With the end of the economic boom, the region needs to boost innovation and productivity to compete and continue growing. Latin America isn’t the same as it was at the beginning of the millennium. The commodities boom was the engine behind significant achievements in employment, salaries and poverty levels across the region, which ended up changing the economic landscape. A… Read more »
It is hardly news to say that corruption is a problem in Latin America. However, its impact on health is often underestimated. One World Bank scholar suggests that about $28 billion are stolen or diverted from health systems per year in Latin America. Sometimes the problems are high profile, such as in Honduras, where the vice-president was charged with having… Read more »
MEXICO CITY — For Mexico, the nightmare came true. Perhaps no country aside from the United States itself had as much at stake in the American presidential election as Mexico did. Then on Wednesday, it watched as the American people elected Donald J. Trump to be their next president, bringing to power a candidate whose central promises have included building… Read more »
He was already among the most reviled politicians in Brazil and now he is among the most feared. Eduardo Cunha, the former speaker of the lower house of Congress who led the impeachment of a president while at the same time being accused of graft, was arrested two weeks ago on multiple corruption charges.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has rejected calls from the opposition for an early election, amid a fragile and fraying political truce in the country. In a national address, the president said: “There can be no ultimatums.” Mr Maduro’s supporters massed outside the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas on Thursday night to show their support for the socialist leader.
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has won a third consecutive term in office. With two-thirds of the votes counted, the left-wing leader had secured an irreversible lead with 72%, election officials said. His closest rival, centre-right candidate Maximino Rodriguez, only had 14.2% of the vote.
Bolivian President Evo Morales and Peru’s Pedro Pablo Kuczynski agreed on Friday on a program that promises to give landlocked Bolivia access to the Pacific Ocean. One major element of the plan calls for including Bolivia on the route of a railway linking Brazil’s Atlantic ports with the terminals on the Peruvian stretch of the Pacific coast.
Brazil is withholding the paychecks of thousands of working citizens due to the economic turmoil they are facing after the drop in global oil and commodity prices. This raises concerns about what will happen to the well being of the population. The people of Brazil are already starting to get upset and frustrated with the instability of their government.
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.