
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Tuesday that widespread fuel theft extended to oil drilling platforms and he pledged to take actions to alleviate shortages sparked by his crackdown on gasoline thieves.

Colombian President Ivan Duque said he is talking with like-minded conservative leaders to create a regional bloc that would replace the Venezuelan-influenced Union of South American Nations, Unasur.

The Peruvian Ministry of Production has established the maximum allowable catch of the Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides) resource for the current year at 161 tones. According to ministerial Resolution 007/2019, the quota may be modified if the Institute of the Sea Peru has proven evidence of greater availability of the resource, for which purpose it shall remit the recommendation with the corresponding measures to the Production ministry.

An Italian former communist militant captured in Bolivia is on a plane back to Rome, officials have confirmed. Cesare Battisti, 64, is wanted for four murders in Italy during the 1970s, which he denies committing. He was extradited after being found in Santa Cruz de La Sierra in an international police operation.

Gasoline shortages in Mexico sparked by a crackdown on fuel theft prompted warnings from business leaders that industries like car making will suffer if the shortfalls persist as lines at gas stations in the capital grew during the week.

President Donald Trump warned of murderers and gangsters spreading across the country during a visit to the US-Mexican border on Thursday to push his demand for a multi-billion dollar wall. Trump used the backdrop of the Rio Grande border river at McAllen, Texas, to ramp up what has already turned into a hugely messy political fight with Democratic opponents, resulting in the shutdown of swaths of the US government.

Argentina announced it does not recognize the legitimacy of the mandate initiated on 10 January by Nicolas Maduro, condemns the breakdown of constitutional order and rule of the law, and ratifies full recognition of the National Assembly as the only democratically elected branch of government in Venezuela.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was sworn into a second term on Thursday amid international calls for him to step down, a devastating economic crisis and growing diplomatic isolation.

Uruguay and Bolivia will be the only South American countries attending this Thursday the inauguration of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro for a second five year mandate. A regime which has become an increasingly international pariah for its non democratic practices, human rights abuses, and disastrous management of the economy creating a major humanitarian crisis with food and essential pharmaceutical shortages while some three million of Venezuelans have fled the country in desperation.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday warned he could take “diplomatic measures” against Latin American nations that signed a statement last week describing his second term, which starts on Thursday, as illegitimate.