Latin America Daily Briefing

Aug 30, 2024

Jordana Timerman

Brazilian Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes escalated a feud with billionaire Elon Musk yesterday — and Brazil is bracing for a potential shutdown in access to the X social media platform.

The feud started earlier this year, when Moraes ordered X to block certain accounts implicated in probes of so-called digital militias accused of spreading distortion and hate. X’s owner, Musk, denounced the order as censorship and shutdown the social media platform’s Brazil operations. Under Brazilian laws governing the internet, social media platforms are required to have a locally based representative, which is why Moraes is now threatening a shutdown. (Reuters, see Aug. 15’s post)

The deadline expired at 8.07pm local time yesterday. An hour later, Elon Musk’s social network announced it would not comply, reports the Guardian. Yesterday Moraes blocked the local bank accounts for Musk’s satellite and internet provider Starlink — a move criticized by legal experts.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said X should be subject to the same Brazilian laws as everybody else. “Just because a guy has a lot of money doesn’t mean he can disrespect (the law),” he said in a radio interview today. Yesterday Musk called Lula as Moraes’ “lapdog” in a post on X in which the billionaire also called Moraes a “dictator.”

Moraes’ supporters see him as a critical defender of democracy, but critics say he has overstepped his legal boundaries, reports Reuters.

The escalating fight with Musk and recent reporting accusing Moraes of skirting oficial procedure “have put renewed focus on several questions: Is Moraes censoring the opposition, or guarding Brazilian democracy? What should be the balance between allowing political speech on social media—and fighting back against disinformation and other threats? And finally: Has Moraes’ power outlived its usefulness, placing due process and the rule of law under threat in a different but also harmful way?” asks Nick Burns in Americas Quarterly.

The Associated Press looks at how Brazilian judges have the power to act in such cases, and how X’s refusal to appoint a legal representative would be particularly problematic ahead of Brazil’s October municipal elections, with a churn of fake news expected.

Migration

• “Panamanian authorities deported a group of migrants to Ecuador on a second flight financed by the United States, as part of an agreement between the U.S. and Panama to discourage irregular crossings and reduce the flow of mostly U.S.-bound migration,” reports Reuters.
  
  
• The U.S. will restart a parole program for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, with more robust checks for U.S.-based sponsors. Illegal crossings along the southern border by migrants from those countries have declined sharply since the parole program was launched, reports the Washington Post.
  
  
• Mass deportations could create a U.S. recession, argues Ernesto Castañeda at the AULA Blog.

El Salvador

• Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s controversial gang crackdown “has become a kind of rhetorical Rorschach test for politicians and professors” outside of El Salvador, writes Megan K. Stack in the New York Times. But perspectives within the country are far more complex.
  
  
• Time Magazine has Bukele on the cover, and reports: “For Bukele’s admirers, El Salvador has become a showcase for how populist authoritarianism can succeed. His second term will be a test of what happens to a state when its charismatic young leader has an overwhelming mandate to dismantle its democratic institutions in pursuit of security.”

Regional

• “To counter the prevailing narrative in the region that suggests that improving security necessarily comes at the cost of individual rights and democracy, it is essential to work on a democratic security agenda,” according to a new report by The Dialogue that “explores potential guidelines for an alternative public policy that addresses insecurity both democratically and effectively.”

Ecuador

• Ecuador’s government says it has started dismantling infrastructure on a controversial oil drilling block in Yasuni National Park, just as today’s court-imposed deadline for completion looms, reports the Associated Press.

Venezuela

• Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro blamed a massive power outage affecting Caracas and several states on “electrical sabotage.” (Reuters)
  
  
• The European Union does not recognize Maduro’s “democratic legitimacy” after his self-proclaimed re-election last month, the bloc’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell said yesterday. (AFP)

Mexico

• Violence against reporters in Mexico ·stems from a climate in which organised crime and local authorities work together in near impunity, and parallels a broader rise in murders since 2008 as drug-trafficking groups have contested territory and expanded into migrant trafficking, oil theft and extortion,” reports the Financial Times.

Honduras

• The case of Próspera, a charter city in Honduras developed under legislation the government wants to dissolve, is suing in a World Bank tribunal for an astronomical $10.775 billion. “A win for Próspera could demonstrate sufficient legal stability to attract investors and set the precedent for new cities around the world. If it loses, start-up city founders will need to look for new legal strategies,” reports the New York Times.
  
  
• The U.S. called on Honduras’ government to reconsider a decision to leave a long-standing extradition treaty, reports Reuters. (See yesterday’s briefs.)

Colombia

• There’s a war for blood gold is underway in Buriticá, Colombia and everyone there knows someone whose life it has claimed, writes Joshua Collins at Pirate Wire Services.

Peru

• “Peru’s Congress is recklessly dismantling the nation’s crime-fighting institutions to the benefit of the country’s mafias—increasing the risk of instability, outmigration, and manipulation by malign foreign actors,” writes Will Freeman in Americas Quarterly.

Bolivia

• Bolivia has recorded the largest number of outbreaks of wildfires in 14 years, with 3 million hectares of land burned already this year and peak fire season still ahead, reports Reuters.

Argentina

• Argentine police a former member of Italy’s far-left guerrilla Red Brigades, who has been on the run from Italy’s justice system for more than 40 years. Leonardo Bertulazzi had been living in Argentina for years as a refugee, a status he lost under the current Milei government, reports the Guardian.

Venezuelans rally

Aug 29, 2024

Jordana Timerman

Venezuela

• Supporters of Venezuela’s opposition and government held separate, small rallies yesterday, marking a month since a disputed presidential election both sides claim to have won. Nicolás Maduro’s government has cracked down on dissent. Shortly after the rally, the opposition coalition said party leader Biagio Pilieri, had been arrested.(Reuters)
  
  
• Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who went into hiding following the election, appeared at yesterday’s rally, waving a Venezuelan flag, reports Al Jazeera.
  
  
• Venezuela’s attorney general has repeatedly cited opposition presidential candidate, Edmundo González, who appears to have won the election by a landslide, to appear. (Efecto Cocuyo)
  
  
• “The party of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro maintains a strong hold on state institutions, but it has lost the people’s mandate. Will there be a transfer of power to the opposition candidate, Edmundo González—the true victor of this summer’s election?” writes William Neuman in New York Review of Books.
  
  
• Maduro’s government is weakened, but likely strong enough to hold onto power until the new presidential period begins in January. This, however, does not guarantee Venezuela’s stability, writes Michael McCarthy at the Aula Blog.

Regional Relations

• Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega offered to send “Sandinista fighters” to support Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, in case there is an attempt at an “armed counterrevolution” following July’s disputed presidential election. (CNN)
  
  
• Honduras notified the U.S. of its decision to “terminate” the extradition treaty between the two countries, reports EFE. The announcement came after the US ambassador in Tegucigalpa, Laura Dogu criticized the meeting of Honduran defense officials with sanctioned Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López.
  
  
• The United States defended its ambassador in Mexico after his criticism of controversial judicial reforms angered Mexican officials, including President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. (AFP)

Guatemala

• “The democratic transition in Guatemala represents one of the clearest victories of U.S. President Joe Biden’s agenda to promote democracy worldwide, as well as a rare example of Vice President Kamala Harris’s national security team playing a distinct and direct role in shepherding it through … The episode provides possible insights into how Harris’s foreign-policy team would work should she win the presidential election in November,” argues Robbie Gramer in Foreign Policy.
  
  
• Santiago Palomo, the Guatemalan Arévalo administration’s chief spokesperson, told El Faro that the government is “concerned by a systematic pattern of attacking government officials, myself included, but we will not stop at restoring confidence in public institutions, particularly the justice system.”

Colombia

• Two years into Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s mandate, the government has “followed neither the most optimistic nor the most pessimistic paths” and Colombians remain anxious for the change they voted for, writes James Bosworth in World Politics Review.

Haiti

• Haitian gangs are, thus far, undeterred by the Kenyan-led multinational security support mission. The force has “neither the sufficient personnel nor the equipment to launch real offensive operations against the gangs,” International Crisis Group analyst Diego Da Rin told AFP.

Brazil

• Brazil’s Supreme Court threatened yesterday to ban social media platform X unless owner Elon Musk names a legal representative in the country within 24 hours. (Al Jazeera)|
  
  
• Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva chose political ally Gabriel Galípolo to head the country’s central bank, after sharply criticizing the institution’s incumbent governor over high interest rates, reports the Financial Times.

Ecuador

• Ecuador’s government began the process of shuttering oil wells in the 43-ITT block, located on a vast nature reserve, yesterday, in keeping with a referendum last year in which voters chose to end drilling in the area on environmental concerns. (Reuters)

Chile

• “One of Chile’s most powerful lawyers was ordered detained Tuesday pending trial on money laundering and tax fraud charges in a case that has rocked the country’s corporate and political elite,” reports the Associated Press.

Mexico “pauses” relations with U.S., Canada embassies

Aug 28, 2024

Jordana Timerman

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador suspended relations with the U.S. and Canadian embassies, after those nations’ ambassador’s to Mexico criticized his flagship judicial reform proposal. (See Monday’s post on the judicial reform proposal)

“There is a pause,” López Obrador said in a press conference yesterday, clarifying that the freeze was with the embassies and not with the countries. It is not immediately clear what the move implies concretely.

Yesterday, Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Barcena backed Lopez Obrador in a message on social media, but also said that the relationship with “friends and neighbors in North America” was a priority and remained “fluid and normal” on a daily basis.

Last week Canada’s ambassador said investors are concerned about the judicial reform proposal, while U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar last week labeled the reform a “major risk to the functioning of Mexico’s democracy” and cautioned of a potential risk to the U.S.-Mexico trade relationship.

Yesterday, after AMLO’s announcement, he posted a note on social media: “The United States supports the concept of judicial reform in Mexico, but we have significant concerns that the popular election of judges would neither address judicial corruption nor strengthen the judicial branch of the Government of Mexico.”

AMLO and president-elect Sheinbaum reject the comments as interference in the country’s internal affairs. Yesterday Sheinbaum said she also supported López Obrador’s decision to suspend relations with the U.S. Embassy “in the face of the insult levied by the ambassador.”

(Reuters, New York Times, Los Angeles Times)

More Mexico

• The contentious dispute over the reform “highlights the growing unease in Mexico over the prospect that Mr. López Obrador and his political party, Morena, are trying to lock in the political advantages they have now over a much longer period of time,” reports the New York Times.
  
  
• Alex González Ormerod explains how Morena, which obtained a landslide victory in June’s general elections, also skillfully fielded allied party candidates within its coalition to avoid limits on any single party being “overrepresented,” permitting it to obtain a super majority in the incoming Congress. But this also means “Morena is less powerful than it might initially seem,” he writes in The Mexico Political Economist. “They will have to give their allies (plus three opposition senators) what they want to get their bills through Congress.” (See also The Mexico Political Economist and Monday’s post.)

Venezuela

• Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said her lawyer, Perkins Rocha, has been kidnapped by government security forces. (Guardian, BBC)
  
  
• In a cabinet reshuffle yesterday, Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro named hardliner Diosdado Cabello Interior Minister. Human rights groups fear that Cabello’s appointment, with oversight of Venezuela’s police forces, will intensify the government’s heavy-handed response to protests, reports the Associated Press.
  
  
• In the reshuffle Maduro brought in new figures to lead the oil, finance, and interior ministries, among others. Vice President Delcy Rodriguez will remain in her post, but add the oil ministry to her brief, reports Al Jazeera.
  
  
• A month after Venezuela’s disputed elections, Boris Muñoz takes stock in El País: opposition efforts have decisively exposed Maduro’s authoritarian system of power, but “while they have gained recognition and overwhelming international support, at home they have been forced into a trench.” As international mediation fizzles, efforts should focus on undermining military support for Chavismo, he argues. “The elections prove that the former social base of Chavismo has said no more and is willing to take a gamble for a democratic future. The opposition should take advantage of this fact to rebuild a broad resistance based on a polyclassist social pact …”
  
  
• Brazilian diplomat Celso Amorim said the suggestion of carrying out new elections in Venezuela is aimed at escaping the impasse in which both Maduro and the opposition claim to have won July 28’s presidential vote. “There is no magical exit,” he said in an interview with El País.
  
  
• Caracas Chronicles reports on the ruling PSUV party election monitors — the “missing link” in the disputed claims over the election results. Most have stayed silent, a few corroborate the opposition’s claim of a massive electoral upset for Maduro.
  
  
• Venezuelan journalists are using artificial intelligence avatars to broadcast news, in a context of government repression against dissidents, activists and journalists. Carlos Eduardo Huertas, the director of Connectas, the Colombia-based journalism platform coordinating the initiative, said the use of AI was a response to “the persecution and the growing repression that our colleagues are suffering in Venezuela, where the uncertainty over the safety of doing their job … grows by the minute”. (Guardian)

Nicaragua

• A Nicaraguan army base just south of Managua “has become one of Russia’s main espionage centers,” reports Confidencial. “Sources who have had access to the military installation claim that Russian officials are the only ones who can operate the equipment and access the information gathered. Nicaraguan officers are limited to providing “security” at the base.”

Migration

• “The early July announcement of deportations and the new Panamanian government’s other efforts to limit Darién migration has caused a moderate pause in the flow of migration through Central America. 24,133 refugees and migrants transited Honduras in July, a 15 percent decrease from June, according to a monthly update from UNHCR.” (Americas Migration Brief)

Colombia

• Colombian President Gustavo Petro said he reached an agreement with private banks to lend to “productive” sectors in a bid to help reactivate the nation’s stagnant economy. The deal replaces an initial government plan to send a bill to congress forcing banks to provide cheap financing, reports Bloomberg.
  
  
• Colombia’s Supreme Court indicted the country’s current ambassador to Nicaragua for drug trafficking, six years after he was arrested with nearly 350 grams of cocaine in a suitcase, reports AFP.
  
  
• A Colombian government initiative to help communities move away from farming coca has stalled, while a surge in global cocaine use has made demand for the plant higher than ever, reports the Guardian.

Argentina

• Argentina’s justice minister said “we reject sexual identity diversities, which do not align with biology, they are subjective inventions.” He spoke in Argentina’s Congress, where several lawmakers angrily responded that his position counters decades of activism and legislative reform that puts the country at the fore of LGBTQ rights in the region. (Infobae)
  
  
• Argentine Vice-President Victoria Victoria Villarruel promised to reopen criminal cases investigating the deaths of victims of left-wing guerrilla fighters in the 1970s. Human rights activists say the move is an apology for state terrorism carried out by the country’s last dictatorship and reject her stance as denialism. (Buenos Aires Times, Buenos Aires Herald)
  
  
• Villarruel’s speech comes in the midst of a scandal over a visit by ruling party lawmakers to former officials of the dictatorship, who are imprisoned for human rights violations. This weekend a lawmaker revealed draft bills to drop charges against alleged dictatorship torturers, reports the Buenos Aires Herald.

Haiti

• Haitian youth are flocking for the chance to join the once reviled military, a rare opportunity to get work in the impoverished country, reports the Associated Press.

Regional

• “A decade and a half after the heyday of the pink tide and the constituent processes in Ecuador and Bolivia, many have reflected on efforts to build plurinational states, particularly in these two countries. Although these landmark constitutions officially recognized the state as plurinational, marginalized Indigenous peoples are disputing the meaning of those words and challenging formal plurinational institutions. For many, the lofty promises of a top-down plurinationalism remain outstanding,” write Romina Green Rioja, Roger Merino, Nayla Luz Vacarezza in Nacla.

Critter Corner

• The Guardian Long Reads tackles the perennial issue of Pablo Escobar’s hippos in Colombia, and how the danger of the invasive animal relates to the drug kingpin’s own legacy.

Zerón implicates Peña Nieto in Ayotzinapa “historical truth”

Aug 27, 2024

Jordana Timerman

Tomás Zerón, former head of investigations for Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office, said the official story about the 2014 disappearance of 43 students was made up by the highest ranking authorities in the government during meetings presided over by then-President Enrique Peña Nieto. Through a freedom of information request, the independent journalism collective Fabrica de Periodismo obtained Zerón’s answers to a questionnaire sent to him in 2022 by Mexico’s top human rights official at the time, Alejandro Encinas.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said his predecesor, Enrique Peña Nieto should be called to testify about his role in creating the false narrative. (Animal Político)

Zerón is living in Israel, beyond the reach of Mexican law enforcement. The version he refers to is known as the “historic truth,” and contended the Ayotzinapa students were turned over by local police to a drug gang that killed them, incinerated their bodies in a dump, and tossed the remains into a river, reports the Associated Press.

Investigators who later took over the case, one of the most emblematic of human rights violations in the country, accused Zerón of creating a false narrative, based on confessions extracted by torture, in order to close the case as quickly as possible and avoid political fall out, reports El País.

In his testimony, previously unreported, Zerón rejects personal responsibility and positions himself as a mere “spokesman.” (Aristegui Noticias)

More Mexico

• López Obrador’s judicial reform plan passed a key congressional committee yesterday. The lower chamber of Mexico’s congress, where the ruling Morena coalition will have a super majority when the new term starts Sunday, is expected to start debating the controversial proposal next week. The reform would require that all federal judges in Mexico, including members of the Supreme Court, are elected by popular vote, reports Bloomberg. (See yesterday’s post.)
  
  
• In response to criticism from the U.S. ambassador to Mexico and U.S. trade groups, López Obrador and president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum defended the reform and Mexico’s sovereignty. (Reuters)
  
  
• Sheinbaum is a climate scientist, and has signaled an interest in pivoting towards clean energy. But she will be hindered by AMLO’s massive bet on fossil fuels, and her own unwillingness to butt heads with her political mentor, according to the New York Times.
  
  
• “Mexico’s traditional and Indigenous community police forces are coming under increasingly deadly fire from drug cartels,” reports the Associated Press.

Venezuela

• At least 120 children have been imprisoned by Venezuelan security forces in the post-election crackdown, according to multiple human rights organizations. All of the children have been charged with terrorism. More than 100 are still in custody, reports the Washington Post.

Regional Relations

• China called for more countries to endorse a peace plan for Ukraine it developed with Brazil, after a round of diplomacy with Indonesia, Brazil and South Africa, reports the Associated Press.

Colombia

• Oil pipelines in eastern Colombia were attacked five times in recent days, after a ceasefire with the ELN guerrilla group broke down, reports Bloomberg.
  
  
• “The Colombian airlines Avianca and Latam Colombia said late Monday they will operate most of their flights Tuesday and resume full schedules Wednesday, after warning earlier they would have to cancel dozens of flights due to shortages of jet fuel,” reports the Associated Press.

Haiti

• Hundreds of Kenyan police officers leading an international security support mission in Haiti have not received their full pay for two months, reports CNN.

El Salvador

• The BBC tells the story of José Duval Mata, who has been in prison in El Salvador for more than two years, accused of “gang association”, even though the country’s legal system has twice ordered his immediate release. “It is a tale of Kafkaesque proportions.”

Critter Corner

Wildfires in Brazil’s Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland and one of the most important biodiversity sanctuaries on the planet, are taking a deadly toll on wild animals, including at-risk species that scientists have been working for decades to protect, reports the New York Times.

Protests against judicial reform in Mx

Aug 26, 2024

Jordana Timerman

Mexico’s electoral institute voted Friday to give the governing Morena party and its allies about 73 percent of seats in the lower house of Congress. This puts the governing coalition comfortably above the two-third needed to unilaterally pass constitutional reform. In the Senate, the ruling party will control 83 of the 128 seats, just shy of the two-thirds majority of 85 seats.

However, the move could be challenged in court, as the coalition won less than 60 percent of the votes in the June 2 elections. Opposition objections are based on an interpretation of the electoral system prioritizing representation by party rather than coalition, reports Reuters. (Animal Político)

“The dispute involves a law that assigns some seats in Congress on the basis of proportional representation. That was designed to give smaller parties some seats in Congress, based on their national vote percentage, even if they couldn’t win individual congressional district races,” explains the Associated Press. While the seats can’t be used to give any party a majority, smaller Morena allies, who vote in lockstep with the ruling party, obtained seats through this mechanism.

The composition of Congress is particularly key as the new Congress, with a strong Morena majority, will vote on a series of reform proposals championed by outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, next month. These include judicial reform that would make all federal judgeships elected positions. (El País)

Judicial Reform

Sheinbaum insisted, speaking at a public works inauguration Friday, that Supreme Court magistrates should be elected by citizens and be accountable to them. She emphasized the division between economic and political power, insisting her government will not be hostage to business interests, reports La Jornada.

Morena is also pushing a reform that would essentially eliminate all of Mexico’s independent oversight and regulatory bodies, which the party says are a waste of money, and that oversight responsibilities should be given to government departments instead.

Yesterday thousands of people protested against the reforms in Mexico City as well as in Michoacán, Puebla, León, Jalisco, Oaxaca, Veracruz and other states. Many protesters are also upset by a proposal to do away with independent regulatory agencies. (Associated Press, Animal Político)

Federal court employees and judges remain on strike, the peso’s value has slumped, and the U.S. ambassador voiced concern over the planned reform. But journalist Salvador Camarena dissects criticism of Morena’s supermajority and judicial reform — saying national and international opposition to the ruling party has turned a blind eye to very clear voter will expressed in Morena’s landslide June victory. (El País)

Venezuela

• An opposition member of Venezuela’s electoral authority, Juan Carlos Delpino told the New York Times that he had no proof that Venezuela’s authoritarian president won last month’s election — the first major criticism from inside the electoral system.
  
• Venezuela’s Maduro government said it will order former opposition candidate Edmundo González to provide sworn testimony in an ongoing investigation into an alleged effort to spread panic in the country by contesting the results of the July 28 presidential election. González has been in hiding since since the vote, in the midst of a massive government crackdown on dissent. (Associated Press)
  
  
• The Attorney General’s Office has summoned him to provide sworn testimony today for the alleged crimes of usurping state responsibilities, forging public documents, instigating disobedience of the law, computer crimes, criminal association and conspiracy, reports El País.
  
  
• The accusations against González focus on the publication of vote tallies obtained by opposition poll monitors, data verified by numerous independent experts that corroborates González’s claim of a landslide win, explains El País.
  
  
• González urged Venezuelans to join in defense of freedom and sovereignty of the people after the government’s announcement on Friday, reports Reuters.
  
  
• Carmela Longo, awell-known Venezuelan journalist, was detained in Caracas on yesterday by police. At least eight other reporters have been detained since the disputed July presidential election, reports Reuters.
  
  
• There are currently 1,674 political prisoners in the country, the greatest number so far this century, according to Foro Penal.
  
  
• A month into the Maduro government’s crackdown, many analysts expect the president to ride out discontent and continue ruling the country, reports the Guardian.
  
  
• But opposition leader María Corina Machado told the Financial Times that Maduro’s campaign of repression is unsustainable.
  
  
• Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Colombian President Gustavo Petro insisted this weekend that Venezuela’s government must publish the full polling station voting results to back its claim of reelection. (El País)
  
  
• In a joint statement, Lula and Petro said the “credibility of the electoral process can only be restored through the transparent publication of disaggregated and verifiable data.” (Associated Press)
  
  
• The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said that Maduro has still “not provided the necessary public evidence” to prove he was the winner of July’s elections, after Venezuela’s Supreme Court backed the government’s disputed claims of victory, last week. (Associated Press)

Guatemala

• Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo told the Financial Times his government is at risk of a judicial coup, and said critics pushing him to take more drastic action — for example in removing the attorney-general, who has relentlessly investigated his party — do not fully appreciate the risks.

Haiti

• The U.S. military said it will deliver 24 additional armored vehicles, as well as 34 Overhead Gunner Protection Kits, or “turrets” for the armored vehicles, to Kenyan personnel deployed in Haiti. Critics say the multinational security mission led by Kenya lacks essential equipment. (Reuters)

Migration

• The U.S. is seeing to coordinate migration policies with several Latin American countries to respond to an increase in migrants from Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Last week Brazil tightened transit regulations for people from several Asian countries, while Panama has conducted repatriation flights for migrants, financed by the U.S. (Reuters)

Regional

• In Argentina, Brazil and Chile about a third of the electorate supports the national far-right, and about 60 percent rejects it, according to a new study by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. (El País)
  
  
• The far-right exercises a polarizing effect on the electorate, and its electoral success lies partially with the second-round system for presidential voting, which pushes voters to choose the least-bad option, writes the study’s coordinator Cristian Rovira in El País.
  
  
• Brazilian National Development Bank head Aloizio Mercadante said protectionist measures — put in place by the United States, China and the European Union — are an economic threat to Latin American countries, in an interview with El País.

Brazil

• Wildfires in Brazil’s southern Sao Pâulo state have killed at least two people, at least 36 cities have been put on high alert, reports the Associated Press.
  
  
• Authorities said that arsonists were setting blazes and deployed military aircraft as part of a “war against the fire.” (AFP)
  
  
• A string of murders and assaults of gay men targeted through dating apps has shaken Brazil’s gay community, reports Reuters.

Ecuador

• El País profiles how a group of Indigenous Waorani forest defenders hone their skills to monitor and denounce deforestation.

Cuba

• Power outages totaling 14 hours or more per day were reported last week in Cuba, leaving millions of residents affected by summer heat and humidity. The state-run power company said breakdowns had forced six plants off-line, reports Reuters.

Jordana Timerman / Latin America Daily Briefing
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EnergiesNet.com 02 09 2024