Latin America

• Tuesday, May 5th 2020 - 07:15 UTC

  COVID-19 collapses Ecuador: 30,000 confirmed cases and no certainty on death toll

  

  Ecuador on Monday exceeded 30,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, while the government launched a plan to start gradually relaxing quarantine measures that have been in place since mid-March. Ecuador has confirmed 31,881 cases of COVID-19, with 1,569 reported deaths and a further 1,336 deaths likely as a result of the virus.

• Monday, May 4th 2020 - 07:54 UTC

  Venezuela launches new repression campaign after announcing a “failed terrorist attack” from Colombia

  

  Venezuela's government said it foiled a marine incursion on Sunday by “terrorist mercenaries” who attempted to enter the country on speedboats from neighboring Colombia.

• Saturday, May 2nd 2020 - 07:02 UTC

  Marked increase of forest fires in Bolivia, claim environmentalists

  

  Environmentalists in Bolivia warned of a marked increase in forest fires this year that threatens a repeat of the environmental disaster that ravaged much of the Amazon in 2019.
  Bolivia registered 15,354 forest fires in the first four months of the year - a 35% increase on the same period last year, the Friends of Nature Foundation (FAN) said.

• Friday, May 1st 2020 - 08:31 UTC

  US looking into Mexican firms involved in oil for food accord with Venezuela

  

  The U.S. State Department, the Treasury Department and the U.S. Embassy in Mexico are investigating at least two Mexican firms involved in an oil-for-food pact signed in 2019 with Venezuela’s government, U.S. officials said.

• Thursday, April 30th 2020 - 08:21 UTC

  Paraguay one of the countries to first bounce back after post coronavirus

  

  Mercosur member Paraguay has a high likelihood of bouncing back best once the novel coronavirus is contained, Rebeca Grynspan, head of the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), told Radio Nacional del Paraguay on Thursday.

• Thursday, April 30th 2020 - 05:56 UTC

  EU and Mexico finalize upgrade of free trade deal with reciprocal market access

  

  The European Union and Mexico finalized a major upgrade to their free trade deal on Tuesday after the two sides agreed to grant reciprocal market access to each other’s tenders for public contracts.

• Wednesday, April 29th 2020 - 09:41 UTC

  Uruguay and Argentina presidents discuss the future of Mercosur

  

  Uruguayan president Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou and his Argentine peer, Alberto Fernandez held a half-hour video conference Tuesday mid-morning to address the recent decision by the current Argentine administration to freeze Mercosur free trade negotiations with potential new partners and instead concentrate efforts in overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic and its sanitary, social, economic and employment consequences.

• Tuesday, April 28th 2020 - 07:12 UTC

  Colombia's oil company raises funds in bonds market and plans to cut production

  

  Colombia’s Ecopetrol said on Monday it raised US$ 2 billion through more than a doubly subscribed bond issue. Majority state-owned Ecopetrol issued 10-year paper due April 29, 2030, with a 7% yield.

• Monday, April 27th 2020 - 07:40 UTC

  New Interior minister in Peru following the Coronavirus death of 17 police officers

  

  Seventeen police officers in Peru have died after contracting novel coronavirus while enforcing the nation's pandemic lockdown, officials and state media said. Authorities admitted earlier this week that at least 1,300 officers had been infected by COVID-19.

• Saturday, April 25th 2020 - 08:01 UTC

  Amazon indigenous tribes claim to UN, Peru is responsible of “ethnocide by inaction”

  

  Indigenous tribes in Peru's Amazon say the government has left them to fend for themselves against the coronavirus, risking “ethnocide by inaction,” according to a letter from natives to the United Nations and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.