President Ollanta Humala to head up a congressional investigative omission into corruption. The commission will probe malfeasance allegations levied against the...
Development: On 10 October President Fernando Lugo of Paraguay decreed a 60-day state of exception for the northern departments of Concepción and San Pedro in order to deploy the military with the aim of defeating the Ejército del Pueblo Paraguayo (EPP) guerrilla group.
Significance: The...
