Politics

• Friday, October 1st 2021 - 17:50 UTC

  Chile lifts curfew; quarantine only for travelers and other specific situations

  

  Chilean authorities have lifted the curfew imposed over a year and a half ago as a part of the sanitary measures against the COVID-19 pandemic effective Oct. 1, it was announced.

• Friday, October 1st 2021 - 09:53 UTC

  Irregular migration and drug trafficking alongside Bolivia-Chile border keeps drawing concern

  

  While Chile's presidential delegate at Tarapacá, Miguel Ángel Quezada, accused Bolivia on Thursday of “not making any effort” to prevent the crossing of irregular migrants through the common border, authorities from both countries have formed four working groups to coordinate the fight against drug trafficking.

• Friday, October 1st 2021 - 09:33 UTC

  Fear reigns among Venezuelans as six more zeros are to be removed from local currency

  

  Unrest reigned Thursday among Venezuelans as Friday's monetary reconversion which will remove six zeros from “sovereign bolivars” loomed over, prompting the exchange rate with the US dollar to skyrocket.

• Friday, October 1st 2021 - 09:02 UTC

  Embarrassing private messages by Brazilian President disclosed

  

  Brazilian news outlets Thursday revealed embarrassing private Whatsapp messages from President Jair Bolsonaro which included homophobic remarks and words of praise for former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

• Friday, October 1st 2021 - 08:44 UTC

  At least 118 dead in Ecuadorian prison riot involving Mexican drug cartels

  

  Ecuador's police was still fighting to control a jailhouse in Guayaquil after a riot by inmates led to clashes that have so far resulted in 118 deaths in what turned out to be one of Latin America's worst prison massacres.

• Friday, October 1st 2021 - 08:41 UTC

  United States barely avert gov't shutdown, but only for a few months

  

  US President Joseph Biden Thursday signed into law the government funding bill, hours after Congress agreed on it in a last-minute rush to avoid a shutdown.

• Friday, October 1st 2021 - 07:06 UTC

  Barbados to quit British Commonwealth effective December 1

  

  The Parliament of Barbados has passed by 25 votes to none a Constitutional Amendment whereby the former British colony, which remained within the Commonwealth after its declaration of independence in 1966 will become a republic and thus remove Queen Elizabeth as head of state. The decision will become effective on Dec. 1.

• Thursday, September 30th 2021 - 19:47 UTC

  Germany and the status quo after “Mutti” Angela

  

  Last January Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) were ahead in the German opinion polls by fifteen points. She was stepping down after sixteen years as chancellor (prime minister), but she was still by far the most trusted politician in Germany. Indeed, she is universally known as “Mutti” (Mummy).

• Thursday, September 30th 2021 - 12:53 UTC

  Japan has a new leader, Fumio Kishida who pledges a “new Japanese capitalism”

  

  Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on Wednesday voted for Fumio Kishida as their new leader who on October 4, parliament will appoint him as the country's prime minister. Kishida will become Japan's 100th prime minister since the country adopted a Cabinet system in 1885 and succeeds Yoshihide Suga, who did not run for reelection as party leader.

• Thursday, September 30th 2021 - 09:50 UTC

  Uruguayan gov't appoints preliminary team to advance on FTA with China

  

  Uruguay's Foreign Minister Francisco Bustillo Tuesday announced the formation of a preliminary negotiating team to start talks with China over a future free trade agreement.