Latin America

• Sunday, August 8th 2021 - 13:02 UTC

  Migration crisis in Ecuadorian border town: Clandestine crossings and lack of government support

  

  By Sebastián Astorga (*) – A border town divided between two countries, where before the Covid-19 pandemic people passed through without custom controls, is now divided by fences on the two bridges that cross from Ecuador to Peru in its vicinity, cutting off almost completely the only commercial activity on which it survived and further burdening the situation of the more than ten thousand migrants who are passing through, many of them on foot.

• Saturday, August 7th 2021 - 09:25 UTC

  Nicaraguan electoral authorities ban opposition party altogether

  

  After weeks of arresting individual politicians and candidates, Nicaraguan authorities Friday upped their ante and chose to fully outlaw an entire opposition party.

• Saturday, August 7th 2021 - 08:21 UTC

  Some 44% of Mexicans, 56 million, were considered poor at the end of 2020

  

  Of the 126 million Mexican population, almost 44% were considered poor at the end of 2020, according to official data from the government. In effect, 3,8 million Mexicans fell below the official poverty line last year to reach 56 million compared with the end of 2018, when current president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office.

• Friday, August 6th 2021 - 22:17 UTC

  Peru tilts towards China, but taxing miners will become a controversial issue

  

  Recently inaugurated Peruvian president Pedro Castillo seems to be clearly tilting his country towards China: cabinet members have met with the Beijing ambassador, an updating of the 2009 trade accord between the two countries is advancing and this Friday the president will be vaccinated with the SinoPharm Covid 19 shot.

• Friday, August 6th 2021 - 07:34 UTC

  Latin America and Caribbean FDI in 2020 was the lowest since 2010, ECLAC annual report

  

  Latin America and the Caribbean received US$105.48 billion in Foreign Direct Investment, FDI, in 2020 – 34.7% less than in 2019, 51% less than the record high achieved in 2012, and the lowest since 2010, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) indicated during the presentation of the annual “Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2021”

• Thursday, August 5th 2021 - 20:37 UTC

  Another court case and six more months of jail for ex interim Bolivian president

  

  Bolivian ex-president Jeanine Añez will have to spend at least a whole year in jail since a Judge this week extended her preventive imprisonment for another six months when she is about to complete her first half-year of reclusion in a La Paz detention center.

• Thursday, August 5th 2021 - 20:06 UTC

  Mexico files law suit against US main gun manufacturers

  

  Mexico on Wednesday filed a major lawsuit against the United States gun manufacturers for the massive damage caused by “the unlawful trafficking of guns to drug cartels and other criminals in Mexico”.

• Thursday, August 5th 2021 - 09:46 UTC

  Peruvian president purges Armed Forces command; names new military chiefs

  

  Peruvian president Pedro Castillo renewed the Armed Forces Joint Command, with the appointment of a new chief and new heads in the Army, Navy and Air Force. The new Joint Command will be headed by the up to now Army commander, General Manuel Gomez de la Torre, and replaced him in the Army with his second in command, General Jose Vizcarra

• Thursday, August 5th 2021 - 08:04 UTC

  Nicaraguan regime reportedly arrests opposition VP candidate

  

  The Nicaraguan regime headed by former Sandinista guerrilla leader Daniel Ortega Wednesday has reportedly placed vice-presidential opposition candidate Berenice Quezada under arrest in an unprecedented streak of political persecutions as the November 7 elections loom over.

• Thursday, August 5th 2021 - 07:47 UTC

  Chinese lab Sinovac lands in Chile to pack and manufacture vaccines locally

  

  Chinese laboratory Sinovac Wednesday announced it will build a plant in Chile to locally distribute 60 million yearly doses of the Coronavac vaccine against COVID-19 with which to supply other Latin American countries.