Brazil

• A violent attack on a nursery school yesterday, in which a man with a hatchet killed four young children and wounded at least four more, has put pressure on the Lula administration to respond to a systemic rise of attacks on schools. (Associated Press, Associated Press)
  
  
• Justice Minister Flávio Dino said he would redirect $30 million from the nation’s public security fund to shore up school safety and that funding will pay for both heightened policing and an expansion of a Brasilia-based team for the monitoring of deep-web communities. (Associated Press, Associated Press)
  
  
• Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes backed the Lula administration’s efforts to crack down on illegal mining, and gave the government three months to adopt a new regulatory framework to stop the sale of illegally extracted gold. (Reuters)

• Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro testified at federal police headquarters in Brasília yesterday, regarding an investigation into jewelry and gifts given to him and his wife by the king of Saudi Arabia in 2021. (Reuters)
  
  
• The new fiscal framework plan presented by the Lula administration last week attempts to satisfy leftist calls for increased investment — permitting the government to increase spending above inflation — while committing the government to primary surpluses and debt containment, according to the Wilson Center’s Brazil Institute.
  
  
• Brazilian presidential foreign policy advisor Celso Amorim met with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week to discuss potential peace talks to end the Ukraine conflict. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has sought to spearhead mediation efforts. (Reuters)

Regional

• Italian-American economist Mariana Mazzucato, who argues that governments can be a catalyst for innovation, is widely admired in Latin America, particularly among the region’s new cohort of leftist leaders, reports Americas Quarterly.
  
  
• Her focus is not anti-capitalist, and her “popularity among the leaders of the new pink tide reflects the greater cautiousness and more modest aspirations of this generation of presidents, compared to the earlier pink tide of the 2000s,” writes Nick Burns. “Now, the focus is more on how to make capitalism more inclusive, more environmentally friendly and more productive.” (Americas Quarterly)

Regional Relations

• The U.S. caused a political storm in Paraguay with accusations of systemic corruption against former President Horacio Cartes and current Vice President Hugo Velásquez. The Wilson Center’s Benjamin Gedan argues that the Biden administration should “redouble its fight against corruption in Paraguay, first through Justice Department action and then by significantly expanding support for Paraguay’s criminal justice system to give it the tools for greater success in policing its own political class.” (Americas Quarterly)
  
  
• Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter transformed his country’s relations with Latin America. At the height of the Cold War he put human rights and democracy at the top of his regional agenda, while balancing these concerns with U.S. national security interests. “You could call his Latin America doctrine “tough engagement.” Today more than ever, it merits a comeback,” argues Will Freeman in Americas Quarterly.
  
  
• Evan Ellis analyzes “China’s expressed intention to prioritize security engagement with the region through CELAC and the BRICS forum, rather than through the established, longstanding security cooperation frameworks of the InterAmerican system.”
  
  
• The reopening of the Colombia-Venezuela border last year was a symbolic political stunt, given that traffic between the two countries continued throughout seven years of partial closure, according to some locals — Latin America News Dispatch.

Haiti

• The U.S. sanctioned Gary Bodeau, a former Haitian lawmaker, accusing him of facilitating and soliciting bribes worth million of dollars. Bodeau, former head of the Haitian Chamber of Deputies, was sanctioned by the Canadian government late last year, reports the Miami Herald.

Peru

• Praise by the U.S. ambassador to Peru for a controversial palm oil company sparked outrage among Peruvian Indigenous groups and international environmental organizations, who said the company is operating on illegally deforested land, lacks forestry and environmental permits, and has used media campaigns to defame Indigenous leaders and deliberately foment division among Indigenous communities. (Guardian)
  
  
• A U.S. court denied an appeal by former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo to stop his extradition to face charges he accepted millions of dollars in bribes as part of the Odebrecht corruption scandal. (Associated Press)

Mexico

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s goal of “energetic self-sufficiency” by next year is unlikely given current levels of oil extraction in the country, reports Animal Político.
  
  
• Mariana Rodríguez Cantú is “first lady of Nuevo León and Mexican Instagram,” according to Slate.

Critter Corner

• Chile’s recently launched National Huemul Corridor aims to save an endangered deer species by reducing threats to its survival and restoring areas of its natural habitat. The huemul could act as a flagship for recovering the natural habitats for a range of other species, according to Rewilding Chile. (Mongabay)

Jordana Timerman/Latin America Daily Briefing