Latin America

• Thursday, December 27th 2018 - 21:59 UTC

  Peru's GDP forecast to go up in 2019 thanks to private investment, domestic consumption

  

  Peru's gross domestic product (GDP) is set to expand 3.7% this year and the next, boosted by the good performance of private investment and consumption, according to The Economist.

• Thursday, December 27th 2018 - 04:58 UTC

  Venezuela calls US “interventionist” for backing Guyana's offshore oil exploration

  

  Venezuela’s foreign ministry on Tuesday described as “interventionist and disrespectful” U.S. comments on a weekend incident in which the country’s navy stopped two ships exploring for oil for Exxon Mobil off Guyana’s coast.

• Wednesday, December 26th 2018 - 09:09 UTC

  Argentine woman freed after being abducted 32 years ago

  

  An Argentine woman seized in the 1980s by people traffickers has been reunited with her family in a joint operation by Argentine and Bolivian police. The whereabouts of the woman, who is now 45, had been unknown until earlier this year when police received a tip-off she was in Bermejo, south Bolivia.

• Wednesday, December 26th 2018 - 08:52 UTC

  Managua acknowledges 340 political prisoners, NGOs speak of almost twice as many

  

  A total 340 people have been reported Tuesday to be incarcerated in Nicaragua for their involvement in anti-givernment actions, according to the National Prison System, as the administration of President Daniel Ortega has been going through a socio-political crisis since April that has left hundreds dead and thousands either under arrest or injured. Human rights NGOs estimate the number of detainees to be almost twice as many.

• Tuesday, December 25th 2018 - 22:49 UTC

  Mexican Congress passes AMLO's first budget

  

  The Mexican House of Deputies Monday gave its final green light to the spending law bill - that is one week before the legal deadline - with funds relocated from autonomous bodies to sensitive areas such as agriculture, environment and public universities, it was announced.

• Monday, December 24th 2018 - 13:18 UTC

  Bolsonaro adds Nicaraguans to the list of unwanted guests for his inauguration

  

  Brazil's Presdient-elect Jair Bolsonaro will not welcome any Nicaraguan delegation at the inauguration ceremony in Brasilia on January 1, his future Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo announced on Twitter.

• Monday, December 24th 2018 - 09:50 UTC

  Merry Christmas from MercoPress

  

  MercoPress wishes a Happy Holiday Season to all its readers and sponsors!

• Monday, December 24th 2018 - 09:03 UTC

  Colombia announces that a guerrilla leader has been found and killed

  

  Walter Arízala, known better under his alias Guacho, was wanted for the murder of two Ecuadorean journalists and their driver earlier this year. On Friday, Colombian President Ivan Duque said he was killed in an operation near the Ecuadorean border.

• Saturday, December 22nd 2018 - 15:31 UTC

  Ex FARC still active guerrilla leader Guacho shot dead by Colombian forces

  

  Walter Patricio Arizala, a.k.a. “Guacho,” the FARC dissident behind the kidnapping and murder of three journalists from Quito's El Comercio newspaper, died Friday during an operation of the Colombian security forces in the jungle of Llorente, in the Tumaco municipality of the south-western department of Nariño, near the border with Ecuador, President Iván Duque announced.

• Thursday, December 20th 2018 - 17:00 UTC

  Colombia expels Venezuelan citizen with a FARC past

  

  Colombian migration authorities Wednesday confirmed Venezuelan national Carlos Manuel Pino García was in custody in Bogotá, to be eventually deported Thursday.