bbc.com The Brazilian government has frozen the bank accounts of Rio de Janeiro state, ordering it to pay millions of dollars in overdue debt. Many public workers have not been paid in months. Rio de Janeiro has been struggling with a long-standing financial crisis because of a drop in global oil and commodity prices.
nature.com Environmentalists in Brazil are feeling the heat. Conservative lawmakers want to weaken the country’s environmental regulations to clear the way for rapid development of energy facilities, mines and agriculture — in the Amazon and beyond. Their push comes at a time of economic and political turmoil following the impeachment in August of former President Dilma Rousseff.
jamaicaobserver.com KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Economic Growth Council is committed to moving Jamaica from “developing to developed”. Prime Minister Andrew Holness, council Chairman Michael Lee Chin and deputy chairman Nigel Clarke were on hand Monday at the Courtleigh Auditorium in Kingston for the launch and signing of the declaration for the Economic Growth Council.
npr.org Haiti today is launching the largest emergency cholera vaccination campaign ever attempted. The plan is to try to vaccinate 800,000 people in parts of the country devastated by Hurricane Matthew. Immediately after the Category 4 storm tore across the southwest of Haiti last month, the number of reported cholera cases across the country shot up dramatically. In some storm… 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 »
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 »