Just this past week, the National Election Council of Venezuela decreed it would suspend the opposition’s petition for a recall vote on President Nicolas Maduro, essentially meaning that Maduro will remain in power until 2018, when the next presidential election will be held. With his horrendous mishandling of the nation’s economic crisis, there might not be a Venezuela left come… Read more »
While we’re fully aware that the instability of the Venezuelan regime has led to not only political turmoil in the form of protests, the economic impact has been nearly as resounding. With inflation rates skyrocketing, and nearly every product in short supply, purchasing almost anything would be an obvious struggle for Venezuelans. Those who live along the country’s western border… Read more »
WSJ: CARACAS, Venezuela—President Nicolás Maduro raised the minimum wage 40% on Thursday, a day before a national strike called by the opposition to force the president to allow a referendum on his rule. It was the fourth time this year the leader of the oil-rich nation has raised salaries and pensions as he battles the collapse of the local currency,… Read more »
Adding to the economic troubles and political corruption that has plagued Brazil recently, a rift between Brazil’s Senate and their courts threaten to unhinge the efforts being made to help ameliorate their troubling situations as a country. This past Wednesday the President of Brazil’s Senate asked the Supreme Court to temporarily halt an investigation involving Senators, breaching the separation of the Legislative and… Read more »
Though in recent months the Colombian insurgent group FARC, which recently had a peace deal promising an end to a fifty year conflict with the Colombian government shot down, has been the center of attention, the Colombians also face the threat of the group ELN, the National Liberation Army. This group, inspired by Cuba’s 1959 revolution, is relatively large in… Read more »
BBC: Scientists are planning to release an army of millions of modified mosquitoes in areas of Brazil and Colombia. They say the unusual approach is an attempt to provide “revolutionary protection” against mosquito-borne diseases such as Zika and chikungunya. The mosquitoes are infected with a bug called Wolbachia which reduces their ability to spread viruses to people. The $18m dollar… Read more »
BBC: “If we caught ‘El Chapo’, we can catch Duarte,” said Mexican Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong this week of the latest high-profile Mexican to go on the run. Javier Duarte de Ochoa was, until 12 October, the governor of the Mexican oil-rich state of Veracruz. He stood down to face corruption charges but a week later he had… Read more »
Reuters: Brazil’s federal police on Monday sought corruption charges against former finance minister and presidential chief of staff Antonio Palocci and accuse him of running a bribery scheme that funneled money to the former-ruling Workers Party’s (PT). Police said in their investigation sent to federal prosecutors that Palocci conspired with construction firm Odebrecht SA [ODBES.UL] to pay 128 million reais… Read more »
Reuters: Colombia is delaying peace talks with Marxist ELN rebels until they free a politician held captive for six months, President Juan Manuel Santos said on Thursday, as he struggles to salvage a peace deal with FARC guerrillas that was rejected in a plebiscite. The National Liberation Army (ELN), the nation’s second-biggest insurgent group, must release Odin Sanchez to the… Read more »
THE GUARDIAN: Ecuador has confirmed that oil drilling has begun under the country’s Yasuní national park, one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. But the government claims that there has been only minimal disturbance to the Unesco biosphere reserve in the Amazon rainforest since extraction of 23,000 barrels of oil a day began last month. Ecologists, environmentalists and political groups in Ecuador… Read more »