LatinNews Daily - 26 February 2024

On 25 February Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2023) held a rally in São Paulo city to shore up support amid ongoing investigations into his alleged involvement in coup plot to overturn his 2022 election defeat.... Read More

On 25 February Colombia’s foreign ministry condemned remarks by Argentina’s President Javier Milei in which he called President Gustavo Petro a “murderous communist”.... Read More

*Venezuela’s government has announced that it received a US$500m payment from Haiti to settle a debt that was owed as part of the Petrocaribe programme, in which Venezuela supplied discounted oil to Caribbean countries.... Read More

*The port authority of Paranaguá, located in Brazil’s southern state of Paraná, has announced that three of its berths have re-opened, following fires which broke out on 23 February, causing operations in the berths to be temporarily halted.... Read More

On 25 February indigenous groups in parts of Guatemala held demonstrations commemorating the national day of dignity for victims of Guatemala’s 1960-1996 internal armed conflict.... Read More

*The Dominican Republic’s government led by President Luis Abinader has released new figures showing that the national poverty rate dropped to 23.0% of the population in 2023, down from 27.7% in 2022, while extreme poverty dropped from 3.8% in 2022 to 3.2% in 2023.... Read More

On 25 February Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador accused YouTube of “censorship” for removing the video of a press conference in which the president revealed the telephone number of a New York Times (NYT) journalist.... Read More

*Mexico’s central bank (Banxico) has announced that Mexico has reduced its current account deficit by 67.6% in 2023 as compared to the previous year, registering a deficit of US$5.72bn compared to US$17.67bn in 2022.... Read More

On 23 February the governor of Argentina’s south-eastern Patagonian province of Chubut, Ignacio Torres, threatened to cut off the supply of gas and oil to the rest of the country within days unless the national government led by President Javier Milei releases funds from federal taxes owed to the provinces.... Read More

*Paraguay’s Foreign Minister Rubén Ramírez Lezcano has stated that conditions are “very favourable” for reaching an agreement with Brazil on the tariff for electricity generated by the binational Itaipú hydroelectric complex.... Read More

Venezuela: On 16 February the US embassy in Venezuela responded to the “retaliatory decision” by Venezuela’s government led by President Nicolás Maduro the previous day to temporarily suspend the operations of the local branch of the United Nations (UN) Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and expel its staff.... Read More