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LATEST NEWS
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Peru’s political storm: a timeline of events
Earlier this week, Peru’s Congress met to appoint new judges to Peru’s Constitutional Tribunal. Contrary to President Vizcarra’s wishes, the Fujimorista-dominated Congress prepared to pack it with similarly-aligned politicians. To prevent this from happening, Vizcarra proposed to reform the way the tribunal judges are appointed, in order to create a more transparent selection process and block his opposition’s power play. To double down on his proposal, Vizcarra declared that this proposal would constitute a vote of confidence in his cabinet so that if the proposal was rejected, Vizcarra would have the constitutional power to dissolve Congress. Read more: The backstory […]Read more...
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The backstory behind Peru’s political turmoil
On Monday night, President Martín Vizcarra announced his decision to dissolve Congress in a final blow to the institution which has long been resisting his anti-corruption drive. Since then, the vice president, Mercedes Aráoz stepped down after she was nominated to be the interim leader of the country. Tensions between President Vizcarra and Congress spiked at the end of July, when Vizcarra proposed holding general elections next year as opposed to 2021. Although this proposal received widespread approval from a public who had grown disenchanted with domestic politics embroiled in corruption scandals, Vizcarra could only hold elections if he acted […]Read more...
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Uruguay makes first marijuana export to Australia
On Tuesday, September 24, Uruguay carried out its first export of marijuana to Australia, where the drug is legal for medicinal purposes. The Latin American country has previously sent samples to Germany, reported AP News, but the ten kilogram shipment of marijuana to Australia marks the first Uruguayan commercial export since it became legal in 2013. One of the arguments used by Uruguayan legislators to promote the legalization of the plant was its potential to generate economic benefits through international exports, but it has taken nearly six years to create an infrastructure that allows this to take place. The marijuana […]Read more...
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Mexican president proposes amnesty law for non-violent crimes
On September 15, nearly 210 years to the day after Priest Miguel Hidalgo freed political prisoners to help fight in Mexico’s war of independence, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) proposed his own amnesty law to Congress. The law, if passed, will allow thousands of current prisoners to be released. “There are various common elements or distinctive markers that apply to many imprisoned people, for example low levels of education or even illiteracy, and in many cases the fact that they belong to an indigenous community,” wrote the coordinator of AMLO’s political party Morena’s federal deputies, Mario Delgado Carrillo, […]Read more...
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Transitional justice mechanism excludes “peace deserting” former FARC rebels
Two former guerilla fighters known by their aliases as Jesús Santrich and El Paisa, who agreed to hand in their weapons and abide by the conditions of the 2016 peace agreement, will no longer be tried by the bespoke transitional justice system. According to a recent press release published by Colombia’s post-conflict transitional justice mechanism, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) has formally excluded two of the former FARC rebels on account of their recent call to return to arms, broadcast at the end of last month. ‘Jesús Santrich’ and ‘El Paisa,’ are the first two former rebels to no […]Read more...
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Brazilian real-estate startup becomes Latin America’s latest unicorn
São Paulo-based startup Quinto Andar, which translates to ‘fifth floor,’ has just become Brazil’s newest startup unicorn, thanks to a recent round of US $250 million Series D funding from Japanese multinational conglomerate Softbank. The real-estate startup, according to Techcrunch, is now worth approximately $345 million. It simplifies property rental by connecting tenants with home-owners directly. Users of the online platform can search for, book, advertise and rent property in nearly 30 Brazilian cities. Over the last two decades, the average middle class Brazilian citizen has been unable to afford to own a home. The option of renting is also […]Read more...
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Uribe’s Supreme Court trial for witness manipulation begins
The Supreme Court trial of former President of Colombia Álvaro Uribe Vélez — who is accused of fraud and bribery — began yesterday, September 3. The court will hear from 48 witnesses, including former members of the paramilitary, politicians, the former chief prosecutor, former magistrates and the ex-president himself. Ironically, the charges of witness tampering that were brought against Uribe in 2018 date back five years prior, when he accused his political rival of the same thing. Uribe pressed charges against Senator Iván Cepeda in 2013, accusing the left-wing congressman of bribing at least five paramilitaries to testify against him and […]Read more...
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How Bolivia’s answer to Rappi supports small-scale farmers
Mobile applications like Rappi have swept across Latin America to make food delivery more convenient, but Panal Fresh has a very different mission. The Bolivian app, which won Seedstars‘ Latin American pitch competition in 2018, not only boasts convenience, but also a loftier goal to reduce the financial disparity among those who grow what comes on Bolivian dinner plates. Panal Fresh allows small-scale farmers to sell and distribute their fruits and vegetables through an online marketplace. And the conscious consumers in Santa Cruz and Cochabamba that select their food from the online store not only receive a next-morning delivery to […]Read more...
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How the fires in Bolivia became political
Two months before Bolivia’s presidential elections, presidential candidates Evo Morales and Carlos Mesa declared a break in campaigning in order to focus attention on the fires raging across the east of the country, which have covered over 1.5 million hectares of land. Despite the apparent pause in campaigning, Mesa is using the situation to his advantage and blaming Morales for the fires. Current president Morales was expected to easily win the presidency for a controversial fourth consecutive term – the Constitution had to be altered to allow this – before the fires threatened to undermine his lead. Forest fires occur […]Read more...
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New Ecuadorian visa regulations prompt surge in Venezuelan migration
The number of migrants crossing into Ecuador spiked this past weekend as the government announced new visa requirements for Venezuelans, which came into effect at midday on Monday, August 26. Figures from Venezuelan news outlet El Estímulo indicate that approximately 13,000 Venezuelans crossed the border into Ecuador from neighboring countries Colombia and Peru over the weekend, with more than 11,000 of those crossings taking place at the Rumichaca bridge, which connects Ecuador and Colombia. The new regulation requires Venezuelans entering Ecuador to provide proof of a visa which in order to be obtained, requires official documents, a criminal background check […]Read more...
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Farewell to Guatemala’s anti-corruption commission
The CICIG will close its doors on September 7 after 12 years. Its last and latest report, which was released on August 20, stated that the commission had identified 70 complex criminal structures and prosecuted more than 400 individuals in over 120 high-profile cases. Incoming President Alejandro Giammattei said that he would not renew the mandate upon arrival in office in January, suggesting that the CICIG was running “smear campaigns,” Guatemalan news outlet Prensa Libre reported. This opinion is not shared by the majority of Guatemalans however, according to a ProData poll. The 2019 poll revealed that 72 percent of […]Read more...
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What world leaders are saying about the forest fires in the Amazon
Reports of widespread fires in the Amazon have generated a range of reactions on social media over the past few days, particularly on Twitter. Average social media users and international leaders alike have spoken out about the gravity of the situation via the social media platform, with some pledging to take action. The forest fires, which were recently picked up by NASA satellite images, have been spreading at an alarming rate, prompting Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to pledge to deploy members of the armed forces to extinguish them. Yesterday, August 23, the fires entered the Chiquitanía tropical savanna region of […]Read more...
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Bolsonaro blames NGOs for Amazon fires
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration agency (NASA) recently picked up satellite images of smoke across Brazil caused by forest fires in the Amazon region that have been ablaze for weeks, prompting a worldwide social media campaign to “save the Amazon rainforest.” São Paulo residents’ eyes were opened to the problem after the smoke-filled sky turned dark mid-afternoon on Monday, August 19, as smoke from the fires spread south from the Amazonas region — where a state of emergency has been declared — to Brazil’s most populous city. The air was so thick with smoke that even the city’s rain water […]Read more...
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Dengue fever cases have surged in the Americas this year, says international health agency
A report published this month by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) indicates a deadly surge in cases of dengue fever in the Americas since the start of the year. Research shows that over 2 million people in the region contracted the mosquito-borne disease, and a total of 723 deaths were reported from the start of 2019 up until the beginning of August. The international health agency outlines Brazil, Colombia, Honduras and Nicaragua as the four countries with the most reported cases of dengue in the Americas, all of which have declared national epidemiological alerts, except Brazil. Cases have also […]Read more...
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Holberton School Medellín: Training the next generation of software engineers
The Holberton School, first established in San Francisco in 2016, has recently opened a site in Medellín to grow and train a workforce of software development engineers, after the Colombian Ministry of Information Technology and Communications released data indicating a major deficit in the field at the end of 2018. This lack of trained professionals can be attributed to several factors, explains Jessica Mercedes, country manager of Colombia’s Holberton Schools — located in Bogota, Medellín and Cali — for software engineering. Whether it be of their own volition or due to pressure from parental figures, Colombian students still favor undergraduate […]Read more...
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Maduro suspends talks in Barbados after stricter US sanctions
Nicolás Maduro did not send any government representatives to the leadership negotiation talks in Barbados on Thursday in response to harsh U.S. sanctions that were announced against Venezuela on Monday, August 5. The sanctions freeze all Venezuelan government assets in the U.S. and stop any individual or business with ties to the U.S. financial system from providing or receiving any services from the Venezuelan government. Falling short of a full embargo, the sanctions exclude the provision of food, clothing and medicine that aim to alleviate human suffering in Venezuela and allow some U.S. business in the oil sector to continue. […]Read more...
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Colombia grants citizenship to children of Venezuelan parents
On August 5, Colombian President Iván Duque signed a decree that will give Colombian nationality to children born to Venezuelan parents in Colombia. The new measure, called Primero la Niñez (Childhood First), will apply to around 24 thousand children who have been born in Colombia since August 2015, and will remain in effect for two years or until the situation in Venezuela improves, according to a government communique. Up until now, children born to Venezuelan parents were given a civil registration which in theory allows them to access the Colombian health system, but clearly states that they are “not eligible […]Read more...
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Will Central America’s nearly two century-old land dispute finally be put to rest?
The Central American republic of Guatemala has, since the mid-1800s, claimed much of the land governed by neighboring Belize – at times even claiming the whole country as Guatemala’s own territory. Now, after decades of tension and both countries on the brink of armed conflict, the governments of Guatemala and Belize have decided to take the issue to the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ). “The territorial and maritime dispute between Belize and Guatemala was inherited by both countries from their previous colonial powers, the United Kingdom and Spain. Following its conquest of the region, Spain claimed sovereignty over all of […]Read more...
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Bolsonaro wants to appoint his son as U.S. ambassador, and Trump agrees
On July 30, President Donald Trump publicly welcomed the idea of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s son becoming an ambassador to the United States, describing the 35-year-old as “outstanding.” Jair Bolsonaro put his son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, forward for the role of ambassador to the United States on July 11, the day after he turned 35 – the minimum required age for an ambassador in Brazil. Despite support from his father and President Trump, he will not be able to take the post until it is approved by the Brazilian Senate. The idea has raised concerns not only of nepotism, but also […]Read more...
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What is Peru’s president doing to fight corruption?
In a televised address to the nation on July 28, Peru’s independence day, President Martín Vizcarra proposed bringing general elections forward a year by explaining that the country needs a fresh start. Vizcarra’s proposal to change the date of the elections will have to be ratified by a referendum, reported Bloomberg, and would end the presidential term in late July 2020 instead of in the following year. “Let us recover the people’s trust and show the country that everyone, regardless of their political affiliation, is united in the fight against corruption,” Vizcarra said in his speech on Sunday. “The voice […]Read more...
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In photos: Medellín marches for the lives of social leaders
On Friday, July 26, thousands of people took to the streets across Colombia and in cities worldwide to protest against the violence towards social leaders and human rights defenders taking place in the country. In Medellín, demonstrators began protesting at Parque San Antonio in the city center. From there, the march continued along the Avenida Oriental and up to Parque Bicentinario, home to the city’s Casa de la Memoria museum. Antioquia is one of the departments that has been deemed “at risk” by the government-implemented Opportune Action Plan (PAO) to protect social leaders, human rights defenders, community leaders and journalists. […]Read more...
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A comprehensive guide to El Salvador’s anti-corruption commission
El Salvador’s nascent anti-corruption commission, the International Commission Against Impunity in El Salvador (CICIES), is still far from completion unlike those in Honduras and Guatemala. Its creation was a key promise in the newly-elected Nayib Bukele’s presidential campaign, and those who watched him take office shouted “Down with the corrupt!” and “We want the CICIES!” On June 7, Vice President Félix Ulloa confirmed that the government was in “advanced conversations” with the OAS and the UN about the CICIES, but no formal plans have been released. Leonor Arteaga, program director at the Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF) highlighted that […]Read more...
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What is the government’s current commitment to protecting social leaders in Colombia?
According to Colombia’s Ombudsman’s Office, 196 social leaders were killed between March 2018 and May 2019. Speaking at the installation of a new congressional term last week, President Iván Duque gave evidence that violence against social leaders had decreased. The same day, three different social leaders were killed in different departments across the country, reported Pacifista. Recently-released statistics from the Presidential Council for Human Rights — which differ largely from those obtained by the Ombudsman’s Office — indicate that social leader killings have reduced by 32% under Duque’s governance. Miguel Ceballos, Colombia’s High Commissioner for Peace, attributes this to protection measures […]Read more...
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How the United States contributed to the crisis in Puerto Rico
Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rosselló has pledged to step down from his position on August 2 after weeks of protests, which concluded in the largest national strike in the island’s modern history and threats from the House of Representatives to begin an impeachment process. Rosselló’s resignation is the result of a culmination of various key factors. The country is in considerable debt, nearly half of its population lives in poverty, and civilians accuse Rosselló and government officials of corruption. This was exacerbated recently when the island’s Centre for Investigative Journalism published 889 pages of chats between Rosselló and members of […]Read more...
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Op-Ed: The silence of Latin America’s leaders
The situation in the United States southern border is critical as close to 50,000 people are currently being held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers – also contentiously known as concentration camps. The claims that migrants, in particular children, are being detained under inhumane circumstances has drawn the ire of civil rights groups, human rights organizations, and a growing group of US legislators. In spite of this, there is a group of people who remain conspicuously silent – Latin American leaders. Their silence reflects a self-interested need to maintain good relations with the United States and a cold […]Read more...
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Why are people protesting in Puerto Rico?
Yesterday, July 22, hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans took to the streets as part of a national strike – also being referred to as “the People’s March” – fueled by national grievances related to the island’s government, which they believe to be corrupt. Although protests took place across the whole island, estimates by national daily El Nuevo Día calculate that over half a million people ensured the blockage of a major highway in the capital San Juan, which leads to the residence of Governor Ricardo Rosselló. Ammunition for the nationwide demonstrations stemmed from Rosselló’s recent refusal to step down […]Read more...
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Guaidó’s progress stagnates after six months despite international support
Today marks six months since Juan Guaidó declared himself interim president of Venezuela in January, but President Nicolas Maduro has still not stepped down despite rising international pressure. The two parties are in their third round of diplomatic talks, mediated by the Norwegian government, which are currently taking place in Barbados. A recent press release from the Norwegian Minister of Foreign affairs asked parties to exercise “utmost caution in their comments and statements about the process,” so detailed information about the talks has been scarce. Al Jazeera reported that if no concrete results are met, the European Union will prepare […]Read more...
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AMIA attacks go unpunished 25 years later
Today marks the 25th anniversary of the explosion of the Mutual Argentina-Israel Association (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires, which left 85 people dead and 300 injured. In commemoration of the attacks, the Argentine government officially designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, freezing its assets in the country, according to Reuters. The Times of Israel also reported that the Argentine Lower House of Congress has voted to allow trials of individuals in absentia related to the AMIA case as part of the continued bid for the survivors of the attack to obtain justice. The attack in which a truck loaded with […]Read more...
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ELN expands to connect Colombia and Venezuela
The National Liberation Army (ELN) – Colombia’s last remaining guerrilla movement – is building a mobility corridor to facilitate control over the roads that connect the country’s Pacific coast to its eastern border with Venezuela, according to news outlet Verdad Abierta. Alerts from the Ombudsman’s Office of Colombia indicate that the new route would cross through the departments of Antioquia, Southern Bolívar, North Santander and Arauca. “It seems that the ELN are attempting to position themselves in zones that were previously controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC),” the office has warned, adding that such expansion is likely […]Read more...
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A comprehensive guide to Honduras’ anti-corruption commission
Since the US-backed coup in 2009, Honduras’ citizens have taken to the streets to protest government policies and elections marred with accusations of fraud. According to Latin America expert Patricio Provitrina, Honduras is a “failing state” co-opted by corrupt elites that funnel public funds into programs that benefit them, rather than social programs that would aid Honduran citizens. As a result, “you don’t have a good education system,” he said. “You don’t have good health care systems. You don’t have local functional security forces that protect citizens – there’s no motivation to make them.” In 2013, then-President Porfirio Lobo Sosa […]Read more...
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How Trump’s new asylum rule puts migrants at risk
On July 15, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a new law that requires migrants to claim asylum in a third country before being able to do so in the United States. The rule, which the U.S. government will implement on July 16, states that a migrant attempting to enter the United States across the southern border will not be granted asylum if they did not previously “apply for protection from persecution or torture where it was available in at least one third country outside the alien’s country of citizenship.” This new law follows Trump’s efforts to persuade Mexico and Guatemala […]Read more...
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JEP budget for 2020 to reduce by thirty percent
The budget for the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) will be reduced by approximately 30 percent next year, the transitional justice mechanism’s president, Patricia Linares, told Blu Radio this week. Funding for the JEP will be slashed from the $90,000 million Colombian pesos it is receiving this year to $67,000 million. The cuts will also affect other transitional justice mechanisms such as the Search Unit for Missing Persons (UPBD) and the Truth Commission, Linares added. “We know there are budget restrictions in all public entities, but the truth is that we didn’t expect such a drastic reduction,” she told the […]Read more...
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A comprehensive guide to Guatemala’s anti-corruption commission
The International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) was the first of its kind in the Northern Triangle, which consists of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, and has been functioning in the country for over ten years. According to a 2018 report by international NGO Transparency International, Guatemala is 144th out of 180 countries for perceived levels of corruption, but corrupt practices have been synonymous with the country for decades. Guatemala has been struggling with soaring homicide rates and the existence of organized crime networks since the 1960s, when the country was engulfed in a 36-year long civil war between […]Read more...
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Protests in Honduras continue amid calls for president’s resignation
Hondurans have been protesting for over two months. In mid-June, the government deployed the army and military police onto the streets to repress growing crowds, and security forces have so far killed three people and injured dozens. Teachers and health workers triggered a wave of demonstrations in April as they articulated their opposition to government-imposed reforms to privatise the country’s health and education systems, but protests quickly grew into something much more universal. Violence, poverty and an administration dogged by corruption accusations have brought Hondurans together to demand one thing: the resignation of President Juan Orlando Hernández. Demonstrations grew in force […]Read more...
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Opinion: The FARC share the blame for the peace agreement’s failure
It’s fair to say that the implementation of the landmark peace agreement that the Colombian government signed with the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is running on fumes. Much of the blame has fallen on the government and the governing party, who insist on making modifications to the agreement while they still have a lot to do on integral rural reform and protection of ex-combatants. The FARC, however, are also to blame. Their leadership has fallen short on its commitment to giving reparations to victims, surrendering to justice and abandoning drug trafficking entirely. We have heard over and […]Read more...
