Two new corruption investigations into former Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014) were approved by the supreme court on 23 September. One relates to an investigation launched by the Panamanian stock market regulator into whether Martinelli engaged in insider trading; the other...
Development: On 29 September Uruguay’s President Tabaré Vázquez called for parents to support his battle with the local teachers’ unions by sending their children to school.
Significance: According to some calculations Montevideo secondary school students have missed as many as 29 days of classes...
Development: On 27 September Haiti’s provisional electoral council (CEP) released the final results of the 9 August first round of legislative elections for two-thirds of the 30-seat national senate and the newly expanded 118-seat lower chamber of congress.
Significance: According to the results,...
Development: US President Barack Obama will meet his Cuban peer, Raúl Castro, at the margins of the United Nations General Assembly tomorrow (29 September), White House officials have confirmed.
Significance: This will be the second time that the two leaders will formally meet, having first met...
The double whammy of lower production and a declining world oil price have impelled Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) to make budget cuts this year, but the State oil company’s problems have been exacerbated by a surge in fuel theft. In the first eight months of the year, there were 3,547 illegal taps,...
There has been fresh unrest in the mining and hydrocarbons sectors, both of which already are struggling in the face of lower mineral commodity prices.
On 17 August a local police sergeant, José Luis Quispe de la Cruz, died after falling 200 meters into a ravine following clashes in Tacacoma, La...
Development: On 17 September Mexican authorities reported that Gildardo ‘El Gil’ López Astudillo, considered a key participant in last year’s abduction and presumed murder of 43 training teachers in Iguala, Guerrero state, had been arrested.
Significance: The arrest and earlier news that the...
With no sign of improvement in President Michelle Bachelet’s approval ratings, the leftist Nueva Mayoría coalition government is now facing fresh criticism over its handling of the long-running Mapuche conflict. Renewed violence in the southern Araucanía Region (where the indigenous Mapuche lay...
Development: On 15 September Guatemala’s electoral authorities (TSE) announced the final results from the 6 September general elections.
Significance: The TSE confirmed that the 25 October second round presidential run-off will be between Jimmy Morales of the small conservative Frente de...
Development: On 14 September Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa called on his supporters to prepare to offer “resistance” to the demonstrations planned by government opponents this week.
Significance: Correa’s call will fan tensions in Ecuador, which has become increasingly polarised this year...
Development: Ramón Mestre, aligned with Cambiemos, the national opposition coalition, was comfortably re-elected mayor of the Argentine city of Córdoba in polls held on 13 September.
Significance: Located in the centre of the country, Córdoba is Argentina’s second-largest city, and could play an...
On 1 September, the Costa Rican government unveiled its proposed budget for the next fiscal year. The 2016 budget will see the smallest percentage increase in ten years: 0.5% more than the C$7.9tr (US$14.5bn) 2015 budget, the largest in the country’s history. The administration of President Luis...
Development: On 8 September Brazil’s defence minister, Jaques Wagner, contradicted the words of a presidential decree with a statement confirming that it would remain the military’s prerogative to manage its own personnel without government interference.
Significance: President Dilma Rousseff...
Development: Preliminary results indicate that the main opposition People’s National Movement (PNM) led by Keith Rowley won the 7 September general election in Trinidad & Tobago, defeating the coalition People’s Partnership (PP) of Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar, in office since...
Development: The government’s account of the abduction and presumed murder of 43 students in Iguala, Guerrero, in September 2014 is inconsistent and misleading, a group of international experts said on 6 September.
Significance: The findings of the group of experts – a team put together by the...
The constitutional chamber of the supreme court has issued a ruling which could be a game changer in El Salvador. As the government led by President Salvador Sánchez Cerén has taken the fight to the country’s mara street gangs, leading to violence spiralling out of control, the court ruled that...
Development: On 3 September Guatemala’s presidential spokesperson, Jorge Ortega, announced that President Otto Pérez Molina had resigned.
Significance: The announcement, which was breaking news at the time of writing, came after a local judge issued an arrest warrant for Pérez Molina following...
Development: Satellite data released on 1 September suggests a 68.7% year-on-year increase in deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.
Significance: The new deforestation figure is the highest recorded in six years, according to the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (Inpe) and signals...
Development: On 31 August Bolivia’s rural development & land minister, Nemesia Achocollo, and Bolivia’s ambassador to Paraguay, Rosendo Alpiri, announced their resignations.
Significance: The two stepped down over the corruption allegations involving the government’s indigenous development...
Big Cola makes African move: Big Cola, the soft-drink brand controlled by Peru’s Aje Group, is initiating operations in Africa, where it has opened two bottling plants, one in Nigeria and the other in Egypt. Although less than 30 years old (the company was set-up in Ayacucho in 1988), Big Cola is...
