
There is a clear predominance of president Mauricio Macri's Let's Change coalition in Argentina and in the crucial Buenos Aires province, ahead of next Sunday's (October 22) midterm elections, according to political analyst Sergio Berensztein.

A prominent blogger in the Republic of Malta, who had accused the island's government of corruption, has died in a car bomb attack, according to police. Daphne Caruana Galizia, 53, was reportedly killed when the car she was driving exploded shortly after she left her home in Bidnija, near Mosta.

The Spanish government will seize control of Catalonia if regional leader Carles Puigdemont gives an ambiguous reply to Madrid’s question about whether he has declared independence from Spain, the interior minister warned Saturday.

President Nicolas Maduro’s government won a landslide victory in closely watched regional elections in Venezuela, according to official results that the opposition said were “suspicious” and rejected results. Maduro’s party on Sunday apparently won governorships of 17 of the 23 states with the opposition Democratic Union Roundtable (MUD) coalition taking only five, according to the results announced by the National Elections Council.

Latin American and Caribbean governments need to crack down on corruption in order to make their economies more durable and the benefits of growth more widespread, the International Monetary Fund said on Friday.

Catalonia’s leader faced mounting pressure on Friday from all sides, with hardliners in the separatist movement demanding he declare independence from Spain once and for all. Spain’s government and the European Union, on the other hand, want him to abandon the secession plans altogether.

Thousands of people rallied on Sunday in central Barcelona to protest against the Catalan government’s push for secession from the rest of Spain, with many in the crowd carrying Spanish and Catalan flags.

Federal prosecutors in Switzerland have agreed to help Brazilian authorities investigating Olympic official Carlos Nuzman, who is suspected of vote-buying in a corruption conspiracy linked to the Rio de Janeiro Games.

The Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Alan Duncan has expressed his admiration for Falklands democracy. Speaking of the Islands General Election to be held on November 9 he said: “From many years of personal experience I can attest to the significance of democracy in action. Election Days are both exciting and purposeful and should provoke both qualities.”

Brazil’s police investigation into insider trading by the owners of the world’s largest meatpacker JBS SA has found that they made a profit by taking financial positions before details of their plea bargain deal with prosecutors became public, the head of the probe said on Tuesday.